Joe Klein: Obama Needs To Get Tougher On Domestic Agenda

TIME:

Barack Obama has been President for six months now, and we are beginning to learn a few things about how he does business. The most surprising of these is that he is a vehement traditionalist, a small-c conservative, despite his opponents' best efforts to paint him as a radical. [...]

The fact is, Obama may be blowing a major opportunity for reform with his domestic-policy diffidence. He came to office faced with an unprecedented economic crisis, and he focused on it successfully during his first 100 days, giving two excellent speeches about the need for a stimulus plan and general economic reform. He has lost that focus as his other initiatives have come online; he has failed to speak with precision or clarity about the bills wandering through Congress. He has failed to make clear what needs to be in those bills -- and what can't be -- if he is going to sign them. He also needs to update the public on his stimulus plan, especially now that his Vice President inadvertently dissed it. And he needs to make a direct assault on the greedheads who created the Ponzi economy and are now trying to gut his plan to make them do business honestly.

Read the whole story: TIME

Comments

[stanjz]

I disagree with Joe Klein. I'm happy with the job President Obama has done to this point. The AMA, pharma and hospitals have agreed to cut costs. More senators are signing on to the public option. Everyone is on the corporate payroll and they all are getting on on the bashing.

[underoath]

Joe klein is exactly right,the president need's to be more agressive here at home.

[123dee]

President Obama has been quite clear about his domestic agenda. It is the job of
our congressman and senators to do the work and get it done.

[BarackstarObama]

I completely disagree with this gar bage article.

[TrueSense]

In his first 100 days, he felt he had the wind at his back and almost everyone agreed that a stimulus was needed. Only the right wing nut jobs did not think so. So, it was safe and he knew he could not look like a punk too early.

Even so, he started by conceding too much to the right with ineffective and deficit increasing tax cuts. He got not votes for it and a less effective bill. Even in the bill and plan, it was not as well structured, did not have controls in place, it did not show the vision that so many around him said he had and had discussed. Many of his advisors that were so excited early on said this is not nearly as much as they thought they would be doing. It was a let down.

In the campaign, many asked what Obama would go to the mat for ? Apparetly, beyond throwing cash at Wall St. and asking nothing of them, he will not go to the mat. He will and did for Wall St. but it seems to end there. Not even his mother's memory is enough to get him fired up about healthcare !

Rahm Emmanuel is a DLC type and is carrying Obama that way because Obama relies on such people due to his inexperience. Rahm wants to keep the corporate cash coming because that is what the DLC is about and acting as Repub light !

[Roguewolf]

Carol Browner, former Clinton administration EPA head and current Obama White House climate czar, instructed auto industry execs “to put nothing in writing, ever” regarding secret negotiations she orchestrated regarding a deal to increase federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, is demanding a congressional investigation of Browner’s conduct in the CAFE talks, saying in a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, that Browner “intended to leave little or no documentation of the deliberations that lead to stringent new CAFE standards.”
Federal law requires officials to preserve documents concerning significant policy decisions, so instructing participants in a policy negotation concerning a major federal policy change could be viewed as a criminal act.

[ranger5]

Klein is spot-on. Obama is spending time establishing his foreign policy credentials at a time when he needs to be at home twisting arms and spending some of his political capital on the programs that he supposedly champions. Nothing substantive was accomplished in Moscow. Even less was accomplished at the G8 meetings. Meanwhile our wholly lobbyist owned Congress is dithering and dallying in every possible way. Obama needs to read the LBJ playbook. Say what you will about LBJ's policies, the man knew how to handle Congress. Obama seems to have handed the ball completely to that utterly dysfunctional body. Between the blue-dog demos and the ideology-blind repubs we may yet see meaningful health care reform go right out the window, again. Obama promised to curtail the lobbyists. At this moment, the lobbyists are pouring millions into congressperson's coffers to insure that nothing changes. Come home, Obama. Honor your promises. Fight like lives depend on it. Because they do.

[LeftLeanWing]

Isn't it the job of the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader to do the arm twisting and wheeling and dealing to get the votes..?

Oh Oh !

Obama come back and support your domestic agenda. !!!!!!!

Harry Reed couldn't twist a pretzel and Pelosi would eat it before she could twist it.

[melissamsouza]

I agree with Joe Klein, one of the best analysts around: the President needs to roll up his sleeves and take the helm; otherwise, we're in for sheer chaos from this billion-headed hydra that is Congress.

[KLordsha]

Its amazing how people shift from "He's doing too much...." to "He's not doing enough" to "What is he doing?" to "He doesn't care about my single issue...."

[LeftLeanWing]

It's amazing isn't it ....

There like Goldilocks with dozens of choices to make and no 'Just Rights' and the Bears clean out of Goldilockses in their Refrigerator.

[BustMyChops]

Klein says(paraphrasing), "Obama is more concerned with health care reform than the American public and that we like the current system." WHAT? EVERYONE I know hates the healthcare system(insurance companies in particular) and wants single payer. The media bubble must be a strange and wonderful place.

[-0013]

Everybody, I know is against single payer.

Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between.

[BustMyChops]

I don't hang out at country clubs and no one in my circle of friends makes over 100K a year. So the truth is not somewhere in between.

[Dynamohum]

My primary doctor and every specialist I see are ALL for SINGLE PAYER!! You must live on a different planet - Uranus!!

[Blufftonian]

You mean like,
"It's the economy, stupid?"

[Guitanguran]

I think the biggest problem Mr. Obama has relative to Mr. Biden is that Mr. Biden is simply speaking the truth. They are certainly more than mere gaffes.

[Mike Barden]

I gotta BS, can i run for office?

[majii]

Mr. Klein is like all the rest of us posting on this web site: on the outside looking in. It is easy to give advice when the problem is not yours to solve.

[Glenn1441]

The problems this nation faces are OUR problems. Obama himself has addressed that very notion many, many times over the last two years.

Beyond voting, our contributions include activism, fundraising, blogging, citizen journalism, community service, etc.

Critiquing our president is also valid and essential as the White House does indeed pay attention to progressive blogs like Huffington.

[naschkatze]

That is a cop out for not demanding accountability. We presume the president and the Congress, the Senate especially (har, har) are more qualified and able than the rest of us to do the job. That is what a democratic republic is all about.

[Glenn1441]

Right on!

[Mike Barden]

Maybe he should be a Dictator, not a President?