Tony Blair talked with Christiane Amanpour on Sunday on a variety of topics, but one that is germaine to some of the discussions (or really, lack thereof) going on here re: President Obama (the piece I’m talking about ends at about the 3 minute mark):
This obviously pertains to Labor politics, but this has lessons for our own. Especially in the difference in governing from the left vs from the right. Blair notes that the left isn’t especially good at helping their leadership — they just pile on. This is from TPM:
“I love my own politics and progressives and all the rest of it,” Blair told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour in an unaired portion of his This Week interview from Sunday. “But if we have a weakness as a class, when the right get after us and attack our progressive leaders, instead of defending them we tend to say, ‘Yeah, well, really we’ve got a lot of complaints about them, too.'”
Blair said that the tendency of the left to pile on rather than defend its own leaders can leave their politicians alone to face the right wing attack machine, which Blair says is merciless. “It doesn’t matter how well intentioned you think you are,” Blair said of the right. “They’re going to go for you completely.”
“And then the interesting thing is, the progressives say, ‘Hey you’re not being progressive enough! Why don’t you do more for us?'” Blair added. “And so you can end up in quite an isolated position if you’re not careful.”
You’d think that we’d get that piling on isn’t getting anyone anywhere. And, of course, it leaves our own leadership rather defenseless. Which is the usual Democratic behavior — there is nothing worth defending until it is too late to count for anything.
A special note to Jason who apparently needs this data spelled out specifically — this is not a post claiming that Obama is the greatest party leader ever. Or whatever it is you think I’ve been saying. But for all of the dissection of horserace and tactics and the like being done here, it is nothing short of remarkable to me that this bit of fundamentals isn’t even a factor being considered.