Should we officially call Obama a neocon?

Will Obama snatch defeat from the jaws of debt talks victory?

That was the original title for this blog post, but I realized it had become something more ... the more that's the new title.

And, about that?

Answer at the end of this post.

Well, of course, would be the obvious example. If even David Brooks can find a blind-hog acorn by pointing out the problems with Obama's "consensus" style of what passes for leadership, you know this is a concern and not just inside the MSM.

On debt ceiling talks with the GOP, the L.A. Times nails it:

(E)ven if Obama were to gain all the tax-law changes he wants, new revenue would make up only about 15 cents of each dollar in deficit reduction in the package. An agreement by the Republicans to accept new revenue would be a political victory for Obama because "no new taxes" has been such an article of faith for the GOP.

That's just half the problem, though. Here's the bigger half:

Acquiescing to GOP demands would be the third major compromise for Democrats in the past year — a point of considerable frustration for the party's liberal base. Despite Democratic opposition, Congress voted in December to extend the Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and agreed this spring to steep budget reductions to avert a federal government shutdown.

Some Democrats believe Obama set the stage for the current situation by opening negotiations on deficit reduction this spring with a proposal that contained a 3-to-1 ratio between spending reductions and tax increases. Administration officials defend that move, saying the president began discussions at what one senior official called a "realistic starting point," not one designed to maximize his bargaining position.

Well, wrong, Preznit Kumbaya.

As with the stimulus package, you negotiated away the compromise in public before it was time to start compromising. And, this time, we can't even blame Rahm Emanuel for this. And, neither can you.

It's clear that you WANT to have "compromises" like this, Mr. Semiconservative, no longer even a neoliberal.

You're the same Preznit Grover Cleveland Obama who appointed all the members of that Catfood Commission, and never disavowed its work. For all we know, you're making a side deal with members of the Congressional GOP as we speak.

Seriously, shouldn't we start calling Obama a neoconservative? Given that he started from an affiliation with the "radical" reformer Saul Alinsky, similar to the left-wing roots of many of today's neocons, has connections to the University of Chicago, if not its economics school, has become boxed-in on his position vis-a-vis Israel and will probably shift further right, and is a clear global warmonger beyond the wet dreams of GOP neocons, we probably should.

I see I'm not the first on this ... two years ago, a Harper's article called him Barack Hoover Obama. I think the general comparison is true ... brainy but by the book, even though in pre-presidential lives, these people had operated outside the book at times.

However, there's a difference. I think Hoover, more than Obama, recognized the magnitude of the problem facing the country at that time. And, pre-FDR, there was little template for boldness.

Obama has the the advantage of seeing that template. He has the advantage of much more being developed in economic policy theory in 80 years since Hoover was president.

And yet ...

He chooses to be "incremental" in change. Or, not even wanting real "change" in fiscal and economic policy, whether on taxation, regulation, or other issues.