Whatever you think of Obama's broadside yesterday, it seems clear that it has nothing to do with "triangulation," at least as it was practiced by Bill Clinton. Obama's dispute with the left isn't an effort to position himself ideologically as a centrist. It's part of a broader effort to present himself as Washington's lone resident adult in a room full of bickering children on both sides -- the last line of defense for the American people against Washington business-as-usual.
The problem here is that people tend to view Obama's stated aspiration to always seek common ground between warring parties through the prism of ideology. But that aspiration has always been more about temperament and process than about occupying the ideological "center." During the 2008 campaign and since then, he has insisted he would unite opponents by finding points of agreement between them and working outward from there. This isn't really about ideological "centrism" in any meaningful sense. It's a case about process. It might better be described as "Beer Summit-ism."
The reason Obama's attacks on the left smack of triangulation is that he persists on painting the left and the right with the same brush: He presents himself as the last reasonable man trapped between two sides blinded to reason by ideology. Hence his insistence yesterday that he won't be held to any unreasonable "ideal." But as irksom as this is, it isn't really the same as positioning oneself ideologically by arguing that the left is wrong on policy substance, as Bill Clinton did.
The man behaves as he says he will behave...yet there is shock.
