Obama the Impotent

Much hope has been invested in Barack Obama's ability to strike a new course for the US following eight years of Bush administration unpopularity. Yet many in the US and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under the Obama administration. The president made the rounds on five news talk shows last Sunday as he pressed his policies and vision, preparing for what was to be a difficult week.

Besides the ongoing battle over health care, this week saw two showdowns between Europe and the US that have revealed further slippage in American global leadership. The first showdown came on Tuesday at a UN special session on climate change in New York City; the second is happening now at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, where America and Europe are butting heads over financial system reforms designed to ensure that the AIGs of the world can never again cause an economic collapse.

Europe has been increasingly critical of America's failures to live up to its global responsibilities. The US is not only the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases but is by far the largest per capita emitter of carbon and other pollutants. China comes close to the US in terms of total carbon emissions, but it has four times more people, who each belch far less individually. Europe, while having much the same high living standard, has an "ecological footprint" that is only half of America's, since Europe has taken leadership in implementing renewable technologies and conservation practices.

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to reverse the Bush administration's terrible ecological record. Yet so far the world has seen more symbolic gestures from the Obama administration than accomplishments. Its biggest achievement so far has been a disappointment. President Obama signed an executive order to increase US motor vehicle mileage standards - but only to a level that will push fuel efficiency by 2020 to a level that European and Japanese cars reached several years ago, and even China has already achieved.

Europe has announced donations of $2bn to $15bn a year for the next decade to help developing nations cope with climate warming, yet the Obama administration has not offered anything close to that amount. Europe also wants binding, near-term targets for developed nations, proposing a 20% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020, or 30% if everyone agrees. The Bush administration of course rejected such targets - but now it looks like the Obama administration is not willing to go much further. It has said such targets should be voluntary but verifiable.

True, Obama has reversed the Bush trajectory by taking global warming more seriously, and has committed billions of dollars to renewable energy development and other ecological goals. But with the US Senate bogged down in the fight over reforming health care, American leaders have said that the senators might not move on climate legislation until 2010, well after the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.

That drew a sharp response from John Bruton, head of the European Union delegation: "The United States is just one of the 190 countries coming to this conference," Bruton said, "but the United States emits 25% of all the greenhouse gases that the conference is trying to reduce. I submit that asking an international conference to sit around looking out the window for months, while one chamber of the legislature of one country deals with its other business, is simply not a realistic political position."

Even Europe's conservative politicians, such as Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's minister of climate and energy, are expressing impatience: "It's rather crucial that the US can show a credible pathway," Hedegaard said, pointing out that the US emits twice as much carbon dioxide per capita as Denmark, without gaining anything in improving its quality of life.

That was the start of President Obama's week. At the end of it, President Obama is headlining a meeting in Pittsburgh of the G20, a bloc of both developed and developing nations, representing 85% of the world's economic output and most of its population. On the table will be reforms designed to avoid a repetition of the financial panic and global economic collapse perceived as having originated on Wall Street. Despite immense, taxpayer-financed rescue packages needed to overcome the crisis, the financial sector in the US is rapidly returning to business as usual. Indeed, three US banks - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan - which received some $45bn of bailout aid, each paid billions of dollars more in bonuses in 2009 than they earned in 2008.

Here again, Europe is leading, while the Obama administration is dragging its feet. Europe has proposed far-reaching reforms designed to impose new rules on executive pay and bonuses, requiring that banks link pay to long-term rather than short-term performance, and that they "claw back" any bonuses received in the face of losses. Europe wants a financial police force that has powers to slash payments where investments prove to have failed, and to force boardrooms to control levels of speculation. Europe also wants to block the exercising of stock options for set periods and expose top bank directors to penalties, following huge payouts to failed bank chiefs.

The Obama administration's approach has been much more tepid, to say the least. The US financial industry, as expected, is fighting these reforms, but what do we make of a recent quote by President Obama questioning the need for supporting Europe's proposals. "Why is it," he asked during a recent interview, "that we're going to cap executive compensation for Wall Street bankers but not Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or [American] football players?"

Besides the fact that President Obama was wrong - the National Football League does have salary restrictions - Silicon Valley businesses and NFL quarterbacks don't cause an economic collapse when they screw up. It's very sobering that, if David Letterman read that quote on his TV show and asked his audience: "Who made this clueless statement, former President Bush or President Obama?" we know what the response would be. Or would have been.

In response to American foot-dragging, European leader Jean-Claude Juncker said Europe should act on the bonus issue "whether the Americans are with us or not." He said that a Europe-only charge "will take on such force over time that the Americans will not be able to sit on the sidelines."

Many leaders and supporters are beginning to wonder, what is causing this growing gap between the Barack Obama that many people saw on the campaign trail, and the Obama they see in the White House? Beyond Obama's oratorical skills, which excited not only American voters but people all over the world, he is mostly untested as a politician. His previous experience was only a few years in the US Senate and a few years more as a state senator. A sinking feeling is arising among many that President Obama may not be up to the task, that he may not possess the artful skills needed to accomplish even his own goals.

But it must be recognized that it's not just Obama's shortcomings that are causing the problem. The very structure of the American political system is at the heart of these failures. For example, thwarting Obama on a regular basis is an unrepresentative Senate where "minority rule" prevails and undermines what a majority of the country may want. With two senators elected per state, regardless of population, California with more than 35 million people has the same number of senators as Wyoming with just half a million residents. This constitutional arrangement greatly favors low population states, many of which tend to be conservative, producing what one political analyst has called "a weighted vote for small-town whites in pickup trucks with gun racks."

In addition, the Senate's use of that arcane rule known as the "filibuster" means you need 60 out of 100 votes to stop unlimited debate on a bill and move to a vote. A mere 41 senators, representing as little as 20% of the nation's population, can stymie what the other 80% wants. Given a vastly unrepresentative senate wielding its anti-majoritarian filibuster, it is hardly surprising that minority rule in the senate consistently undermines majority rule, whether on health care, financial industry reform, environmental legislation and many other policies.

Pile on to that an uncompetitive, winner-take-all electoral system, marinated in money and special interest influence, and the sclerotic US political scene is deeply troubling. None of these anti-democratic structural features are going away any time soon. Unless Barack Obama is able to demonstrate a better level of political skill than he has shown so far, everyone needs to fasten their seat belts. The world is about to enter a challenging phase where the US - the undisputed leader of the free world for the past 60 years - is going to rapidly cede its place at the head of the line.

It appears that the wheels may be coming off the world's post-war leader, and not even Barack Obama can stop it happening.

A version of this article was published in the Guardian (UK), on September 22, 2009.

 

 

Comments

[Wonderwheel]

I protest Steven Hill's premise, Obama is not impotent, he is getting exctly what he wants.
Take, or example, this claim by Mr. HIll: "Unless Barack Obama is able to demonstrate a better level of political skill than he has shown so far, everyone needs to fasten their seat belts. "
Actually Obama has been demonstrating his great political skill since January providing political cover or his friends on Wall Street by hiring the Clintonista gang to run roughshod over consumers while stufing the pockets of the gambling den in Goldman Sachs and bankers and hiring Hillary Clinton.to provide political cover on the foreign affairs front for his continuation of the Bush doctrine.

Why are people not admitting that Obama is what he is? He's not impotent. He doesn't lack political skills. Every thing that is happening that he doesn't fight against (e.g., no public option) must be presumed to be just what he is working towards. .

[dieselis]

If we get some watered down lets keep the insurers rich piece of crap legislation which seems likely. Then there really is no government for the people. So! Why not just elect Sara Palin? Our expectations won't be misread because we won't have any. If she does pull off something major we'll all have something to cheer about. Thats perhaps more sarcastic than you like but, what do you call the last 81/2 yrs of government? GOD ALMIGHTY! JESUS! i trust , my government not so much. The government can do alot of things to you. Let me be perfectly clear we are not their constituates. Were voters soooooo just bring your vote in the month of November and we'll see you in 2yrs. It's the cycle of life. As Scotty Scott would say and the beat goes on just like our votes are always counted yet representations are never left standing. Do we even deserve liberty?

[kold]

europe x usa? easy comparing apples to pears?, may be easier to find the stairs. the principle with the ceiling of pays is as clear as a school uniform, if you give it to one, that one isn't going to listen, except for wearing it. and you better fasten your seat belts if he is allowed to start speeding. he has changed a lot already, which you would see were it not for your paternalistic patting on his head. get it ole boy?

[db08]

It is remarkable how seemingly intelligent people expected Barack to wave a magic wand and whish in all of the needed changes in less that a year. He always said that he alone could not make the changes. It requires work and patience by all of us. If you have ever been an adminstrator and manager then you know that effective change happens slowly in increments. Most corporate administrators do not have snipers from all sides firing at every opportunity to shot them down.

[ThisIsAllJustADream]

no, we don't expect a magic wand, we expect decisive action. tough times call for tough measures. Obama ran on a platform of change but has produced very little of it, and in fact has carried on the destructive policies of his predecessor. the man is weak, apparently. i rue the day i voted for him.

[zmjz01]

Just be patient. If you have ever been on a committee for anything, you know that it takes some time to get everyone's pulse and everyone's gripe and then come to a decisiom. Regarding the ugly combat in Af/Pak, situations change constantly and need some observation about the right tack to take. Did you expect Obama to run nilly willy and destroy and/or retract things that W did? If so, then you have underestimated him as he is more thoughtful than you are.

[JNagarya]

It is not out mode of gov't for the President to do "decisive action". He must contend with Congress, which also isn't in the business of "decisive action".

Want "decisive action"? Re-elect G. W. Bushit; or find a dictatorship elsewhere and move there.

[killmenow]

Well, I hope that you wouldn't have otherwise voted for McCain. There was no Jezus H. Christ waiting in the wings, ya know.

[JanP]

Of course I expect him to wave a magic wand on Greenhouse gasses.

The only way we can stop emitting CO2 is to not burn anything, not gas, not coal, not trees. we also have to stop eating meat because cows, chickens, pigs, sheep turkeys and ducks all emit CO2, so they shouldn't exist, either.

We also ahve to do away with termites and deer because they also emit CO2.

And we have to stop existing becuase we also emit CO2.

A nice side effect of this is that vegetation will also stop existing becuase it needs CO2 and fouls the pristine air of the early earth with oxygen.

What we really need is a pristine rocky planet unfould by the pollutants of life - something like the moon.

Incase you ahven't noticed, all CO2 is the same (not exactly, there is C12 and C14 in atomic weights). You don't see molecules of CO2 Animal and CO2 Human.

[coliwabl]

You mention that change happens in increments. I wonder what increment Obama is at. The only changes I see are those that that benefit Wall Street, the banks and the auotmakers, none of which have done a damn thing to help out main street.

Obama may be doing a lot but to date he appears to have backed down from every promise he made during the campaign. It looks like we all got duped, again, by just another fool long on ideas but short on action.

Obama seems to have forgotten how he got to be President. If he stays the course, his tenure will be a short one and the risk that as a nation, we fall further under corporate control, will increase dramatically.

[Wonderwheel]

dbo8, you seem to misunderstand. No one is wishing Obama would wave a magic wand, That is a red herring. What people wish for is that Obama would advocate for real change. Progressives wish that Obama would say since we are keeping the forprofit private insurance companies in the health insurance business that we will have a obust public option or just get rid of the private inurance companies with single payer. We wish Obama would stand up and say that the banks will not receive another cent of bail out money and it will all go to the lower half of the income range for stimuluous. We wish Obama would stop the stupid stupid war in Iraq and Afghanistan and just admit that the USA has no business taking sides in civil wars. We wish Obama would stand up to Isarael and call it an occupying nation and start sanctions agains Israel for crimes against humanity. We wish that Obama would stand up and give habeus corpus rights to every single prisnor held in federal or military custody in Guantanimo or Afghanistan. These are the kinds of wishes we have that Obama can do which have nothing to do with waving a magic wand, unless you are calling his tongue a magic wand.

[phlashba]

I believed in Obama back when he sold Springfield a MONORAIL. Now --- not so much.

[Dial8]

While I tend to agree with Bill Maher and this guy that so far Obama hasn't been able to push through a whole lot of what he was elected to just yet... it's only been 9 months. Cut the guy a little bit of slack... If it were 2 or 3 years into his presidency I could see the gripe that he hasn't accomplished anything yet but c'mon... the guy's been in office since January and was handed a giant landfill full of trash to clean up. It's not gonna happen over night.

[majii]

The one thing this article seems to overlook is the fact that President Obama is NOT a dictator in a Third World country. He cannot order that things be done. His hands are being tied deliberately by the opposition. His appointments have been stalled. His political opponents are acting out of spite and selfishness, not in the best interests of American or world citizens. It must also be emphasized that being a candidate is different from the job of POTUS. It is easier to point out so-called weaknesses in others from an outside perspective, and it makes one wonder would the observer him/herself find the job just as difficult if he/she were in the same hotseat.

[KingLeopold]

The house and senate are both Democratic... There is no reason that BO cannot do what he wants. The opposition really doesn't have a say in the issue. The only ones preventing him are in his own party. So yeah, if you cannot control those below you, you are pretty incompetent.

[ydrittmann]

Did you read the article? Do you understand the Senate?

[JanP]

The house and Senate are independent bodies, not a rubber stamp Duma.

[CarmanK]

I have no problem with Europe and other nations taking the lead and doing the grunge work to getting results on some world wide issues. With Obama, we have seen the resurrection of strong diplomatic opportunities to influence without controlling and I think that is a good thing. Our country is in a serious financial crisis and our "correct" resolutions to those problems will make the country and the world stonger and safer. Health care reform is absolutely a priority. 45, 000 people dying each year for lack of health care access is a disgrace. And Afghanistan needs the right paths to resolution. It is okay, to let others lead, if they are honorable and intelligent in their approaches to problem solutions.

[sixchair]

Agreed. We need a team effort again to restructure "the system". The "civilized" world has waited for us to take every lead for the last 60 years. Obama has a lot on his plate (hoping he'll do well!) Brown and Sarkozy are quite capable of grabbing the rope and giving a pull. Where the heck is Merckel BTW?

[sixchair]

The real dynamic in Washington is the death throes of the republican party. This has created a power vacuum in conservative constituencies. Dems like the blue dogs are positioning themselves to capture those voters and in so doing are becoming the new republicans. Yet, like Baucus, they carry dem seniority and credentials that put them in committee chairs, where they further the "new conservatism" and its old agendas. Thus promulgating the death of the democratic party as well.

[killmenow]

That's a good analysis.

[cliffsiderock]

An alternative explanation is that there are just not enough crazy left wing extremists in the country (and both parties) to make their kind the true majority in congress. May be the blue dog Dems and the moderate Republicans are the norm and socialists like you and the neo nazis are the fringe on each side. Have you ever considered just that-- that there are the crazies like the person you see in the mirror and the rest of us.

[mcmchugh99]

As a Southern party, the Republicans no longer have the power to govern, and no ideas for governing even if they had the power. All they can do is try to block every change the progressives propose, using the most hysterical and McCarthyite methods they can dream up, and that is exactly what they have been doing.

The South is a big problem.

[JanP]

Fortunately, one of the ideas they don;t ahve to govern is the proposed changes in the Health Care System of the United States.

[mcmchugh99]

Truth be told, the US has been in decline since the 1970s, and that decline is now accelerating rapidly, while other powers are on the way up. We are no longer strong enough to play the role of global superpower and hegemon as were were in the 1950s.

Our ideas on "free market" capitalism as the way forward for the world are now thoroughly discredited, except for Republicans, of course. It's hard to believe that Obama really means it when he says things like "I believe in the free market". He seems more intelligent than that. I mean, he might as well say that he believes in Santa Claus.

As I see it, our main problem in politics is the power of big business and big money interests and their power to corrupt both major parties.


The Republicans are also a problem in that they are now mostly based in the South, which has always been the most backward and reactionary region of the country, decades behind the other sections. It has a lot of low education, low information white voters, easily manipulated by appeals to racism and religious fundamentalism, and this is holding us back tremendously.

[zmjz01]

I second your comments about southerners. I was born in Wisconsin, lived 12 years in Chicago, and transferred to Houston by a big oil compamy in 1978. Talk about culture shock!

Told my boss that I was worried about one of my employees who read a bible at her desk during lunch hour. He said, "you're in the Bible Belt.....she's not grieving about anything in particular".

I've now been in Housrton almost 31 years and still am not sure I made the right move.
For cancer that I've had 4 times, M. D.Anderson Cancer Clinic has saved me. That is the good part. Otherwise, I think Texan politics and beliefs are backwards. Oddly enough, I have a sister and friends back in Chicago who are self-proclaimed Republican conservatives. They love to send me emails calling President Obama "BO", just to get my goat. Sister and good old Chicago friends have that poster maganeted to their fridge of W and Laura dancing. The dancing poster is supposed to cleanse the country of former Pres. Clinton of getting a BJ, which in their eyes is a far more serious crrime than W's invasion of Iraq with no evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

[JanP]

And i have nieces and nephews who think Obama can do no wrong and will, for the most part, not even discuss politics anymore - at least not with people who are not in awe of Obama.

My daughter did say she was worried about him. She didn't like his stands on bailouts, the car industry, Acorn, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Medicare, charities and a few other things. when I asked her what she did like about him, she couldn't name anything.

Other people in awe of Obama, when asked the same question, finally said, "I like his style".

[antirepublocrat]

"The very structure of the American political system is at the heart of these failures..... Pile on to that an uncompetitive, winner-take-all electoral system, marinated in money and special interest influence, and the sclerotic US political scene is deeply troubling. None of these anti-democratic structural features are going away any time soon."

Unfortunately, Steven is spot on. As a college student in the late '60s, I can remember commenting to fellow political activists that the US would never experience violent revolution because it's a democracy and when things get bad enough that a majority desperately want change, they'll peacefully vote in a new government. How naive I was to call the US a democracy. It's a plutocracy, and an extremely corrupt one at that. The recent revelations by Sibel Edmonds prove how irredeemably corrupt the system has become: http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/nov/01/00006/

I've told my friends for several years that things have to get a whole lot worse before change will come, but even then I expected the change to come through elections. I'm no longer sure. I fear there must come a time of massive civil unrest before real change will become possible, and the elites are gearing up for that eventuality by instituting various mechanisms to arrest and detain even peaceful demonstrators.

[raylang]

Arrest & detention of peaceful demonstrators happened at the recent G20 Summit in Pittsburgh. "Eventually" has arrived. The future is now.

[JanP]

You mean the poeaceful ones who broke the windows of shops?

[raylang]

Small wonder "wheels are falling off." Seats in the House haven't increased since the 1920s. Our ratio is the worst among developed countries. We're handling 21st century legislative needs with an engine 80 years old. The executive branch grew; and it now overpowers legislative and judicial, throwing balance of powers off. Who knows how to fix things? Can't be much support for adding congressmen.

The framers designed the Senate to guard against "tyranny of the majority." Naturally. The framers represented those owning most everything. Originally, only property owners voted -- everything was decided by rich folks. They built in protections for wealthy industrialists and capitalists -- specifically, a non-representative Senate (members not even directly elected for ~150 years), enabling the propertied class to thwart legislative threats to their wealth. Many framers approached it as a business opportunity -- ridding themselves of a King who took some of their wealth -- wealth generated from slaves and indentured servants. Think "less government regulation" -- 18th-century style.

There ought be little expectation for a public option, Wall St. reform, or non-trivial emission caps. These threaten the wealth of folks who have lots of it. A shrinking minority, but, it just so happens they can stop almost anything they don't like -- in the Senate. No surprise conservative jurists are so keen on "strict constructionism"... away with these subsequent accretions protecting folks not born into circles of wealth and power.

Maybe it's time for another American Revolution -- or at least a constitutional convention.

[billiej]

America 'will cede its place at the head of the line', but not because of Barak Obama. Two declarations both by Ronald Reagan summarize the causes of America's decline: 1- Government is the problem not the solution, and 2- By consuming, America is doing its part to support develop the development of the world’s nations. After statement 1, America began a constant war with itself, moving backwards in education, cutting taxes and increasing spending, increasing debt, moving from a balanced budget under Clinton to a beggar nation under Bush. With statement 2, corporations have led us headlong down the slope: giving away our manufacturing prowess, destroying our financial system and losing the trust of the global community. It's great sport to blame Barak Obama, but a citizenry that believes its government is the problem and not the solution and leaves its fate in the hands of corporations is doomed. Don't blame eight months of Obama for the disaster we face; we’ve been ‘ceding our place at the head of the line’ for several decades, destroying our infrastructure and integrity. It is a disaster for the American, but a disaster begun or certainly accelerated by the Republican's icon, Mr Reagan. Perhaps, Enron, AIG and Citicorp can save America, perhaps America can consume its way out of decades of decline, but the evidence is not compeling.

[mhazard]

I heartily agree!!

[hasheville]

Because of the failures in our political systems, as pointed out in the article, I don't think we can realistically and responsibly blame Obama for these failures. What is sad and frightening is to realize how little he can accomplish because the deck is stacked. The opposition is so fierce even his unimpressive attempts are met with organized lynch mobs. Still, I wish he wouldn't begin debates from a posture of compromise because it makes him look like he is playing to be just one of the boys when he is now The Man and he's still a junior senator instead of the President.