Obama Barack - Kabuki democracy : the system vs. Barack Obama

Table of Contents

Why Were Liberals:
A Handbook to Restoring Americas Most Important Ideals
(Viking, 2008, Penguin, 2009)

When Presidents Lie:
A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences
(Viking, 2004, Penguin, 2005)

The Book on Bush:
How George W. (Mis)Leads America.
(Viking, 2004, Penguin, 2005 co-author)

What Liberal Media?
The Truth About Bias and the News
(Basic, 2003, 2004)

It Aint No Sin To Be Glad Youre Alive:
The Promise of Bruce Springsteen
(Little, Brown & Co, 1999, Back Bay, 2001)

Who Speaks for America?
Why Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy
(Cornell University Press, 1998)

Sound and Fury:
The Making of the Punditocracy.
(HarperCollins, 1992, 1993, and Cornell University Press, 2000)

Youve Got a Lot of Nerve To Say You Are My Friend

Few liberals or progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment. As Mario Cuomo famously observed, candidates campaign in poetry but govern in prose. And, yes, the achievements are, when judged in comparison with those of his immediate predecessors, undeniably impressive. There are health care reform, financial reform, the economic stimulus, tobacco regulation, student loan reform, credit card reform, and equal pay, all of which unarguably put Barack Obama in the company of Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of the most consequential Democratic presidents of the last hundred years. Yet when one examines the fine print on these bills, it becomes equally undeniable that Obama voters have been asked to accept some awfully prosaic compromises.

This turn of events is particularly disheartening when one recalls the powerful wave of progressive support Obama rode to the White House, coupled with the near total discrediting of his conservative Republican opposition, owing to the disastrous consequences of George Bushs presidency. In order to pass his health care legislation, for instance, Obama was required to specifically repudiate his pledge to prochoice voters to make preserving womens rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as president. That promise apparently was lost in the same drawer as his insistence that any [health care reform] plan I sign must include an insurance exchange ... including a public option. Labor unions were among candidate Obamas most fervent and dedicated foot soldiers, and many were no doubt inspired by his pledge to fight for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Yet that act appears deader than Jimmy Hoffa. Environmentalists were no doubt steeled through the frigid days of New Hampshire canvassing by Obamas promise that as president, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warmingan 80 percent reduction by 2050. But that goal appears to have gone up the chimney in thick black smoke. And remember when Obama promised, right before the election, to put in place the common-sense regulations and rules of the road Ive been calling for since Marchrules that will keep our market free, fair and honest; rules that will restore accountability and responsibility in our corporate boardrooms? Neither, apparently, does he. Indeed, if one examines the gamut of legislation passed and executive orders issued that relate to the promises made by candidate Obama, one can only wince at the slightly hyperbolic joke made by late-night comedian Jimmy Fallon, who quipped that the presidents goal appeared to be to finally deliver on the campaign promises made by John McCain.

None of us know what lies inside the presidents heart. It is at least possible that he fooled gullible progressives during the election into believing he was a left-liberal partisan when in fact he is much closer to a conservative corporate shill. An awful lot of progressives, including two I happen to know who sport Nobel Prizes on their shelves, feel this way, and their perspective cannot be completely discounted. The Beltway view of Obama, meanwhile, posits just the opposite. That viewinsistently repeated, for instance, by the Wall Street Journals nonpartisan, nonideological news columnist Gerald Seibis that the presidents problem is that he and his allies in the Democratic Party just overplayed their hand in the last year and a half, moving policy too far left, sparking an equal and opposite reaction in the rightward direction. (Obamas biggest mistake, seconded the Atlantic Monthlys Clive Crook, was his failure to repudiate the left and make it [his] enemy.) And Newt Gingrich, speaking from what is actually considered by these same Beltway types as the responsible center of the Republican Party, calls Obama the most radical president in American history, operating on the basis of Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior; Gingrich urges his minions to resist the presidents secular, socialist machine.

My own views remain in fluxsubject to adjustment depending on the circumstances. I began the Obama presidency tending toward the view, expressed by young, conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, that Barack Obama is a liberal whos always willing to cut a deal and grab for half the loaf. He has the policy preferences of a progressive blogger, but the governing style of a seasoned Beltway wheeler-dealer. During the presidential campaign Barack Obama bravely praised Ronald Reagan for having put forth bold ideas that changed the trajectory of American politics. But as president, Obama chose to work for whatever deal might already be on the table, relying instead on the philosophy of one his early Chicago mentors, Denny Jacobs, who told Obama biographer David Remnick, Sometimes you cant get the whole hog, so you take the ham sandwich. Even allowing for this orientation on the part of the president, and admitting that from a philosophical standpoint its one I largely share, I cannot argue that I see the wisdom of all of the compromises he has so far agreed to embrace.

For instance, as a liberal who believes in the power of public rhetoric, I deeply regret Obamas decision to turn dealmaker overnight as he assumed the presidency. Ill admit that this cynics heart was stirred in ways I never imagined when Obama took the stage in Denver that late summer night in 2008 and summoned up our best angels after eight years of the fear-mongering and dumbed-down divisiveness we experienced under George Bush. But the fellow who, during the crucial moment in the campaign, asked supporters to join him in committing themselves to a vision of A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again ... disappeared inside the Oval Office on January 20, 2010, never to be seen again. Had the president been willing to make a stronger case for his core beliefs from the bully pulpit, his words might have had a salutary effect on the tone of American politics just as John F. Kennedys did during his presidency, despite a similar commitment to a dealmakers style of politics. Many people were inspired by Kennedy to do great things even if the president himself saw the need for political compromise whenever necessary. It almost certainly would have been beneficial to Obamas youthful supporters, who turned out in greater numbers than ever before and in greater margins for a Democratic candidate but never got to hear the values he professed as candidate given voice by the president they helped to elect. Perhaps an Obama who emulated Ronald Reagan and sought to move the rhetorical center of American politics back to a more humane, progressive place would have generated a more humane, progressive political conversation in this country. Surely, it would have been worth a try. But as much as I may regret Obamas decision to forego this option and throw himself into dealmaking, I cannot in good conscience argue that had President Obama been more Reaganesque in his rhetoric, the result would necessarily have been the passage of better, more progressive legislation. For the truth, dear reader, is that it does not much matter who is right about what Barack Obama dreams of in his political imagination. Nor are the strategic mistakes made by the Obama team really all that crucial, except perhaps at the margins of any given policy. The far more important fact for progressive purposes is simply this: The system is rigged, and its rigged against us.