The intense dispute over President Obama's personality, principles and policies is a proxy for the larger debate over the history, values, ideological composition and direction of America. The focus is on the person, but the battle is over the nation.
In that context, a number of progressive activists and observers (this writer included) have spent the past 18 months repeatedly making the case that the Obama administration's unwillingness to stake out a strong, principled, progressive position on key issues is detrimental to Obama's political fortunes, to the Democratic Party's electoral prospects and most importantly, to the country. Looking at polls, trends, midterm projections, the economy, the environment, the war in Afghanistan, etc., the facts on the ground appear to have borne out that view.
On the right - unsurprisingly - the opposite is true: Obama's Republican and conservative opponents have resorted to their usual tactic of attacking anyone who isn't a rightwing reactionary as a raging, big-spending liberal, "liberal" being seen as the ultimate ignominy. Republicans benefit immensely from a decades-old, well-oiled communications mechanism that frames the public discourse. Their message cuts through, but judging by the measures in the previous paragraph, the reality of eight years under Bush invalidates the claim that rightwing policies benefit the U.S. The right hardly has standing when it comes to a legitimate critique of President Obama.
Between these two poles is an ocean of commentary and opinion. In recent days, what has emerged from this cacophony is a seemingly contradictory amalgam of positions, dubbed the "Obama Paradox," that portrays the president as a successful failure. A number of prominent pundits and left-leaning writers have tackled the perceived paradox, each aiming to put forth a definitive take on what ails this White House.
The latest hot political topic is the "Obama paradox" -- the supposedly mysterious disconnect between the president's achievements and his numbers. ... the only real puzzle here is the persistence of the pundit delusion, the belief that the stuff of daily political reporting -- who won the news cycle, who had the snappiest comeback -- actually matters. What political scientists, as opposed to pundits, tell us is that it really is the economy, stupid.
Here's the good news: this record of progressive accomplishment officially makes Obama the most successful domestic Democratic president of the last 40 years. And here's the bad news: this shoddy collection of centrist, watered down, corporatist sellout legislation was all it took to make Obama the most successful domestic Democratic president of the last 40 years. Take your pick.
[I]t is pretty much impossible to argue against the notion that Barack Obama is already the most consequential Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson. And yet not only has Obama's approval reached an all-time low for his (admittedly brief) presidency. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll public confidence in the president has hit a new low ... It wasn't so long ago, that liberals were being called "f------ retards" by Rahm Emanuel for refusing to get behind the president's compromises on health care. When they finally did, they were chastised for insufficient enthusiasm for a bill that they were instructed to hold their noses and support. Ditto financial regulation, which, in many respects, is a gift to Wall Street, not Main Street. And environmentalists, labor, and feminists have all received not merely nothing, but genuinely regressive rulings by the administration and told to take it and like it.
I concede that, in the first 18 months of his presidency, Obama has not accomplished all that he campaigned on. But I would submit that, if the president only passed the health care bill and nothing more in this term, he would still have succeeded in bringing about significant change, because the bill represents the greatest and most progressive piece of domestic legislation in my lifetime.
Well, if you accept the White House talking point that passing anything that contains the title of the thing you promised, is in fact passing the thing itself, then yes the President has been wildly successful. For example, the President said during the campaign that he was going to push for a public option in health care reform, he didn't push for it at all. But he did pass a bill that was called "health care reform," so using the logic of this article, that means he kept his promise. Or on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the President promised a full repeal. In fact, the current legislation does no such thing. But it is legislation entitled DADT, so, again, under this logic, the President has kept his promise. It's a bit like baking a stone and calling it a cake, then telling your child: "what? - I promised you a cake, here's a cake."
The topic du jour appears to be the Obama paradox. How, some writers are asking, can the Democrats be both passing a lot of legislation and be headed for a defeat at the polls? But there's no contradiction. No paradox. Instead, there's unity. Oneness. Om. This is night following day. Democrats won their massive majority because of an economic collapse. They've passed so much legislation because they have a massive majority based on an economic collapse. But the economic collapse isn't over. And having a lot more seats than the other party means 1) voters blame you for the condition of the country, and 2) you have a lot of seats to lose. What the bad economy and the huge majority giveth, the bad economy and the huge majority taketh away. Om.
I've argued that on the left, this ongoing dispute has become a full-blown internecine war:
Strikingly, this civil war is premised on a false choice: that an incremental legislative approach and a well-articulated grand ideological vision are mutually exclusive. They're not. Rapid, sweeping changes may not be feasible in the face of entrenched interests and steely GOP obstructionism, and credit should be given to the president for seeking and achieving solid wins. But neither is the White House prohibited from standing up for core Democratic ideals and presenting them powerfully and unflinchingly, explaining to the public in clear terms why Democrats have the better plan for America. Nor does the glacial pace of progress in Washington obviate the need to reverse George Bush's radical excesses, something the Obama administration has failed (so far) to do.
Extrapolating from the idea of a false choice, I think Ezra Klein's conclusion is correct, though he arrives at it from the (relatively) narrow angle of the economy. In essence, the "Obama paradox" isn't a paradox at all. There's nothing inherently illogical about someone accomplishing big things but undercutting those accomplishments with errors, misjudgments and mistakes - or being undercut by external circumstances. In the past year, politics and pop culture have given us a surfeit of examples of 'successful failures' - individuals who commit a transgression and undermine a lifetime of achievements. Are these individuals successes or failures or both? With President Obama, the issue is policy not personal life, but the situation is roughly analogous: serious errors, poor timing, or plain bad luck (or all three) can undercut the most impressive string of victories.
Further, the definitions of success and failure that undergird the "Obama Paradox" are exceedingly amorphous. Is it about legislative wins, no matter the underlying substance? Is it public opinion as reflected in polls? Is it pundit consensus and conventional wisdom?
And who defines success or judges which issue or question is the most important? Is it jobs? The Gulf disaster? Health care? Is Obama a progressive, a centrist, a corporatist, a socialist? Are we winning or losing Afghanistan? Is Obama the next FDR, Bush-lite, the anti-Bush, or the un-Reagan?
Ultimately, the broadest way to assess a presidency is the utilitarian question of whether the sum total of the administration's decisions and actions result in more good than harm to people and the planet. Needless to say, making that determination is a gargantuan undertaking. Many of the outcomes, if knowable, may not become apparent for decades. Defining good and harm outside of physical well-being is perennially difficult.
So how do we resolve the present contradictions surrounding President Obama and how do we make a fair assessment of his tenure? To the extent that we can, we do so by clarifying our approach in advance of our judgment. A reporter looking at facts and data should first choose the metric(s). It might be the number of campaign promises kept, or legislation passed, or public opinion polls and trends, or economic stats, or a weighted combination of several factors.
For activists and opinion-makers, the process is somewhat different: it's about fundamental ideals and values against which the president's actions are measured.
For the general public, it's a mix of personal circumstances (how the administration's policies affect them and their families), their values, what the media tells them, what their friends and family think, and so on.
Whatever the parameters and methods, there are several ways to reach an informed, albeit incomplete, view of Obama's presidency. Naturally, some of these views will be contradictory. From certain perspectives Obama is successful, from others he's not - there's nothing paradoxical about that.
What's far more interesting is that there is one thing Obama can do that transcends the ebb and flow of events, the endless swirl of opinion, the daily wins and losses, the progress and setbacks that constitute governing. It is the one thing with lasting appeal and enduring value and a prerequisite for unqualified success in any endeavor: standing for something worthwhile, for a set of well-articulated principles, and fighting for those principles tooth and nail.
The real Obama paradox is why that hasn't happened when it's good policy and good politics.
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He presented himself as new politics and he is a Chicago democrat (there is nothing worse you can say about some one than that)
He promised to fix the economy; instead, he bankrupted us.
He focused on healthcare in 2009 not the economy
He presented himself as competent and dynamic he is inept and flacid in his leadership.
He botched the BP spill.
He still blames Bush instead of leading and taking responsibility.
His policies discourage investment; why should people in vest into uncertainty and profit destroying business taxes.
He passed a nightmare of healthcare bill (there could have been real reform the bill that passed was disliked by the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Americans)
He dithered in Afghanistan and that war is going poorly.
He is claiming victory in Iraq while it looks like the country is backsliding to 2006 style violence
He was not ready to be President and, in his arrogance, seems too proud to learn.
His first act of foreign policy was to show how smart he was by writing a letter to Jacques Chirac who had already been out of office over a year. Things are getting worse, not better.
He was handed a political mandate to lead; to guide the nation through the storm. He is out of his league and all of us are paying the price for it. He have Biden step down, appoint Bill Clinton VP and then resign.
In sum, Obama became a "successful failure" the moment he announced his decision to run for the presidency.
It's not a big mystery why all his fig leaf "achievements" of reform aren't all that fabulously popular. He caters to corporate interests at the expense of the middle class, and passes watered-down-to-the-point-of-farce legislation and calls it "historic". All the while continuing Bush-era abuses of presidential power and destruction of the constitution.
People could of elected McCain if they wanted this shit. They didn't elect McCain, they elected Obama. Obama may have thought they wanted him to "CHANGE" the tone between Dems and Repubs, but what the populace wanted was for him to CHANGE THE SYSTEMS that are ripping us off and shredding our Constitution.
Few economists disagree that the housing boom and bust played THE key roll in this economic disaster. What caused the boom? The GOVERNMENT's brilliant idea that everyone should be able to "own" a home..... whether they could afford it or not. So the Fed lowered interest rates..... and helped create an UNSUSTAINABLE and ARTIFICIAL demand that extended to almost every major industry from construction to mortgages, home furnishings to landscaping...... all artificial demand created by the brilliant central planners in Washington.
What about all those worthless derivatives you say? Well.... those worthless Mortgage Backed Securities weren't worthless until the government-planned housing boom PREDICTABLY busted and too many people with little or no "skin in the game" started defaulting on their mortgages.
Obama's attempts to plan out and control everything from health care to the auto industry to the financial markets will end in the same disaster as did "affordable housing for all".
Central planning only works in the minds of the intellectual/political elites.... on paper. LOTS of it, in the form of "stimulus" bills, health care "reform", financial "reform", energy "reform".... and $3.8 TRILLION dollar budget.
This is not going to happen because Obama's principles are geared more toward the Republicans. He knows that Republicans will never vote for him, so he has to pretend he believes in Democratic principles to even have a chance at getting re-elected.
Well, if you accept the White House talking point that passing anything that contains the title of the thing you promised, is in fact passing the thing itself, then yes the President has been wildly successful. For example, the President said during the campaign that he was going to push for a public option in health care reform, he didn't push for it at all. But he did pass a bill that was called "health care reform," so using the logic of this article, that means he kept his promise. Or on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the President promised a full repeal. In fact, the current legislation does no such thing. But it is legislation entitled DADT, so, again, under this logic, the President has kept his promise. It's a bit like baking a stone and calling it a cake, then telling your child: "what? - I promised you a cake, here's a cake."
Is that like the trans-inclusive ENDA that you and Barney Frank promised the people you gleefully threw under the bus time and time again, only to defang the protections so that operative status becomes legal gender, or to eliminate job protections for those who don't have a consistent gender presentation? Thank you John for being behind trans rights legislation which allows an employer to fire you for refusing to have an operation for the right to use the washroom or being genderqueer. Pass the rock would you?
Human Rights – Guantanamo remains open
Foreign Policy – Send more troops to Afghanistan and delay withdrawal from Iraq
Healthcare Reform – No public option
Financial Reform – No separation of banking from financing and insurance
Environment – Drill in Alaska and slow response to Gulf spill cleanup efforts
Budget Deficit - No end to trillion dollar wars and military spending
Political Reform – No legislation that eliminate corporate influence on policies
Economy – Limited stimulus money for small businesses and bailouts for large corporations
Unemployment – No signing statements force through benefits
The president needs to focus on political reform, the economy and unemployment for the next two years for the perception of the paradox to fade. Political reform is the core of issue to solve. It could break down barriers that stand in the way of addressing other issues and problems.
You've said it all: Obama needs to stand for something, passionately. He's being too careful; hence not impressive, which reflects in the opinion polls.
As for Obama's careful attitude, I think he knows a little something about how to deal with the public. The inflated adoration of his campaign could have never been sustained. People need to have fluctuating feelings about someone, and in the end, I think that his decency and intelligence is obvious to most Americans.
I, like all of us here, really know nothing about what is actually going on in DC or elsewhere. We are left simply with what we read and hear (believe only half of what you read and none of what you hear, according to the old saying).
And I admit I am disappointed. But only because I had thought there was actually some hope for change, unlike the prior admin, yet from the get-go I have watched the same ol' same ol' going on. And watched stunned at the lack of Stand-Up Leadership.
(My comment was referring to the theory that the WH is actually making "mistakes" on purpose to get more Repubs in Congress in order to blame Repubs in 2012 for the sorry state of affairs. I actually do not really believe they are that cynical -- except for Rahm -- but maybe I'm not yet cynical enough.)
End of story. Now stop blogging about it.
How do we all pretend that the millions that go into the coffers like Dodd and Baucus and the rest of the Democratic "leadership" will have absolutely no effect on their legislative agenda?
How do we pretend that this President is on the side of average Americans and opposed to the Wall Street greed when he's staffed his Whitehouse with the same investment bankers that he's supposed to be against?
Don't you think it's time we stop scratching out heads and wondering at the "paradox" between the rhetoric and the results.
The answer is simple; just follow the money.
You see, they are not against unemployment for these folks. They simply want to pay for it. But, it's OK to extend Bush taxcuts without paying for them. d Schultz called "word-smithing". But it is more than that. It is blatant hypocrisy.
Over 90% of our present debt was accumulated by Republican Presidents and their tax cutting schemes for the wealthy. They are the reason we have such huge debt and deficits. That is the fact of the matter.
But they only worry about deficits when Democrats are in office and they are successful at their attacks because the media is unable or unwilling to clearly define what is happening.
The President has compromised to get what he can get. The reality of the present make-up of the Senate does not permit us to bring about the change that is needed. In finance regulations, healthcare, Big Banks, unemployment, etc, the President has to accept piecemeal or nothing. Much of that is the fault of Democrats for voting in Blue Dog Republicans that call themselves Democrats. If they act like a pig, grunt like a pig, and vote like a pig, they are most likely a pig.
Regarding the media, many of the folks bringing us the "message" are they themselves highly paid. Some would say way overpaid. It's in their interests, too, to preserve policies that preserve concentrated wealth.
Take single-payer, for instance. Overwhelmingly popular, a fight for its passage would have been a 2010 winning issue for the Democrats. With its abandonment, the Democrats are going to have a very hard time retaining control of the Senate -- and they will have only themselves to blame.
If he just keeps playing politics, instead of standing up (including to his own advisors) and LEADING, I'm outta here!
I can live with policies, programs and legislation I disagree with (most of it, anyway, when passed by Dems or Moderates), but I cannot live with garbage-as-usual from the Hill.