This was down in comments, but it's worth highlighting, not simply because it's a response, but because it makes some fair and credible points:
Hey Ta-Nehisi. Thanks for mentioning my piece, but I think you miss the broader point of it. I don't think anyone was questioning Obama's right to give the speech. Important to note that Pbama has given that speech dozens of times (which is probably why he gave it that day, because of comfort level). The people who talked to me said it was specific to that day in that setting when the press (and middle America) was looking for him to distance himself permanently from Rev. Wright and Trinity. I really think their issue was that there were more effective ways to signal that break than doing that absent black father speech on father's Day.
But that was really just a smokescreen. The real issue is that that progressive crowd is not privy to Obama's strategic moves to win, and they (both black and white liberals) are wary of how far to the center a win for Obama has to go, and how much the strategy to win also will become how he governs. But those same people have also grafted their progressivism on to someone who has always at core been a centrist, or at least someone who looks at both sides first before choosing the liberal view - as opposed to knee jerk liberalism. That should be seen as a strength not a weakness.
This is really a case of Obama playing a running game and the liberal sideline screaming for him to throw more passes.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
"The real issue is that that progressive crowd is not privy to Obama's strategic moves to win..."
"This is really a case of Obama playing a running game and the liberal sideline screaming for him to throw more passes. "
Does it not occur to people that some of us might think that this "strategy to win" is a sure way to lose or win in a politically inferior way? (i.e. defining the narrative, political capital, etc) Obama's move on FISA and the tone of the campaign these last few weeks has been the opposite of politically astute. It has been idiotic.
There has been no political upside. Nobody who was not going to vote for Obama before is going to vote for him now because of FISA, etc. The opposite, however, is not true. He is going to lose votes for sure. May be not so many that he will lose because of it, but still, it has just been an inept display. Not only has this probably cost him votes, it has cost him enthusiasm that can never be brought back to same fever pitch.
It's not the ground game v. passing game. It's the "prevent defense." And as Democrats have shown time after time it is a strategy that fails more often than it succeeds.
One further point with regard to enthusiasm that I think is worth mentioning: the people that Obama is pissing on are the most politically active of his supporters. They are the ones who raise a shit storm when the media screws Obama or the Dems. Of course, it's hard to estimate how important or unimportant this pushback might be. But I see no political upside in turning off these people. I'm certain that the thousands of emails, call, letters when a mulsim/terrorist/black/communist Obama story comes out makes a difference. If those calls/emails/letters aren't sent, do you think media will be as careful in the future?
In which case, Obama's move to the center is ironically going to cost him the center (i.e. low information voters who believe the bullshit).
Eric Easter's point is well taken. There is a small, largely over shouted core of people, myself included, who have been baffled by this claim of Obama moving to the center, when he's been there from the start. He starts at center and leans left, but he starts at center. He isn't moving there.
Some progressives are beginning to get the message, and beginning to recognize that building a progressive grassroots that has effective communications channels to the Obama candidacy and eventual (God willing) presidency is the best way to get a centrist guy to go with left policies. Shouting at him and being mad at him for being who he's always been - not so much.
QT
"There is a small, largely over shouted core of people, myself included, who have been baffled by this claim of Obama moving to the center, when he's been there from the start."
I think people are pissed because a guy who they voted for based on him saying he'd do one thing turned around and did the complete opposite. Seriously, how can you not expect that to piss people off? It makes his whole "yes we can" and "new kind of politics" shtick ring hollow.
He flipped on one issue - two if you count public financing. But folks were mad at him before FISA. Folks were mad at him for his abortion stance, for his death penalty stance, for his gun stance and for his faith & neighborhood funding stance. FISA was just the last in a line, whereas, it should have been one of the only things that surprised people. Everything else was already evident. And the argument that he flipped on Iraq is a media manufactured myth, as is the idea that he's anti NAFTA. His framing may have made his positions more left seeming than they were, but frankly, I expect those following the campaign online to have seen through that. If I did, and I'm a-political most of the time, why didn't others?
QT
I agree, QT. The recent op-ed from Gail Collins in the NYT perfectly expresses my own reaction to this so-despised, quote-unquote move to the center. I point with emphasis to these words of hers: "He talked — and talked and talked — about how there were going to be no more red states and blue states, how he was going to bring Americans together, including Republicans and Democrats. Exactly where did everybody think this gathering was going to take place? Left field?"
"His framing may have made his positions more left seeming than they were, but frankly, I expect those following the campaign online to have seen through that. If I did, and I'm a-political most of the time, why didn't others?"
He promised he'd do one thing and then he did the complete opposite -- something some his most ardent supporters trusted he'd do and less ardent supporters at least believed he would do. Weeks after securing the nomination. That I didn't see coming. Nobody is complaining about the idea of moving to the center, it's the manner in which he has done it that is so off putting and blundering.
His whole campaign was built on this promise of a different kind of politics. And people really started to believe him. I did. He kindled an idealism and optimism that we had not seen in this country for some time. And he just threw much of that away in the most politically inept way. For nothing.
Obama's 2007 Father's Day speech was polar opposite in terms of what he emphasized. This WaPo article, alone, begins to paint that picture when, instead of only saying Black father's have been AWOL, Obama explicitly and intently used that rhetoric to describe the government.
Obama Calls on Fathers to Be Responsible
Friday, June 15, 2007 || SPARTANBURG, S.C
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501237.html
And when you go to his website for the transcript, you can't help but dropped the inaccurate, misleading idea that "Obama has given that speech dozens of times." Yes, he still chastise those Black men who "act like boys" (castrate? boy? Jim Crow era? do we really want to go there?) and, yes, he uses some of the same personal story lines and catch phrase, but that was almost in passing just like talking about what the government role is and what his job/promise as a politician was pretty much mentioned in passing or, no doubt, was the part with lesser emphasis.
Funny how Obama didn't mention or emphasize his thoughts and platform positions on ex-offenders or other aspects of his "civil rights" or urban agenda. By way of analogy, instead of talking about so-called race-based affirmative action, his approach when specifically calling out and addressing a problem "in the Black community" was class-based affirmative action (and limited action, considering what he didn't include from his platform).
I'll refer back to Obama's platform item and promise to build Promise Neighborhoods which are, again, modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone which has always been described as Obama describes what his Promise Neighborhoods would do:
"The Promise Neighborhoods will seek to engage all resident children and their parents into an achievement program based on tangible goals, including college for each and every participating student, strong physical and mental health outcomes for children as well as retention of meaningful employment and parenting schools for parents. These efforts will help finally break the cycle of poverty that has lasted for too long in America, and help the next generation of children succeed and prosper."
http://www.chopra.com/openletter/obama
The title of his 2007 speech was: Strengthening Families in a New Economy. Emphasis on "NEW ECONOMY" which, by definition, indicates and heavily implicates the governments role.
"Over the last few decades, fundamental changes in the way we work and live have trapped too many American families between an economy that's gone global and a government that's gone AWOL. Too many rungs have been removed from the ladder to middle-class security, and the safety net that's supposed to break any falls from that ladder has grown badly frayed. Many families face increased anxiety when it comes to paying the bills or finding ways to spend more time with their children, while others have tumbled into poverty, watching jobs disappear, and fathers leave the home. And even though the vast majority of mothers are now working - including single mothers - we haven't yet provided them with the support they need to raise their children."
Don't tell me he's made the Father's Day speech before as if he's "comfortable" with doing what preacher's do when they deliver, almost verbatim, the same Christmas/Easter sermon over and over. That's not what Obama's done (at least during his presidential campaign) and it's easy to fact check.
Finally, his change in emphasis from 2007 speech to the one he delivered this year would lend credence to those who talk about this, perhaps, slightly left-of-center guy rushing to the right. That's how different the Father's Day speeches are.
I think a large majority of Obama's supposed "shift to center" is perception driven. It's hard to hear a political commentator talk about elections without hearing them say "candidates play to the base in the primaries and to the center in the general". It would have been hard for Obama to do anything that wouldn't be interpreted in that light.
I agree with Andrew Sullivan on this one, things haven't changed so much as the reporting has. It was inevitable.
It's not the ground game v. passing game. It's the "prevent defense." And as Democrats have shown time after time it is a strategy that fails more often than it succeeds.
Amen. I've been writing variations on the first two paragraphs of A-train's for the past two weeks, but that really sums it up well.