Similarly, on domestic policy, Obama aides last week suggested that much of the fees for exceeding carbon emissions caps might be given to factory owners and power companies if that's what it takes to gain their support for the proposal. During the campaign, Obama called for the fees to be used for alternative energy technology and middle-class tax cuts.
The recent shifts appear to be part of a pattern of starting in a liberal position and then rerouting toward the center.
For example, Obama staked out an unequivocal position against torture during the campaign, and after taking office made it his first order of business to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and ban the use of interrogation techniques beyond those allowed by the U.S. Army Field Manual. Those techniques prohibit physical contact or force.
But as president, he has not ruled out the practice of turning terrorism suspects over to other countries that employ torture, a practice known as "extraordinary rendition." He also ordered a task force to study the field manual and recommend "additional or different guidance."
"I think he's pragmatic," said Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, which is gearing up for a possible fight over Obama's Supreme Court nominee. "He's trying to compromise. But is he also an idealist? If 'idealist' means soaring rhetoric, that's easy. But if it means you'll fight for what you believe in, even when it's not pragmatic, then no."
The change from the Bush years is striking. Bush would "stick with his way no matter where it led," said Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. "Obama has the opposite personality and makeup." Obama does not believe "that every progressive orthodoxy is sacrosanct," Bennett said.
Though for the most part liberals have held their fire, the last week's events raise the question of how long they will tolerate the pattern.
As the House debated war funding last week, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) compared his position to when, after being elected to the House as an antiwar candidate in 1969, he initially gave President Nixon's war policy the benefit of the doubt.
"I decided to give him a year. I'm pretty much in the same position," Obey said. "We have no choice but to give the president a shot. It's a miserable situation that he's inherited, and he does not have a good hand to play."
