I know it sounds really corny, but this Thanksgiving, I'm grateful that George Washington was our first President -- and that Barack Obama, who like Washington can be austere and seemingly distant from common folks, but yet is smart and chameleon-like in his ability to forge compromises, can still get a great deal right in his presidency.
Reading Ron Chernow's excellent Washington: A Life, I realized how different our world would have been had someone like Tom DeLay or Aaron Burr been America's first president. We might have ended up with someone who never wanted to leave the position, as Washington did in 1797.
Or among the early founding fathers, if John Adams had come first, or Jefferson, the consolidation of a single political faction's control over the machinery of government at such a fragile stage might have meant civil war far earlier than the one America eventually got.
Chernow brings the austere Washington to life in what must be the seminal work on the first President - highlighting Washington's desperate need for social affirmation, his insecurity about education and intellectual matters, his vanity and concern for appearances, his tormented relations with a stand-offish mother, his focus on material and financial advancement, and the role of fortune and luck in elevating him socially, economically, and politically.
Some of this tracks with Obama and much of it does not. But what becomes clear in reading about Washington and knowing a lot about Obama is that their lives and presidencies were constant struggles to achieve outcomes that moved the common good forward -- even though they had to engage in deal-making and take actions that seemed contradictory to what they believed. In the case of Washington, hanging deserters (when he was a commanding colonel at 23) or in Obama's case, not yet shuttering GITMO, come to mind.
Chernow explains that whatever George Washington did became co-mingled with who Washington was and what his personal interests were. He owned the outcomes he got and personalized the results good and bad -- whether at 21 years of age when it was convincing the royal governor of Virginia he should lead the state militia against the French or whether when it was taking over the sprawling operation of Mt. Vernon that he originally rented from his half-brother's widow. Whatever Washington did became a personal enterprise. He couldn't separate the task at hand from his own interests. Obama can't commingle his real estate and personal finance interests with those of a nation in which he has been trusted to be the chief steward -- but he can do more to feel political ownership of the process and results of his policy efforts.
To some degree, Washington made America his own enterprise, but one that he could walk away from politically. Obama needs to find a way to do the same -- to do a better job owning the outcomes of his administration and learning that he has the power and capacity as president to create penalties and opportunities for members of Congress (as well as cabinet secretaries and political advisers) in delivering on the public policy he pledged to during his campaign.
Power and policy were negotiated around Washington -- and today, we still negotiate power and the national narrative between interest groups and political factions.
With both the rise two years ago of President Obama and now the rise of the Tea Party, we are seeing the country's future negotiated. Institutions that Washington's administration established and the essential balance of power in government that Washington forged under his calm, often austere leadership can act as a stabilizer against wild political swings.
But as so often happens when one reads the life story of someone who played a vital, irreplaceable role in securing America's greatness, one pines for that person to be around today. Despite George Washington's ubiquitous presence on the dollar bill and as the symbolic father of the nation, few Americans have a sense of him as a person, his internal torment, the tough calls he had to make as he forged a new nation.
Presidents often compare themselves with each other and become occupied with their legacies. The first thing a new U.S. president often does is to stock up on histories of his predecessors -- and this new book on George Washington is one that Obama should delve into soon.
There is no George Washington on the scene today -- at least none that I can see at the moment. And American institutions need someone as balanced, as driven by both a desire for power and a desire to not seem to want power, to make the American enterprise his or her own, long enough to re-secure the anchors of democracy in the US. Barack Obama could become the George Washington of a next era for the country -- but he's going to have to learn how to be less acquiescent to the political weather created by others and become the one, like George Washington, whose presence and preferences set the terms of debate for others. Obama is not there yet, but he could be.
So, for my Thanksgiving, I'm glad we had George Washington -- and I hope that Barack Obama takes time to study what a great leader who can make decisions and have the courage of his convictions looks like.
-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note. Clemons can be followed on Twitter @SCClemons
Follow Steve Clemons on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SCClemons
Matt J. Rossano: Alexander Hamilton's Religion: A Temperate Example For Today's Fractured World
Seriously, what does Obama believe? I thought I knew but at this point, I either don't know or the truth ain't pretty.
GIVEN THIS OUTRIGHT DECLARATION OF WAR AGANST THE NATION, THE PRESIDENT MUST FORCEFULLY CONTEST THEM USING THE CONSIDERABLE POWERS OF HIS OFFICE.THAT, AFTER ALL, IS WHY THE OFICE OF THE PRESIDENT HAS BEEN GIVEN THESE POWERS.
PRESIDENT OBAMA WILL DO THIS DURING HIS SECOND HALF OF HIS FIRST TERM LEST HE BECOME A ONE TERMER. THE NEED AND THE PROCESS ARE CLEAR.
["..... this Thanksgiving, I'm grateful that George Washington was our first President -- and that Barack Obama, who like Washington can be austere and seemingly distant from common folks, but yet is smart and chameleon-like in his ability to forge compromises"]
Compromise and appeasement of the basic tenets under which Obama was elected
are not at all in the best interests of America.
the following quotes from Thomas Paine's 1796 Letter to Washington are relevant:
"Elevated to the chair of the Presidency, you assumed the merit of everything to yourself, and the natural ingratitude of your constitution began to appear. You commenced your Presidential career by encouraging and swallowing the grossest adulation, and you traveled America from one end to the other to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You have as many addresses in your chest as James II. ..........
The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world is a sort of nondescribable, chameleon-colored thing called prudence. It is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence furnished him in this instance with an expedient that served, as is the natural and general character of all expedients, to diminish the embarrassments of the moment and multiply them afterwards; ...."
.
Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges
To state that President Obama lacks courage - while he brought health care reform about -something several presidents before him couldn't achieve- that is really utterly ridiculous.
President Obama didn't want to become president? Could've fooled me. He simply ran because he didn't want the job? That's pretty laughable all in itself. You don't just run for the heck of it, maybe he likes to serve, in the form of inflating his ego, something President Washington would've never done.
By the way, are you still not aware that "teabaggers" is a pejorative? One of you Leftists was crowing about being educated and all...
There were NO POLITICAL PARTIES during Washington's Day----
They were just forming while he was President....
The was NO FOXNEWS 24 / 7 Campaign Against George Washington
There were No Political Rivals Running around the Country Demonizing Washington Not MARTHA
President Obama, on the other hand, by his actions is proving that he could care less about A) the trillions he has added to the national debt in two short years and B) the record years of trillion plus budget deficits under his watch.
With that aside, going through other points, there is absolutely "like" or "similar" comparison between the two.
Just to note, that "is the biggest one-year nominal drop in the deficit that has ever occurred." Sadly, the Democrats don't seem interested in reminding the public of their acheivements, so it's gone largely unsaid.
But I agree that the rest of the comparison points are quite reasonable.
OMG, Really!??!? Wow, that just leaves us with a $1.3 Trillion deficit! Lets completely overlook THAT! GO team Obama! Rah, rah, rah!!!
Does he agonize about what to do with the loyal human beings after his death? Does it state how he had agents chase the freed enslaved Africans all the way to Canada?