Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Obama Problem


I have from time to time offered both criticisms and defenses of His Serenity, Barack "Hoover" Obama -- mostly critical observation of what he is doing and why I think he's doing it. I don't think he is particularly evil or smart for that matter, but I do see him as increasingly self-possessed, self-actuated, and increasingly rigid in his core principles and beliefs.

President Carter with better looks and no Southern accent.

Well, yes. The Carter comparison has been raised since forever, on the presumption that Obama would be a one term president -- which he might well be, and I don't think he really much cares about that.

But lately, the fashion mavens in the Blogosphere have decided to push the notion that Obama is somehow The. Worst. President. Ever. (Excuse me, no.) Aware observers are more than willing to point out that the premise itself is stupid and unworthy, but it's hard not to succumb to the silliness because it is based in a human need to be on a "team" and support or defy the conventional wisdom.

Someone who supports his team feels validated, especially if his captain wins the game. And one thing I can say about Obama -- which I have in other fora -- is that he is a true believer in his own principles and his abilities to institute them through his agency as President.

His primary principle is that of Transcendence. He believes, truly, that it is his role to transcend the partisan divide, to bring the parties together, if not in harmony at least in agreement that something must be done and can be done, and to help hammer out whatever deal is necessary to Make It Happen.

That's what this Debt Crisis Crisis is all about. And it is -- sort of -- looking like he might pull it off.

Meanwhile, I came across a couple of considerations of The Obama Problem today that I think help clarify the picture. The first, via Digby, is by Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast, and it is very good. The upshot is that Obama is doing what he is doing -- which often seems incomprehensible to observers -- because he really believes in the principle of transcendence and he is determined to stick with his principles no matter what.

He apparently really believes—still!—in civic-republican notions of government as an arena for reasoned deliberation. That he could still think this is akin to a child believing in Santa Claus until he’s 15—but apparently he does. The journalist Alec MacGillis captured this conviction well in a profile he did of Obama for the British New Statesman back in 2008. Barack Obama, he wrote, “was running not on a record of past achievement or on a concrete program for the future, but instead on the simple promise of thoughtfulness.”

From this perspective a unilateral action would be almost impious—or at least, if you’d rather aim a little lower than God, anti-Madisonian. Obama would be giving up on his ideal. Of course he should have long since given up on it. I was with him at the beginning—his conviction that politics could be better and more deliberative was one of the things I found appealing about the man. But that ship sailed long ago, and Obama’s position has declined from admirable principle to indefensible fetish. Politics simply isn’t going to get better and more deliberative any time soon.

The third reason the president probably won’t do it is related to the second, but it’s more personal. Unilateral action would be at odds with Obama’s image of himself. In his article, MacGillis defined thoughtfulness Obama style as “the notion that the leadership of the country should be entrusted not on the basis of résumé and platform, but on the prospect of applying to the nation's problems one man's singularly well-tempered intelligence.” This is pretty obviously a dead-on description of Obama’s view of himself and his potential as president.




I think it is really a good description of what is going on. Of course Tomasky, like many others, is OUTRAGED!!!!™ and wants Obama to Stop This Nonsense Right Now!!! Yes, well. Good luck with that. At no point during his reign on the Throne has Obama shown even a hint of giving up his principles -- though he will cheerfully give up just about everything else.

The other Worst. President. Essay I read today was by Sterling Newberry via Ian Welsh. Sterling, gosh, goes back a long way, into the mists of Internet times, and he's always been an acute observer and analyst of what's happening. In today's essay at The Sorcerer's Apprentice he examines what is wrong, desperately wrong, with the Obama Reign, and I think he gets it mostly right.

I especially like his historical notes and this part:

The President who Obama most resembles is Herbert Hoover, another one of those chief magistrates of government who became inflexible and iron willed. His idea of compromise is that he cuts out what he thinks is a compromise, and then relentlessly grind on it. He's dealing with people whose idea of compromise is a woman having an orgasm while she is raped. Neither of these two sides have actually compromised very much, other than compromising on extending the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy.

Hoover was a malfortunate president. Unfortunate is not a sufficient adjective to describe it. He inherited an economy that was about to explode. He takes office in March of 1929, the move to January would, to no small extent be because the long gap between election and inauguration paralyzed the country when later he would lose the Presidency, and in October of 1929, the stock market plunges in what is know as "The Crash." In reality such a crash was essentially inevitable after the Olmstead Break in August. In effect he had 5 months of Presidency. The rest was a long grind and heavy flail. His response was not without compassion and, within his understanding, he worked hard to do what was right. He simply was a mammoth in a lake that had been swamped by a breaking glacier dam, to be found, frozen, as an oddity. His failure was that as his policies failed, he doubled and tripled down on them. In essence, he turned a single large downturn, into three back to back downturns, and left the very faith in capitalism and democracy bruised behind him.

FDR and Hoover had once been political friends, but his rants and threats, the most famous being his offer to let FDR be President early, if FDR would scrap the "so-called New Deal." FDR replied tartly that he was still a private citizen until inauguration, his term as Governor of New York having ended.


Like me and a number of others, Newberry is relating Obama to Hoover's presidency, and he explains why very well.

On the other hand, when it comes to the Debt Crisis Crisis, I think he is somewhat off the mark in that he doesn't seem to be able to relate it (or actually much of anything Obama has done) to Obama's principle of transcendence.

That's why I highlight both articles today: the one by Tomasky which gets into the underlying reasons why Obama is doing what he is doing -- though Tomasky is calling it wrong in all kinds of ways -- and Newberry's, take which relates Obama's actions with those of other Worst Presidents and takes him to task for missing so many opportunities to please The People (and his more leftward critics) by taking bold(er) and more authoritative/authoritarian action.

I honestly don't think Obama is doing what he is doing for political gain. He is doing it both because he can, and because he must. He is a believer, in other words, and a man of Principle. Unshakable Principle.

This is what Principled Governance looks like. It isn't pretty. And I don't think it is what we really want.

6 comments:

  1. Ché,

    So, if what you're saying is correct, Obama is all about relative, relational process. Meeting of the minds. Which means, if Obama had appeared on the scene in a different era, he would be seeking compromise between the two sides as they were at that moment. The policy goals would be completely different.

    An analogy.

    Let's say fifty years ago the two parties could not reach agreement on saving a certain amount of wilderness. The Dems wanted to set aside one million acres. The Republicans, five hundred thousand. Obama doesn't want to split the difference exactly, because he doesn't want to appear as an unfair weight on the scales, and feels the need to go further in the direction of the opposition, so he pushes for 650,000 acres of wilderness protection.

    Something like that.

    But that same human being, today, in totally different circumstances, is probably going to be choosing between 100,000 acres and nothing. So he pushes for 10,000, perhaps, and adds the sweetener of letting in private firms for mining, etc. etc.

    Same president wanting to compromise. Compromise being the real goal, not policy. The policy itself isn't his telos. It's agreement somewhere between the existing parties.

    In short, we got the wrong guy at the wrong time. But in a different America, he might not have been half bad.

    An overly generous assessment, perhaps? Or am I just missing your point entirely?

    . . .

    Whatever the case, we really live in strange times.

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  2. Ché,

    So, if what you're saying is correct, Obama is all about relative, relational process. Meeting of the minds. Which means, if Obama had appeared on the scene in a different era, he would be seeking compromise between the two sides as they were at that moment. The policy goals would be completely different.


    Yes. Exactly. His Principle is Timeless and is applicable between just about any disputants on almost any topic.


    An analogy.

    Let's say fifty years ago the two parties could not reach agreement on saving a certain amount of wilderness. The Dems wanted to set aside one million acres. The Republicans, five hundred thousand. Obama doesn't want to split the difference exactly, because he doesn't want to appear as an unfair weight on the scales, and feels the need to go further in the direction of the opposition, so he pushes for 650,000 acres of wilderness protection.

    Something like that.

    But that same human being, today, in totally different circumstances, is probably going to be choosing between 100,000 acres and nothing. So he pushes for 10,000, perhaps, and adds the sweetener of letting in private firms for mining, etc. etc.


    A-yup.

    Same president wanting to compromise. Compromise being the real goal, not policy. The policy itself isn't his telos. It's agreement somewhere between the existing parties.

    Precisely. We've seen what we believe are excellent policies get jettisoned -- or not even considered -- time and again as Obama keeps pushing agreement, not even so much compromise. He wants more than anything for the parties to come together.

    In short, we got the wrong guy at the wrong time. But in a different America, he might not have been half bad.

    An overly generous assessment, perhaps? Or am I just missing your point entirely?


    I don't think I'd put it quite that way. I'm horrified at some of the policies that have come out of his approach and how those policies get adopted (I'm thinking Liz Cheney sniping on behalf of her father from the sidelines), but I am truly amazed at his ability to pull it off. And he is. This is what the lefty snipers can't seem to understand. He is pulling it off -- this transcendence thing -- with the Washington Insider Crew. He's threading a very fine needle.

    I think from his point of view he's doing fine. Just fine. While the "left" is going crazy at his constant betrayal, and the batshit right is going crazy at his Maoist Communism.

    I expect him to write a book about it. From his point of view, his actions are happening at exactly the right time. The process of transcendence is extraordinarily difficult, but as long as the pattern is set it at least has the potential to endure. He's trying to transform the role of the President and providing a model for future Presidents.

    This Debt Crisis Crisis is looking like it will turn out terrible for the masses (was there ever any doubt about that?) and astonishing to the participants and the Palace Courtiers in the media.

    And Obama will once again be hailed -- and denounced -- for doing the impossible.

    Well, we'll see, anyway.
    . . .

    Cheers,

    Ché

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  3. I may be getting a bit carried away here with analogy and such. But it's like a Buddhist who wants to stop the cycle of reincarnation. No more this and that. Just a pure kind of stasis instead. Final rest. Or, Obama as Spock. Our first Vulcan president.

    Or someone who seeks an end to thesis and antithesis, of endless dialectic, tired of all that. He wants us all to settle down to synthesis and maybe stay with that?

    . . . .

    I can see that. I can see Obama, say, in an environment that called for full-on Single Payer at one end, and a liberal Republican counter-proposal of the Public Option plus price controls, forging an agreement between the two sides.

    It's all about current conditions, then. Wherever the two sides appear to be at that moment, he will push for agreement. That being the Prime Directive and the reason for the Federation.

    We are just cursed that we live in such a right-wing tilt now. When he seeks agreement today, it's between shades of rightist policy. Dancing with two right feet.

    In that sense, Obama isn't that different from leaders around the world, unfortunately.

    . . .

    But I still do think that he could move the Overton Window to the left, if he chose to. He somehow sees that as outside his purview, apparently.

    It's why we on the left are so "outraged". We see rightists pushing for their extremist vision, and there is no equal and opposite response from the left. Logically, there should be. To use a less obvious example:

    Planned Parenthood was attacked, and successfully defunded in part. What if the left, instead of fighting against cuts to the program, mounted an all out push to radically expand funding and reach, citing the potential for actual cost savings, better health, etc. etc.?

    That kind of thing.

    Or, to go bigger. Instead of fighting to reduce cuts a bit to Social Security, make the case for a lower age for retirement and much bigger pension plan for all, given our place as one of the most parsimonious of nations when it comes to those pensions . . .

    Or, better yet, replace Social Security altogether with a guaranteed living wage from the start, one that we take with us into retirement . . . Dignity during our working life and after it.

    Overton Window. Push it dramatically.

    Then, couldn't Obama still achieve "agreement" by finding some sort of "middle" position between a real left-wing proposal and a rightist one? Logically, the further left we go, the better the eventual outcome if it somehow splits the diff.

    . . . .

    That's the part I'm missing. That aspect of creating his own narrative frame, which he seems to have little to no interest in.

    He wants others to make those proposals, it seems. That they haven't, tells us that the Dem leadership beyond Obama isn't much better about that narrative.

    "After you, Alphonse."

    Meanwhile, rightists are cleaning their clock while they say, "no, you first."

    etc.

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  4. "After you, Alphonse."

    I'll say.

    It's maddening. It really is. Because it seems like there is nothing at all the Wiser Heads OR The People can do to penetrate the consciousness of the Palace, in thrall as it is to its own utter and glittering brilliance (in their own minds of course).

    The comparison between Obama and Hoover -- which I've been making for years -- is getting starker and starker, indeed inescapable.

    Hoover was an Old Line Progressive, and he was no slouch when it came to taking radical action when conditions called for it. His work in Europe and the Soviet Union during and after WWI remains absolutely amazing.

    That work -- feeding the starving masses -- never interfered with his corporatism, though. And when disaster overcame the United States and the world economies, he was locked in a belief system that simply did not allow for the possibility of radical positive action. And at the time, there was almost nothing within the governing class itself -- all captive of corporatism -- that could push the Overton Window toward what really needed to be done.

    Same now. To the extent Obama has an ideology, it seems to come first from his banker grandmother, and secondly from the elite visions of Harvard and U of Chicago. In this, he has no connection with The People as it were at all, any more than any of the elites are actually connected with the masses. At best, they/we are objects.

    So, all of his actions are taken within the context of those elites -- the Palace elite of the Government, and the external elites of academe and finance. Those are the only people he ever deals with, and he will only deal with those among the elites who must (and can) agree in order to "move forward."

    Someone like Krugman -- who is not only a card-carrying member of the academic and media elite, but he is also a Nobel Laureate like Mr. Obama, therefore a kind of "brother" -- has absolutely no traction whatsoever in the White House. It's as if he doesn't exist. Why? The way I see it, it is because Krugman's economic (and political) ideas -- which are of course mostly correct -- conflict with, rather than agree with, those of the people he needs to encourage agreement between.

    Conflict between people who can agree can be resolved. Conflict between people who cannot agree cannot be resolved -- and it should not be engaged in. That comes directly out of my own mediation training; I wouldn't be surprised if Obama got mediation training from the same source!

    His personal beginning point is way, way to the right, though, and all of those he is seeking to find agreement between are as far to the right or farther to the right than he is. There is no room at all for even a hint of leftism in that mix -- which tells you why the House Dem leadership was excluded from the Debt talks from the beginning, and why the Progressive Caucus's budget has been completely ignored by everyone who matters. Nancy and Steny are hardly 'leftists' in any rational world, and the Prog Budget, though far better than anything else on offer, doesn't go nearly far enough toward correcting the rightward slip-slide.

    Well, I'm rambling, but you get the picture. There isn't any way under our system at this time for rational common sense to push this situation leftwards.

    Ché

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  5. It doesn't matter why he's doing what he's doing, what matters is the results.

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  6. It does and it doesn't matter "why".

    I think we already know the results, they've been clear enough all along: the People (excluding the upper .01-1.00%) are going to be made to pay for the economic collapse engineered by their Betters.

    How much and how fast are the only questions that has been on the table from day one of this Debt Crisis Crisis.

    But why should that be so?

    This exploration gets into some of the reasons why.

    And the reasons "why" will matter a great deal over the longer term.

    Ché

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