Tom Buffenbarger, the head of the Machinists Union, was featured on Keith Olbermann for a prophetic speech he gave while campaigning for Hillary Clinton. Citing direct experience with then-Senator Obama in labor disputes, Buffenbarger termed the future President "a poet, not a fighter," who would have no stomach for the Republican attack machine. It looks like he was right. But maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Obama wasn't elected on the basis of his platform specifics; he was elected because he gave people hope that America could be its better self again. Of course governing is different than campaigning, you have to accomplish things. No one can deny that the President hasn't gotten things done. But in the most crucial political choices of his Presidency, he does battle with a startling dearth of creativity.
On healthcare, the starting point should have been Medicare For All. With great fanfare -- faked if necessary -- Obama should have "painfully" acceded to "just" the public option in the final stage of negotiations. Instead, he started out the process lamely denoting a "preference" for the public option, thereby signaling from the outset that he would give it away. The result: a sweetheart deal for the insurance companies with no real competition to keep prices down. And now it looks as if the Republicans are going to chip away at the healthcare reform the President did pass, just like they have at abortion rights.
In the tax cut fight, we can see the same egregious lack of elegant tactics. Americans understand the simple if idiotic message that all taxes are bad. But they are clueless as to the truly devastating consequences of the extraordinary increase in income inequality in the past decade. Never did Obama use the bully pulpit to explain it. For example: "Think of 100 people you know. The richest 2 get 50 of every 100 dollars made. The other 98 of you divide up the 49 dollars left over. If you are working class or unemployed you're part of the group that gets one quarter each. That's right, the poorest fifth of Americans are dividing up the equivalent of 1 out of every 100 dollars in wealth." One pie chart, one simple visual. Instead we get Austan Gobbledygooksbee with a whiteboard, explaining tax credits in 500 words or more.
It's a truly sad state of affairs when an obscure Huffington Post blogger -- or hell, probably a bright intern at the Rachel Maddow Show -- can come up with better explanations for what ails the economy than one of the supposedly best and brightest advisers surrounding the president.
If you're not going to try to be a good politician, then don't go into politics. Stagecraft is strategy. Bluffing is part of the process. On defense authorization, the President should be announcing an immediate drawdown of our remaining troops in Iraq, blaming it on Republican refusal to pass an appropriations bill. Pure theater, but very effective. On START? Leak (maybe Julian Assange can help) the American intention to adhere to the treaty regardless of ratification, and to use CIA appropriations for verification. On DADT? Issue an executive stop-loss order as a matter of national security, then get out of the way of the courts overturning it. Unemployment Insurance? Make a personal plea to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to fund an extension through Christmas, scoring a P.R. coup and making the Republicans play Grinch.
Barack Obama got where he was by throwing out the rulebook. And now all he seems to do is play by it. Here's a suggestion, Mr. President. Pretend you won last month and act like a winner -- while you still have both house of Congress. You don't have to be either a poet or a fighter -- be both. Fight poetically.
P.S. To those who argue that any rise in taxes for the lower brackets would be toxic, I was making $20,000 a year in the 90s. I don't remember staggering under my tax burden, nor noticing the slightest improvement under the Bush regime. The idea that preserving present tax cuts is worth returning to the economy of the Gilded Age is nonsense.
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but he had to attend a party.
on the other hand, hes the best republican president we ever had.
As for Obama taking a different track with health care reform etc., certainly there were different pathways to choose, however, as resident he has to walk a fine line between what you call bluffing and what could possible be considering lying and an impeachable offense. You don't get to play at president like you play a poker game. You can bluff foreign countries but there are some prohibitions about trying to bluff Congress.
Bush was far more effective than Obama because Bush was uncompromising. Mind you, I am not saying I approve of where Bush lead us all. Far from it. But your claim tha compromise is key is just patently absurd. I know of many weak leaders who compromised their way to failure and I know of many strong leaders who accomplished much because they were not compromising.
Compromise is for the cowardly and the weak. That's Obama.
we'll see if it passes or not without provisions.With the backing of Fom.pres.Clinton;I believe it was the best possible turn-out given the circumstances.Without any compromise it's dead on both the senate and house floors."RJM" http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/10/tax.plan/index.html
I believe our best bet is to make Obama a pariah, to shame him into not seeking a second term so that we liberals at least have a chance of running a candidate who could be a competent leader. Then if Obama spends the next 10-15 years acquiring the sorts of experience and leadership development he should have had all along, then maybe he can seek another term.
Personally I think he will be happier as an ex president on the speech making circuit because making speeches is really the only thing he seems to be good at. We'd be doing him a big favor to get him there as soon as possible.
we have been had.
Obama is so conflicted, so full of contradictions, so stuck in his linear left brain sense of superiority, that he has no idea whatsoever of what it means to be a poet.
He gives a good speech, but it's really all been an act.
That is what is needed today!
But he seems not to believe enough in his poetic side, nowadays at least.