Throughout the election season, the GOP peddled the view that Obama was a closet radical leftist. McCain and Co. went so far as to describe him as Socialist. Even the 'punditocracy' pointed to the "data" - his votes in the legislature and Senate that supposedly proved that he had no record of being centrist. Now, as Michael Gerson's article shows, they are all scratching their heads in wonder as his picks for various cabinet posts prove to be centrist. The left is infuriated. The right is pleasantly surprised and horrified.
Of course, all these reactions are a repudiation not of Obama's record, but the media story surrounding his record. Those who were crying "Socialist" and "Radical" were relying not on facts, but on opinions based on a selective sampling of facts. For instance, Obama's voting record can only be described as leftist if you believe that all tenets of the Democratic party platform are by definition leftist. Those who had bothered to examine his statements, his record and his opinions (which have been surprisingly consistent over the last 15 years or so), would have realized that he was a centrist all the time, and that votes to the contrary were usually tactical voting or political maneuvering. The gasps of astonishment just show the extent to which the media is willing to delude itself and buy the memes they peddle.
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