Financial Times - January 20, 2009
Courting of conservative foes worries liberal camp By Edward Luce in Washington
On his last night of freedom - so to speak - Barack Obama chose to host a dinner for John McCain, the man he defeated last November after a rancorous campaign. The forgive-and-forget banquet followed an equally eyebrow-raising dinner last week at the home of George Will, the conservative columnist, whose guests included Bill Kristol, the viscerally anti-Obama neoconservative.
In the build-up to probably the most feverishly awaited inauguration in history, the president-elect has been assiduously courting conservative enemies. Most supporters of Mr Obama accept the logic of winning over as many Republicans as possible in order to get maximum support behind the emergency bank bail-out and fiscal stimulus that he needs to push through Capitol Hill in his first few weeks.
In contrast to George W. Bush, whose political "boy wonder", Karl Rove, said the support of 51 per cent of Americans was all they needed to accomplish their agenda, Mr Obama wants to build a bigger tent that enables Americans to transcend partisan differences.
The only people left scratching their heads are the liberals, who thought the incoming president was one of their own. Instead of appealing to the "better angels of our nature", as Abraham Lincoln did in his inauguration speech in 1865, many want Mr Obama to take the fight to the conservatives, whom they believe got America into a mess.
"Barack Obama has this desire to be widely liked way more than is helpful," Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives' financial services committee and arguably the most influential liberal on Capitol Hill, told the Financial Times. "He should look to Franklin Roosevelt, who said he 'welcomed their [Republican] hatred'. We have real differences with the Republicans and, like FDR, we should draw the line."
One of the emerging differences between Mr Obama and his liberal critics is over Mr Bush's conduct of the "war on terror". During the campaign Mr Obama promised to dismantle much of the legal framework behind it. Next week he is likely to issue an executive order that would lead to the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention centre.
But liberals have expressed disappointment over recent hints by Mr Obama that he has little intention of prosecuting senior Bush officials or intelligence personnel over the alleged use of torture in Guantánamo and in detention centres around the world. Among those hoping for a tougher line is Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House.
"He wants to let sleeping dogs lie," says a prominent liberal Democrat in Washington. "The president-elect has even conceded that Dick Cheney [the outgoing vice-president] may have been right about some of the conduct of the war on terror. A lot of us felt this was a bridge too far. This isn't what we fought an election over."
Another point of difference is in Mr Obama's selection of Rick Warren, pastor of the evangelist Saddleback church, to deliver today's inaugural invocation. Mr Warren has likened homosexuality to incest and paedophilia and was a principal force behind the vote for Proposition 8 in California in November, which overturned a court ruling allowing gay marriage.
In a nod to the strength of feeling that engendered, Mr Obama invited Gene Robinson, an openly gay Episcopalian bishop, to say a prayer at Sunday's pop concert in front of the Lincoln memorial. Not everyone was appeased. "The person who gives the inaugural invocation is the one that matters," says the liberal Democrat.
Mr Obama's first real test will be over the final breakdown of the $825bn (€622bn, £560bn) fiscal stimulus package, which includes $275bn in tax cuts that many liberals want whittled down. Lawrence Summers, Mr Obama's chief economic adviser, has reportedly argued that the tax cuts have a quicker stimulus effect than a lot of spending measures in the bill.
Many liberals see them as wasteful sops to Republicans aimed at winning larger than necessary majorities. But some are prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Obama is not going to fit into any ideological box," says Simon Rosenberg, head of NDN, a liberal think- tank. "He wants to build a pragmatic progressive movement to get things done. We should take him at face value."