Judging The Obama Presidency
First, I should acknowledge my prejudice. Like Obama I identify with Hawaii, having lived there for five years in my twenties; I lived in Asia as a boy; I went to college in California; and finally, I’ve settled and put down roots in Illinois. So, I don’t expect I'll ever again have so much ‘where-you’re-from’ in common with a president.
Second, I’d like to admit to one other subjective bias: Obama’s demeanor (a mix of power, grace and calm–emanating, perhaps, from his African, Hawaiian and Indonesian roots, respectively) is something, in my eyes at least, approaching high art. The only parallels I see are JFK and to a lesser extent, FDR. Some of this is the contrast with his predecessor, but I think we take for granted what'll be seen in hindsight as incomparable delivery.
What’s crucial, though, is not Obama’s agile approach to the microphone, or Reagan’s hearty, bemused, delivery, it’s the essence of a president’s politics. And here, context matters. The question is, essentially, what was in the realm of the possible for Obama, and did he fulfill. While he did have a 60-vote super-majority among Senate Democrats from July ’09 to Jan. ’10, a time when the Dem.s also controlled the House, we should remember that several of those 60 were quite conservative, or at least thought they had to protect themselves against challenges from the right (senators from NE, LA, AR, IN, PA, CT). Meanwhile, Republicans had organized to deliberately block everything Obama proposed, regardless of merit, and their major tool in doing so was the Senate filibuster. So, not surprisingly, little of Obama's promised magic was possible. The much touted 'purple' approach, where both parties would meet in the middle, was strangled in its crib.
Thus, when comparing what Obama was able to accomplish with what Lyndon Johnson, say, accomplished (a time when the filibuster was rarely used), this context is key.
Change was too slow and tentative in coming.
There is always the question of whether to promise only what one can deliver, and so risk losing an election; or, whether to aim for the stars. Obama chose the latter in ’08 and won convincingly. Given his race, the country's economic trauma, and the irregularities in recent close elections, deflated rhetoric was simply unaffordable.
Obama erred in making health care his major focus when he had political capital to spend.
Jobs and infrastructure are often pointed to as alternatives that could have garnered more support on Capitol Hill and been first steps to eventually tackling health care. Except that a nearly trillion dollar stimulus bill, meant to jump-start the economy, had jobs and infrastructure as components; there was even a second, minor stimulus. Only a few commentators, like Paul Krugman, were advocating more money for jobs; the price tag for the stimulus was shocking, especially as it followed upon the price tag for TARP, the bank bailout. Simply put, the appetite for more just wasn't there. Besides, there were news stories of how 'shovel-ready' projects weren't numerous enough, and if Democrats in congress had waited on health care, they would've soon lost their 60-seat supermajority. As it was, the legislation's first major hurdle was surmounted less than a month before the D’s majority was reduced to 59.
Another commonly suggested alternative to Health Care was a Cap & Trade energy bill. The House successfully passed one early on, but the consensus at the time was that health care was the likelier issue. Besides, the House bill was loaded with 'compromises', like huge subsidies for nuclear power's white-elephants-to-be, now uncompetitive compared to renewables.
Obama should have learned from Bill Clinton's mistakes in trying to pass healthcare in the early '90s.
Actually, it can be argued that Obama paid too much heed. Probably the biggest reason why the president let congress hash out the details, and so allowed the process to play out in public, was that Clinton had crafted his attempt behind closed doors. with little congressional input, then presented a fait accompli.
ObamaCare was a complex bill, easily becoming “death panels,” and the loss of doctor choice.
Or, one can blame Republican detractors for distorting what was the only way forward. Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman shook his head at a public option, for example, meaning the votes just weren't there for something more workable. Interestingly, the losing-your-doctor charge may be the one true criticism that was hushed up by the bill’s supporters. If Obama hadn’t repeatedly said “If you like your plan, you can keep it” ObamaCare may well have died in the Senate.
Obama is aloof and leads from behind.
The problem here, as usual, is that the Republican party has been intent on keeping any hint of victory from Obama (a strategy settled on, in secret, the day of Obama's inauguration). The president's only way forward was and is to stay in the shadows and let events unfold without his 'push'; that's because any thumbs up from the president is met with a vociferous thumbs down from congressional Republicans, dooming the initiative in question. Presidential enthusiasm was and is counter-productive.
There is also the extended period early in Obama’s first term when outreach to the opposition was placed front and center (the ’09 stimulus, with its tax cutting emphasis is exhibit A; the near debt default deal of ’11 with its compromise that led to 'sequestration' is B), all to no avail. And if he'd ignored the Republican point of view, initially, it might be argued that he'd never tried to engage.
Some commentators have urged Obama to engage in greater outreach to congresscritters. Yet more rounds of golf with (now former-) House speaker Boehner? Why elevate 'leaders' who have little control over their party's direction, when it's hard to even imagine the chore of making merry in such company?
Obama's is a surveillance state; Guantanamo, drones cost civilian lives.
This is, again, a case of choosing either right or caution. It may surprise some readers, but the Democratic party has only recently (and in hindsight, temporarily) reversed the Republican edge on foreign policy and keeping the country safe. To achieve this meant moderating the impulse to cut Pentagon spending and continuing key aspects of the war on terror, specifically, drones and wiretaping. Was this wise? Because he was shutting down two wars, opening up to Iran, attempting to close Guantanamo (Congress is alone responsible for this not happening), etc., one could argue that a strong Republican candidate in ’12 could have made an effective critique and perhaps turned the election.
The healthcare.gov rollout was a disaster.
I’ll switch gears here and agree with this assessment. The reason it happened in the first place, of course, is that another calculation was made and Obama again came down on the side of caution. From the accounts I've read, work on the website was delayed until after the ’12 election in order to deprive the opposition of an issue. This meant that the usually deliberate pace of government, in a compressed window, just couldn't hack it.
Where does all this leave Obama on my presidential rankings list? During the height of the ObamaCare roll-out mess I counter-intuitively moved him up from #8 to #4--out of our 40-odd chief executives--with the bold prediction that he would, by the time he leaves office, turn around four major ills: the economy, wars overseas, health care and the environment. A few months later I added a fifth: college education, and moved him forward yet another notch.
What would gild the lily, would be passing the torch to a Democrat in 2016, something a two-term Blue President has been unable to do in my lifetime (Johnson in '68, Clinton in '00).
We shall see.
