Triangulation was first self-consciously practiced on the advice of Dick Morris as a way for Clinton to recover from the disastrous 1994 midterms and win reelection in 1996. It succeeded in its primary goal, although alternative strategies may have worked just as well, or better. Clinton embraced deregulation and balanced budgets and most notoriously declared that the 'era of big government is over' in his 1996 State of the Union speech.

True. But to give Booman credit, he accepts that in fact Bill Clinton ran as a Third Way candidate, and even then, Booman acknowledges that:

Clinton didn't govern that way during his first two years in office. He pursued a employer-mandated form of universal health care reform and he attempted to keep his promise to the gay community that they could serve in the military. He passed sweeping gun control laws and the Family Leave Act. He hiked taxes to help balance the budget and pay for an expanded safety net. And he, and his party, got drubbed in the midterms. It was only then that Clinton really embraced a self-conscious strategy of triangulation.

(Emphasis supplied.) Indeed, faced with the reality of voter rejection of the Democratic Party, Clinton triangulated to take away wedge issues that hurt Democrats politically. And the result was, for the next 6 years, an improvement in Democratic political fortunes - much of it due to Clinton's ability (but mostly due to the economic success of his policies) to be seen as the middle in American politics while marginalizing the Gingrich GOP as the extremists.

But then Booman slides off the rails:

[Clinton] no longer had much of an agenda for himself, but instead decided to focus on passing items on the Republicans agenda. But he wanted to do it in a way that he could take all the credit for it. This was in part a nod to political reality. Gingrich's Congress wasn't going to pass anything on his agenda anyway, and he needed to show that he was still effective. But the cost was very high for liberal causes because Clinton was embracing one Republican idea after another and calling it his own.

This is just wrong. First, S-ChiP was no small achievement. Second, stopping the GOP agenda was Clinton's biggest agenda item. And he did it (Save Social Security First anyone?) I also refer Booman to Ed Kilgore on the subject:

Aside from the questionable suggestion that "triangulation" preceded and succeeded Dick Morris' brief tenure as a Clinton strategist, I'm reasonably sure that anyone connected with Bill Clinton would angrily reject the idea that "splitting the differences" between the two parties was the essence of Clintonism. But the same argument has raged with respect to the related concept of "The Third Way," which critics from both the Left and Right viewed as an effort to appropriate conservative policy ideas and political messages, but whose advocates always maintained was an effort to refresh the Left with new policy ideas while refusing to concede whole issue-areas to the Right.

Going to the source himself, Dick Morris did an entire chapter on triangulation in his 2003 book, Power Plays. Here's how he defined the term he made famous, as explained in a review of the book that I wrote at the time:

"The essence of triangulation is to use your party's solutions to solve the other side's problems. Use your tools to fix their car." Clinton, Morris shows, adopted the longstanding conservative goal of welfare reform as a top item on the Democratic agenda, but developed progressive policies, including higher funding for child care and stronger financial support for working families, to pursue that goal.

So according to Morris himself, triangulation isn't about compromising on principles or policies, but about preempting conservative wedge issues by addressing them through progressive policies.

That is what triangulation is supposed to be. And frankly, it never really works well from a policy perspective though it clearly worked for Clinton and the Democratic Party from a political perspective. Their political fortunes improved. So Booman's description of what triangulation is is simply wrong. From that error follow others:

So, I think we can see what triangulation is, but we're not yet clear on what it is not. At all times, in any era, a president must deal with the Congress he has and not the Congress he might wish to have. Except in very rare cases (FDR and LBJ) no president has the kind of majorities needed to just impose their will. It is therefore the norm that a president must compromise with the opposing party.

Let's stop right there for a moment. After chastising Bill Clinton for adopting triangulation in the face of the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994, Booman then jumps to saying it is "the norm that a President must compromise with the opposing party." Obama has the largest majorities in Congress since LBJ, Clinton had a Republican Congress, but it is Clinton who was wrong to adopt triangulation, not Obama? Incredible. Booman continues:

Obama cannot pass anything without getting some Republican support. But that does not mean he has to triangulate. He can still pursue his agenda, which includes climate/energy reform, immigration reform, financial services reform, and an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind. If he were to embrace triangulation, he would be adopting a Republican agenda and trying to call it his own.

Um, sort of like having a White House press conference announcing that you are in favor of off shore drilling? Come on. But those are small issues. As in his concern over school uniforms, Booman shows his talent for focusing on the meaningless - in this case Clinton's throwaway line that "the era of big government is over." (Harkening back to FDR railing about Hoover's deficits in the 1932 campaign if anyone cares to remember.) Booman writes:

This can be taken too far, as in the case of declaring the era of big government over, but on less fundamental issues it is harmless.

(Emphasis supplied.) The fundamental issue of Presidential throwaway lines over off shore drilling. Nice priorities there. But Booman ends with absurdity in his defense of Obama's triangulation:

Adopting your opponents' agenda and dropping your own, while praising things which, until yesterday, your party opposed? That's triangulation. And it will predictably do real damage to the party of any president who pursues it.

The irony drips, for that is precisely what Obama did yesterday regarding off shore drilling.

Whether Obama's triangulation is good or bad, justified or not, it is undeniable by any but blind devotees that Obama is in fact engaging in triangulation. Better to just take back all the nasty things you said about Clinton's triangulation than to continue this unseemly contortionist act.

Speaking for me only