Almost two years ago, Walter Russell Mead dubbed Obama a “high Jeffersonian” to explain how he could describe Obama as a Jeffersonian. I objected to Mead’s labeling Obama as a Jeffersonian in the first place, and I doubted that this “high Jeffersonian” category existed at all. Now Mead is back to tell us that Obama is actually a Hamiltonian (via Joseph Lawler), which is what most of Mead’s critics were saying from the beginning:

In Osawatomie and beyond, President Obama will run for re-election as a Hamiltonian and a custodian of the 20th century progressive state.

I have had problems with Mead’s terminology for a long time, but if we must use it there has never been any doubt that Mead’s definition of Hamiltonian is the best one of the four to describe Obama. Indeed, that was clear nearly two years ago, which is why I wrote this:

The so-called “Hamiltonian” position that “a strong national government and a strong military should pursue a realist global policy and that the government can and should promote economic development and the interests of American business at home and abroad” fits Obama far better, but to describe him this way would not help Mead portray Obama as the weak ditherer that he seems to want to describe.

Then again, I’m not sure that Mead fully understands Hamiltonianism as well as he thinks. He writes:

Hamiltonianism at its best is forward-looking and revolutionary. It is not the tool of established interests but a force for innovation.

In fact, Hamiltonianism since the time of Hamilton has always been dedicated to defending established commercial and financial interests. It is the closest thing in the American experience to the Court party, and like the Court party it represents the collusion of concentrated private wealth and centralized state power to the detriment of the commonwealth.