Obama's straits are similar to those Clinton faced when the term triangulation was coined. The dirtiest word in politics

The naughty word is “triangulation,” and it does indeed sound like something that in some conservative locales might still be against the law, even if rarely prosecuted when practiced by consenting adults.

The question echoing through Democratic circles, among lawmakers and liberal commentators alike, is whether President Barack Obama might be trying to separate himself from his unpopular party through illicit acts of triangulation.


The liberal New Republic and the conservative Daily Caller, among others, suspect the answer is yes. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer is on the record with an emphatic denial that Obama is a triangulator. (See: Triangulation makes a comeback.)

The suspicions flow from Obama’s bargain with Republicans on taxes, in which he reluctantly embraced an extension of George W. Bush’s tax cuts, even for high earners, and followed that up with a White House news conference in which he lectured some of his fellow Democrats on the importance of compromise.

Were Obama’s laments about the impatience and impracticality of some liberals a sincere plea for more understanding from his own side? Or were they actually a calculated effort to advertise his tactical and ideological independence from fellow Democrats? (See: Dem leaders rip tax deal.)

As a political term of art, triangulation dates from some of the darkest hours of Bill Clinton’s first term, when Democrats got trounced in the 1994 midterm elections and the 42nd president found himself in straits remarkably similar to Obama’s now. Clinton fought his way back to health with the help of Republican consultant Dick Morris, who gleefully described his strategy as triangulation.

Clinton is back in favor with most Democrats and, in fact, is headed to the White House to consult with Obama Friday afternoon. But Morris, a commentator on Fox News, has enjoyed no such revival. For many Democrats, his triangulation methods are forever associated with the surrender of both principle and dignity. (See: Poll: Bill Clinton most popular pol.)

“Triangulation, as I understand it, is an intentional political strategy to win favor with swing voters by pushing off the left. That’s not what the president is doing, and that’s not our strategy,” Pfeiffer wrote POLITICO in an e-mail. “We want to convince all Democrats to support this [tax] deal because we think it is good for the economy and good for the middle and working class.”

Obama’s shoving match with the left, Pfeiffer noted, isn’t something the president sought. To the contrary, he was responding to the attacks of others.

“The president is responding to several very loud voices from the left who said we should fight even if people’s taxes go up. The president strongly disagrees with that position, and he is arguing his case,” said Pfeiffer. “Avoiding ideological rigidity and working with people he doesn’t always agree with to make progress for the country is at the core of the argument the president made on the campaign trail in 2008.” (See: Obama takes on deal's Dem critics.)

Pfeiffer’s quote underscores why the triangulation debate has relevance beyond a few bloggers and Clinton-era fetishists.

The argument goes to the heart of whether and how Obama can preserve the spirit of his presidential campaign and defend a progressive agenda, even in the wake of a Republican surge. Was the signature promise of an Obama presidency his ability to unite a demographically and ideologically diverse country? Or was it to overturn the Bush years and implement bold Democratic policies? For the past two years, he and his team insisted they wanted both. The GOP victory last month and the lame-duck session that is under way now suggest how starkly the two goals are in tension — and how Obama’s own reelection may be in doubt without a political makeover that will almost surely include some fancy footwork that will remind many people of triangulation. (See: Would a Dem really challenge Obama?)

While synonymous now with expediency and cynicism, triangulation as described by Morris was actually not all that novel. It was a pretentious new term to describe something many or even most recent presidents have tried to do: liberate themselves from the messy and unpopular legislative battles of Washington and attract voters who don’t think of themselves as partisans or ideologues.

As Morris described it in his memoir, "Behind the Oval Office," he came up with the word triangulation out of the blue in conversation with Clinton at a White House meeting in late 1994. Joining his fingers and thumbs, he urged Clinton: “Triangulate, create a third position, not just in between the old positions of the two parties but above them as well. Identify a new course that accommodates the needs the Republicans address but do it in a way that is uniquely yours.” (See: Can Obama pull a Clinton?)

It may be cold comfort to Obama that he is exonerated of the triangulation charge by none other than Morris, who claims Obama would not know triangulation from shinola.

“Obama is embracing centrist positions he opposes (no tax hike on the wealthy) as a result of not being able to make his positions work in the Senate. There is a big difference between moving to the center and fleeing to the center,” Morris said in an e-mail to POLITICO. “Clinton never embraced policies he opposed. He supported welfare reform, the balanced budget, anti-crime measures like guaranteed sentences. His agreements with the GOP were all designed to achieve what he wanted as part of his agenda.”

An old Morris antagonist, Paul Begala — who quit the Clinton White House in part over the ascendance of Morris and his philosophy — said he didn’t believe that Obama’ s decision to back the tax cut compromise was a matter of triangulation.

“Triangulation is about posturing and positioning; it’s not about principle,” he said, calling the strategy “a disgrace.” (See: Obama: 'The right thing to do.')

On the other hand, Begala said, what sound a lot like triangulation are blind quotes in recent news accounts, attacking the House Democratic leadership and Senate Democratic leadership, adding that Obama’s own suggestion that his Democratic allies would rather fight than accomplish anything was misguided. (See: Schumer vs. Obama.)

“What Obama is doing now is negotiation, not triangulation,” said Matt Bennett, vice president for public affairs and co-founder of Third Way, a group of centrist Democrats sometimes accused of triangulating by critics on the left. “He is not attempting to make political hay by aggravating the left. He is making tough decisions that aggravate the left. That’s a very big difference. He’s doing it for substantive, not political reasons.”

At his news conference, Obama urged liberals to take a long view of how change happens and asserted that if liberal purists had won the day, they would have lashed FDR for signing Social Security into law because it originally covered only widows and orphans and not everyone.

Whether Obama is triangulating or not, his moves won praise from an establishment icon, The Washington Post columnist David Broder. He wrote that Obama, with a recent trade deal with South Korea and the tax deal, had divorced himself from “Pelosi Democrats” and had defined himself “more clearly than ever before, as a raging moderate — a man who recognizes that compromise is the key to serving a broad and diverse set of constituencies, rather than fit some ideological standard of intellectual purity.”

Of course, a bouquet from Broder will hardly mollify liberals. In their eyes, he is an emblem of Washington’s instinct for unprincipled consensus that let Bush reign unchecked and led to policy disasters like the Iraq war. (See: Liberal group's new ad blasts Obama.)

At the root of the debate among liberals is an effort to discern Obama’s real motives.

“With Obama, the triangulation isn't so much ideological as it is methodological. He's made clear his strong preference for Democratic and, yes, liberal values,” wrote The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn Thursday.

“But Obama has drawn an implicit equivalence between what he considers the extremists in both parties — the nihilists on the right, who would disavow even their own ideas for the sake of defeating Democrats, and the purists on the left, who would reject even reasonable compromises for the sake of drawing sharp ideological divisions,” Cohn wrote. “The motives of each group may be different, Obama seems to be saying, but the result is the same: Irresponsible government that lets people suffer unnecessarily."

Liberal Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent wrote that Obama’s pique with some activists and lawmakers in his own party isn’t triangulation because it’s not phony.

“Obama's outburst [at the news conference] was rooted in genuine frustration with the left for not agreeing with him about what's possible given today's political realities,” he wrote Thursday. “It's true that Obama is exploiting this disagreement with the left for political reasons, to position himself as the adult in chief and to rise above Congress and the process. This is annoying and counterproductive and a major turnoff to his supporters. But it isn't triangulation.”

A prominent New Hampshire political scientist, Dante Scala of the University of New Hampshire, suggested Obama's recent quarrels with the left over Washington deal making represent chickens coming home to roost as the president confronts the high expectations raised by his 2008 campaign.

"Progressives in the Democratic Party always have flocked to the candidate who promises reform of old-style politics, from the days of McCarthy and McGovern," Scala wrote in POLITICO's Arena forum. "Obama may scorn the 'sanctimonious' now, but they were among his most stalwart allies against the 'politics as usual' of Hillary Clinton."