Was Obama’s Gay-Marriage Stance a Noble Lie or Cynical Opportunism?

Either way, the hope-and-change malarkey was a circus act.

This morning, at just a few minutes before 7 o’clock, the political casting shop at last found an actor to play Brutus. His name, surprisingly enough, was David Axelrod, and his weapon of choice was his new book — which, Time’s Zeke Miller noted, contains “a striking admission of political dishonesty from the keeper of the Obama flame.” And so it was that the Ides of March came a month or so earlier than usual. Et tu, David?

In the course of relating his many experiences at the White House, Miller confirms, Axelrod admits openly that President Obama “misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons.” “Obama,” he adds plainly and without nuance, “was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even as [he] publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages.” In and of itself, Miller notes, this dishonesty is disappointing. But, for Obama in particular, it has deleterious consequences, prompting us as it does to call “into question the President’s stated embrace of a new kind of politics” and his promise “to be unlike other politicians who change their views to match the political winds.” Is it possible, one can see it asked between the lines, that the whole “hope and change” malarkey was a circus act?

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