It needs to be done, if only to point out that he's hemmed in from many sides, not the least of which is the U.S. political system, broadly defined. The U.S. is a presidential democracy, but this doesn't mean the president can just order everyone else around, at least not for very long. How do you get legislation passed? With enough votes, obviously. What do you need to assemble these? You certainly need a certain amount of courage, a willingness to stand up for what you believe is right, the determination to take charge--call it what you want. Lyndon Johnson had all these things in spades. But more important was his ability to wheel and deal, to persuade members of Congress to vote his way. There's overlap between the two, but in the end it's about taking the political situation in Washington and the mood of the country (very different today from that during the 88th and 89th Congress), and combine it with your own vision in a way that gets some concrete and effective legislation to your desk. Now, about this country, it's essentially conservative, right-of-center, anti-government (even though most rely on the government in one way or another--who ever claimed politics was rational or logical?). That goes for the current Congress too, in spite of the Democratic majorities. And this hard-to-pin-down popular "mood"? People want things done, but primarily in the area of employment, especially their own. Many people may not think things through, and quite a few are susceptible to mainstream media manipulation. But that's at the heart of the current political environment. I'm cutting corners left and right here, I know. Leftist critics of the president should not be insulted by members of the White House staff, but I think they're wrong to imply that if only Obama had put his foot down last year, he would have signed health care reform legislation and a climate bill months ago. Does that mean Obama cannot be criticized? Of course not. Leadership does matter in politics, and perhaps he should have been more aggressive. But I for one believe it would not have brought these bills to his desk any faster--on the contrary.
Speaking of aggression--that's of course part of the criticism of his anti-terror policies. "Assassin-in-chief," as some say. Too aggressive, possibly counter-productive, also with the drones in the Pakistani tribal areas. In parts it's also in contempt of the Constitution. Of course, LBJ, the president praised for getting historic civil rights legislation, Medicaid and Medicare, and many other reforms passed, also murderously escalated the war in Vietnam. Furthermore, his "Rolling Thunder" campaign of terror against North Vietnam wasn't unconnected to the escalation practiced by JFK (with chemical warfare in the South rather central to it)--another president coming in for some cautious praise by those advocating the social-democratization of the U.S. (not that there necessarily would by anything wrong with that--except that it would be un-American in a literal, not rhetoric, sense). But that aside, I'll just point to the fact that Obama did not initiate these policies, just like, for example, he did not believe the U.S. should have intervened in Iraq. But is he withdrawing precipitously from that country? Of course not, he can't. It's much easier to get into these things than to get out. I think it's the same with the Bush anti-terror policies, especially the way the government claims it needs to deal with terror suspects or known terrorists who mean the U.S. and its friends great harm. JFK once told the historian David Herbert Donald that no-one who had not been at that oval office desk ought to presume s/he could grade a president. In one way, that's a profoundly undemocratic statement, but in another way it contains an important truth too often pushed aside. To cut to it: do I think Obama would like to make (further) changes in the Bush-Cheney anti-terror policies, especially their (il)legality? I do, but I don't think that's so easy, in part because of the way Cheney--aided by Fox News, Bill Kristol, and all his other allies-- himself the past year has assembled a stab-in-the-back legend ready to be rolled out at the time of the next successful terrorist attack against the U.S. The climate of fear in the U.S. since 9/11 may be out of proportion with the actual threat (especially relative to other harmful domestic and international developments), but it's very real, and politically it's both explosive and poisonous. You may be able to change some of these policies, but you'd better be extremely careful in proceeding.
Finally, there's another way to look at this "assassination" issue, namely as a fairly conventional act of war, albeit in the context of a rather unconventional war. If you consider yourself at war, in part because someone else has declared war on you, you get to take out members of enemy forces who are out to harm you. It's more that a little shady in the current war on Al Qaeda and affiliated groups, but that's primarily because of the way these groups have chosen to wage their war. Not only is it a-symmetrical warfare (can't really blame enemies for choosing that general approach against the U.S.), it relies on terror and behind it is also the motivation of the suicide-bomber--i.e. it cannot be appeased in any way. (I don't believe a total withdrawal by the U.S. from the Middle East would end this, even if this was in any way practical). But indeed: who on our side decides, and how, who needs to be taken out in the other camp? The government's record in identifying genuine, fanatical and dangerous terrorists suggests that Cheney's One-Percent Doctrine continues to motivate people, and it's obvious there's much more harm than good in that. But I'd still be reluctant to do away with at least the theoretical possibility that the commander-in-chief, charged with maintaining the security of the U.S., has this option.
USA Cycling's War Against Women
3 months ago
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So the President should probably retain the option to torture people, right?
That's a different topic, isn't it? I mean, if one sees the "war on terror" as a war, albeit an unconventional one, where one can kill in self-defense, it doesn't follow that one should torture any captives, or does it? The president doesn't think so--he has banned it, including waterboarding. His Justice Department has been more than a little reluctant to expose or prosecute any past cases of torture by U.S. personnel, this is true. I'm not going to say that doing so would be complicated, although I get the sense it would be when you're in Obama's or Holder's position. Last year I taught a course nicknamed "American Scares," where we explored this and other episodes where the U.S. (people and government, although we tried to determine exactly who drove what development in each case) went a little nuts in response to international set-backs or threats. It's not smart, and it is not right, but it happens, and once you're there and realize, as president, that you would like to put things (policy, politics) on a more even keel, it's hard. It's hard in part because you may feel some of the fear is justified, and in part because change in a climate of fear, recrimination, and genuine danger is controversial and therefore needs to be introduced deliberately if it's going to stick and if it's promoter is going to retain his or her political viability. The system is messed up (one thing just about everyone agrees on), but it's the system we have. I don't see a better person right now under whose leadership it may be made to work a little better.
Tangled academic if-but-then-not-else reasoning that justifies assassination in extraordinary circumstances of an unconventional war will find other extraordinary circumstances, it seems to me, calling for other measures also deemed exceptional and unconventional but tragically necessary.
Also, it's really hard for me to take seriously any bit of writing about how hard and complicated it is for poor Obama and Holder and co., with all their awesome responsibilities, etc. etc. etc. They're people with power and money and fancy food and inexhaustible health care. News flash: nothing is hard for them. Nothing.
People less fortunate, like my parents, need help. They're not getting it. On an abstract, intellectual level, I understand all of your vastly complicated academic explanations for why people with power don't or won't help my parents.
But, wow, is it ever hard to give a fuck.
Some observations on pieces of your piece, and others you've written about Obama.
1) Yes, JFK and LBJ did morally bad, strategically stupid things in Vietnam. That doesn't mean I'm not allowed to make favorable references to their domestic policy. Duh. Or to foreign policy stuff that I also happen to think is good, like the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Thank you.
(2) I never said or implied that Obama can "just order everyone else around." Thank you. Also, I shouldn't be insulted when Rahm calls me a "fucking idiot?" Really? I call people fucking idiots on a regular basis, but at least I expect them to feel insulted.
(3) The U.S. is a center right nation? That's a very sweeping assertion that conceals great complexity. That complexity creates room for political action. More so than Obama, or the Beltway-steeped analysis that you prefer, are aware. Academic research on public opinion shows that U.S. voters are, to put it charitably, information-poor and unsophisticated in their thinking. But they are also consistently, or at least often, willing to back liberal (in the FDR-LBJ sense) policies even while calling themselves "conservative." To me, this suggests that a vigorous, articulate President could sway Americans to support at least some elements of New Deal/Great Society style programs. See this article in The American Prospect, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=is_america_a_center right_nation.
3) Rather than cite the very vague and not analytically helpful Beltway bullet point that "America is a center-right nation," it would be more accurate and useful to say that the U.S. has:
- a politically powerful business class traditionally skeptical of government intervention in the economy
- an electorate vulnerable to anti-intellectualism and anything that smacks of European-style socialism
- a more powerful religious element to its culture than is the case in Europe, and a very strong fundamentalist current within U.S. Christianity
4) These factors, together with others (e.g. the institutional structure of the U.S. federal system of government; the current filibuster rules in the Senate; the power of interest groups in various industries and in the area of national security), do create variables that any President has to consider when planning a course of action. What amazes me is that you conclude from this that therefore it is not reasonable for anyone to expect Obama to do anything more than he has already done. I'm sorry, but that's pretty much saying that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Anyone who is starting to sound like Dr. Pangloss should reassess their thinking. There are plenty of mainstream writers who disagree with your neo-Panglossian assessment. [continued in next comment]
5) Example: E.J. Dionne in yesterday's Washington post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/17/AR2010021703506.html. Dionne argues that Obama has too often ceded the initiative to Republicans, allowing them to define public perceptions of his administration. Obama, In the name of rising above partisan gridlock, Obama made useless concessions to Republicans and failed to respond in kind to their endless and lethal attacks. The result has been the Massachusetts defeat and stalled legislative agenda. Which the public perceives as partisan gridlock. Obama's now faces the very situation he sought to avoid, due to his own timid strategy. That's the definition of failure.
(6) Dionne also shows how on the stimulus and healthcare, Obama allowed moderate, centrist, pragmatist Dems to control legislative tactics and to water down the policy content of both the stimulus and health care. All in the name of centrism, of appealing to that vague center right national consensus. Since moderates and an attempted appeal to centrism drove Obama's two biggest policy initiatives (and the cap-and-trade bill, I would argue), it's amazing to me that in a different post you made reference, like Evan Bayh did the other day, to Obama moving too far to the left. How is a legislative agenda driven by Max Baucus too far to the left? I don't get it.
(7) Dionne's analysis, and many others like it in both the mainstream press and in the left blogosphere, make these kinds of hard-headed legislative head-counting and electoral strategy kinds of points. Obama could have chosen a different course to put together votes in Congress. But he didn't.
I haven't made many of those points myself in my responses to you as of yet, since I've been concentrating on larger philosophical points. But the more nuts-and-bolts, conventional types of policy/strategy critiques of Obama can be made. I'll try to put together a set of links to the ones I find most persuasive.
(8) Bottom line: it's simply not true that Obama's current perilous position is due largely to factors beyond his control. He chose a more timid political course than others open to him. The bad things that resulted are causally related to his timidity. Exhibit A: the health care bill dragged on for months because Obama sided with moderate Dems who negotiated endlessly with the GOP, allowing Fox News and the Tea Parties to define the health care bill during the delay. Obama could have played the reconciliation card forcefully from the beginning (as G.W. Bush did with his tax cuts), dictated to Republicans instead of negotiating with them, and demonized them for their ridiculous talk of "death panels" and the like, instead of giving milquetoast lectures to the obsequious dolts of the White House press.
(9) Back to the larger philosophical perspective. You argue at great length that Obama could do only what he has in fact already done. You pay lip service to the idea that maybe, vaguely, kind of, he could have done some things a little better, maybe, here and there. Unlike E.J. Dionne, you seem totally uninterested in exploring in detail how and where Obama might have done things differently. Leaving aside my leftist "speak truth to power" blather, don't you think Obama has enough people telling him what a great and wise leader he is? Why is it your job as a writer to spend so much time justifying and rationalizing and empathizing, instead of exploring alternatives?
CORRECTION:
In one of the posts above, I said, "- an electorate vulnerable to anti-intellectualism and anything that smacks of European-style socialism."
I meant to write: "an electorate vulnerable to anti-intellectualism and potentially skeptical of anything that smacks of European-style socialism."
Even such an electorate can be sold on liberal policies, though, per my first point (3).
I mistakenly labeled two consecutive points as (3). Oops. Bad morning.
SELF-CRITICSM:
Besides being riddled with typos, my point (5), above, is too vague. It would have been better to say something more like this:
Dionne's piece (and other commentary from the same critical perspective) analyzes how Obama tried to rise above partisanship by:
-allying with centrist Dems and negotiationg with the GOP on the stimulus and healthcare,
- keeping to a generally restrained, high-minded tone in his response to GOP attacks.
This approach was designed to elicit public support, which in turn would enhance the chances for legislative success. But following the implementation of Obama's approach, public support has eroded and the prospects for legislative success now look much bleaker than they did several months ago.
Dionne contends that there is a causal relationship between the strategy chosen by Obama in his first year, and the subsequent erosion in public support and legislative prospects.
I think he is correct. Obama's strategy caused the subsequent bad outcome, or contributed mightily to it. I don't see how you can conclude that Obama's strategy has by any reasonable standard been successful. Not from my radical left perspective, but from the perspective of mainstream, centrist figures like Dionnne. And Obama. And you.
Doesn't lack of success call for critism (yes, probably criticism less emotional and more constructive than mine), rather than the lengthy pleas for understanding and empathy and forgiveness that you offer?
But you aren't saying merely that Obama's strategy has been successful. You're also saying it's the only strategy that any President in his position could reasonably have chosen. So your argument is: Obama's strategy has been at least a modest success, and it's also the only strategy that could have been chosen under the circumstances. In which case, logically, you think that the current situation is, in all likelihood, the only possible outcome of the last year's worth of decisions and events.
Leaving aside, once again, my radical left critique, how you could arrive at such a massively, ridiculously fatalistic outlook is mind boggling to me. Maybe you think I'm attacking a staw man, rather than address what you're really arguing. If so, you'll have to correct me. Because fatalism and determinism of the most sweeping kind seem to be to be the underlying thrust of everything you've written about Obama. On every issue, you emphasize not just the constraints facing Obama, but how the choices he made and the outcomes that resulted were the only outcome that could reasonably be expected.
I thought that most historians made room for contingency and for volition in human decision-making. My bad.
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