Mediaboss Marketing

President Barack Obama talks with senior adviser David Axelrod at the White House in 2009. Axelrod's new book claims Obama hid his true feelings on same-sex marriage while campaigning in 2008.

So word has finally come out, so to speak: President Barack Obama was for gay marriage all along, and lied about it in 2008 to get to the White House, according to David Axelrod, his former political guru. The news comes a little under two years after he came out (so to speak) in favor of it and a day after seven of the nine justices all but raised a rainbow flag over the Supreme Court by allowing same-sex marriage to proceed in Alabama.

The reaction brought this famous scene from "Casablanca" to mind.

[VIEWS YOU CAN USE: Obama's Gay Marriage Lie]

No one should have been surprised: When it was time for Obama in 2008 to serve in the culture wars over gay rights, he dodged the draft instead.

Like George W. Bush, who joined the Texas National Guard to avoid serving in Vietnam but preserve his viability as a man in uniform during wartime, Obama opted for same-sex unions rather than risk offending independent voters who helped him make history. He even had a religious exemption of sorts, saying that his Christian faith, and other religions, holds a special place for the union of a man and a woman.

And it worked: he won, although its probably safe to say gay rights wasnt the single most defining issue of the 08 campaign. The rest of the story is history, including White House decisions to let Dont Ask, Dont Tell fade away, to not defend the Defense of Marriage Act in the courts, Obamas famed evolution away from civil unions, and so on.

Depending on where you stand (or who you read), Axelrods revelation that Obama faked to the right on same-sex marriage is an outrageous deception of the American people, another example of the politics of cynicism or a noble lie, his decision to do the wrong thing for the right reason:

Its worth remembering, however, the notion of falsehoods and plausible deniability in politics is nothing new. The question is whether they lie well or badly, and if were paying enough attention to the actions as well as the words. New York Magazines Jonathan Chait pretty much nails that orthodox view:

A different way to think about the question is: Do voters have some right to judge candidates on their own preferred terms? In other words, putting aside the merits of gay marriage, which I endorse, one can also believe that a democracy works best when voters have accurate information about the candidates beliefs. I may not agree with the beliefs of anti-gay-marriage voters, but my disagreement with their beliefs should not deny them the ability to vote against a pro-gay-marriage candidate if they so choose.

Read the original post:
Long Read: Obama's Views on Same-Sex Marriage: More Creation Than Evolution