UP@NIGHT on OBAMA

One of the recurring themes of pieces on Obama at UP@NIGHT is the nature of his pragmatism, which is as much philosophical as it is purely political.   We are once again, thanks to Robert Gibbs’s recent comments about the so-called professional left, in the throes of debating not only Obama’s relationship to the left but his politics.   I thought I would collect here several links to discussions of Obama’s political thought and politics from the past couple of years at UP@NIGHT.

The entries most relevant to philosophical pragmatism are listed first.  There are a couple of critical pieces further down the list.  More to come.  But I think it important that we understand who we are dealing with as we criticize Obama or his administration.  I fault him not for seeking the possible when the more desirable was out of reach.  I fault him for not being pragmatic enough at this point, which includes making some hard choices.  He needs to acknowledge that certain policies are not working as well as they should, and he needs to be willing to remove the part of his “team” that is simply poison to his strongest supporters and his own goals; for example, Summers and Geithner–the dynamic duo of “wait and be patient” as the Money Men save us–must go.  (On this note see,  Some Sage Advice on Obama’s Plan to Help the Banks. Geithner and Summers have been trouble from the get go.)

“Obama’s Pragmatism (or Move over Culture Wars, Hello Political Philosophy)”

Obama: Conservative, Liberal, or Ruthless Pragmatist?

Bronx on the Court, Empathy, and Obama’s Pragmatism

Obama’s Pragmatism and the Stimulus Package

Obama and Pragmatism
Obama, Health Care, and the Limits of Empathy

Change We Can Believe In, Take Two

Some Sage Advice on Obama’s Plan to Help the Banks

Socialism is not the Issue: Don’t let them fool us again
Obama’s Tactical Error and Insights from Henry Adams

“A Dozen Reasons Why Obama will be the Next President: Money-Back Guarantee”

Obama, Spock, and the New Star Trek Nation

And for those who may still not have had enough, there is a discussion of Obama’s pragmatism and cosmopolitanism in an online (read, free) “Afterword” to my new book, Transcendence: On Self-Determination and Cosmopolitanism (Stanford University Press).