Last night, as I watched "The Daily Dish"'s Andrew Sullivan on "Charlie Rose," I was intrigued, amused, and even comforted by the vast intersection of philosophical agreement between me, what you might call an old-school New Dealer, and this self-described "English conservative." That "English" was an indispensable, self-aware and, I'm sure, self-distinguishing modifier, for oh how contemporary American conservatives have checked out of authentic conservatism -- that of the Burkean hue.
"Conservative" Sullivan said nothing with which this modern "progressive" -- if I may -- commentator would intensely disagree, while the principal point of profound agreement came in Sullivan's observation that President Obama, whom the conservative still supports, is Washington D.C.'s "only adult." By now, that seems to me one of those self-evident propositions whose nearly universal denial by Washington's rowdy children is both breathtaking and endlessly depressing.
Yet I assume that Conservative Sullivan is able to philosophically embrace Obama because deep within the latter's progressive heart there pumps the blood of an old-school conservative. And that, in my opinion, is an admirable and dynamic mixture.
The same held true for FDR, a 19th-century conservative-by-sentiment, but one who understood that 20th-century exigencies required liberal action. Roosevelt could play the fiery, leftist populist when the political environment demanded it, but he much preferred to wheel, deal and accommodate. He loved consensus, chiefly because he realized that only consensus could cement real change. (Hello, Edmund Burke.) Sound like any other modern president?
Sullivan's two areas of disagreement with Obama were also the same as mine -- well, 1.5 in my case.
Afghanistan. Going deeper there is a miserable, misfortunate blunder on Obama's part, mused Sullivan. We simply cannot win, he ventured, and I simply cannot think of any good counterargument. It's that bleak, that hopeless.
Sullivan also took Obama to task for inaction on prosecuting the Bush war crimes and all the little Bushies who committed them. I both agree and disagree: the proper prosecuting entity, as I wrote at the time, was majority Congressional Democrats -- at the time these crimes were coming to light. The founders never expected any chief executive to rein in executive power or correct past executive abuses. That's not in the executive's nature, or even best interest, and that's why the founders empowered Congress to check the executive, through impeachment and removal if necessary.
In addition, Obama envisioned his dream of health-care reform becoming a nightmarish and unaccomplishable sideshow if subjected to the circus-like atmosphere of "war-crimes trials" -- a virtually guaranteed scenario from the right. Was the trade-off worth it? Reasonable people can disagree, but roughly 50 million presently uninsured Americans would likely lean one way more than the other.
Yet the thrust of Sullivan's take on modern American politics, as I stated above, was that Obama is rather shockingly singular in his political maturity. One may object to him here and there, on this or on that, but it appears that Barack Obama is pretty much our only hope to a more rational future. And, it seems, (real) conservatives and progressives alike agree.