On Friday, columnist David Brooks informed readers that Barack
Obama’s picks “are not ideological.” The incoming president’s
key economic advisers “are moderate and thoughtful Democrats,”
while Hillary Clinton’s foreign-policy views “are hardheaded and
pragmatic.”
On Saturday, the New York Times front page reported that the
president-elect’s choices for secretaries of State and Treasury
“suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right
of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than
ideologues.”
On Monday, hours before Obama’s formal announcement of his economic
team, USA Today explained that he is forming a Cabinet with
“records that display more pragmatism than ideology.”
The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor
of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy
agendas as common-sense pragmatism -- virtuous enough to draw
opposition only from ideologues.
Meanwhile, the end of ideology among policymakers is about as
imminent as the end of history.
But -- in sync with the ideology of no ideology -- deference to
corporate power isn’t ideological. And belief in the U.S.
government’s prerogative to use military force anywhere in the
world is a matter of credibility, not ideology.
Ideological assumptions gain power as they seem to disappear into the
prevailing political scenery. So, for instance, reliably
non-ideological ideological journalists sit at the studio table every
Friday night on the PBS “Washington Week” program, which is
currently funded by similarly non-ideological outfits including
Boeing, the National Mining Association and Constellation Energy
(“the nation’s largest supplier of competitive electricity to
large commercial and industrial customers,” with revenues of $21
billion last year).
Along the way, the ideology of no ideology can corral even normally
incisive commentators. So, over the weekend, as news broke about the
nominations of Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers to top economic
posts, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote an article praising
“the members of Obama’s new economic team.” Reich declared:
“All are pragmatists. Some media have dubbed them ‘centrists’
or ‘center-right,’ but in truth they’re remarkably free of
ideological preconception. ... They are not visionaries but we
don’t need visionaries when the economic perils are clear and
immediate. We need competence. Obama could not appoint a more
competent group.”
Competence can be very good. But “free of ideological
preconception”? I want to meet these guys. If they really don’t
have any ideological preconceptions, they belong in the book of
Guinness World Records.
As for competence, it seems that claims of non-ideology often go
hand-in-hand with overblown claims of economic mastery. “Geithner
and Summers are credited with expertise in crisis management,”
economist Mark Weisbrot pointed out on Monday, “but we better hope
they don’t manage the current crisis like they did in East Asia,
Russia, Argentina or any of the other countries that Treasury was
involved in during the 1990s with their help. They helped bring on
the East Asian crisis in 1997 by pressuring the governments in the
region to de-regulate international financial flows, which was the
main cause of the crisis. Then they insisted that all bailout money
go through the IMF, and delayed aid until most of the damage was
done. Then they attached damaging conditions” to the aid.
After all is said and done, the ideology of no ideology is just like
any other ideology that’s apt to be much better at promoting itself
than living up to its pretenses. No amount of flowery rhetoric or
claims of transcendent non-ideology should deter tough scrutiny. And
Judge Judy’s injunction should apply to the ideology of no ideology
as much as to any ideology that owns up to being one: “Don’t pee
on me and tell me it’s raining.”
_________________________________
Norman Solomon is the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and
Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” The book has been adapted into a
documentary film of the same name. For information, go to:
www.normansolomon.com