Myth of Obama as “Do Nothing”
This branding of a Do-Nothing president is satire, not reality. If I had built you 50% of a $100,000 bridge, whereupon you rescinded, I would want my $50,000. Certainly you would never argue no progress had been made. Obama has built half a bridge and people seem to be suggesting he as done nothing at all. I have borrowed this image below showing the continuum of promise progress. @ PolitiFact.com
Our presidential system is such that laws are supposed to originate in Congress. It is a basic Separation of Powers. Hegemony of the Presidency is a dangerous centralization of power. Obama has made specifically clear that he will work through Congress. He must reach into the halls of the Rayburn and stimulate members to introduce legislation. Obama has used far fewer signing statements and thus returned power and deference to the Legislature. The president must work with senior members to garner widespread support. All the while navigating personal viewpoints, lobbyists, and staff members.
Lets look at Health Care , specifically the public option as in HR 3200.
This is the House Democrats’ big health care reform bill. Broadly, it seeks to expand health care coverage to the approximately 40 million Americans who are currently uninsured by lowering the cost of health care and making the system more efficient. To that end, it includes a new government-run insurance plan (a.k.a. a public option) to compete with the private companies, a requirement that all Americans have health insurance, a prohibition on denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and, to pay for it all, a surtax on households with an income above $350,000.
The widest health care reform to hit America since the introduction of Medicare in the 1960′s with LBJ and Social Security in the 1930′s under FDR. We are talking the creation of an institution on the scale of the Post Office.
Harry Reid has just merged with the Senate bill and the public option will be included. In eight years Clinton could not introduce meaningful change to the system. In Year 1 Obama is on the precipice of change we can believe in. I am stunned at this rapid progress, laugh at the lay satire, and ignore chants from the right about Obama being an ineffectual leader. Nor I am convinced that the 2010 elections will absolutely see democratic attrition.
Major Change in a democracy requires patience. The alternative is to allot power into a centralized branch with little oversight. It may be expedient but it is also myopic. Health Care is in the pipeline.
Minor Change can come from an administrative agency like the Justice Department. Recently, a memo was released department wide encouraging resource allocation away from minor drug enforcement to more serious crime.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, well that’s just still promise without consideration - unenforceable. No pun intended, but this is low hanging fruit.
Hardly the point. Obama has made advances on many fronts. To except a single president to fix all the problems facing the country is somewhat naive. The adoption of unilateral policy is often dangerous. Effective policy often, but certainly not always, hinges on the clash of ideas.
A caveat; our system supports the notion that the party holding Congress and the Presidency has the mandate to act. However, turning to the Congress for policy creation fosters the spirit of bilateralism even though a preponderance of power is held.
Obama is focusing his energies (as in his staff members time) on specific legislation. A wide spread approach would create too many hurdles and without proper political capital it would fail. A measured and focused approach will get major legislation passed. Be patient and instead of always looking for the final product, maybe look to the progress made towards the objective.
I’m not as happy as you seem to be with Obama delegating to Congress. I hear your ancient framers’ intent argument, but that is not the role of the modern presidency. I think Obama pushed the sausage making off to Congress because he thought (maybe rightly?) that he would be better off being the big picture inspiration guy instead of the details negotiator. He also has political cover for anything that emerges in the process that angers either the left or the right – he can and has brushed these things off as part of the process.
I wish he had taken a much stronger role from the beginning. He was incredibly popular and could have leveraged his popularity into dramatic reform if he had been in the trenches twisting arms and working details instead of making distant speeches and working behind the scenes. Congress is always bad at working out major reform and the Democratic Party has very weak leadership. Obama could have filled that leadership gap.
I like your spirit but you argue from political motivation and not the longevity of democracy. It is doubtful that you would have the same attitude should G.W.B. get back into office. A dictator is a more efficient ruler, that is undisputed- and a better one, provided you agree.
There is also a myth of poor leadership in the democratic party, that is a half truth. Please excuse my following generalization for illustrative purposes: Democrats are inherently harder to control because by ideology they are forward looking whereas Republicans look toward the conservative past.
As a personal matter I am wary of singular power and distrustful of a party in lock-step.
I know and it’s okay to have subjective and objective opinions.
I was not all that happy when Bush-Cheney-Rove pushed a lot of their agenda through Congress by taking personal leadership, but it happened. I would maybe consent to your idea of delegating all that leadership to Congress if everyone would play by that rule. But if Republican presidents are going to use their popularity and political capital to push the agenda, then Democrats should too – for the sake of balance – from an objective point of view.
I don’t think that is the reason for poor Democratic leadership at all. I think it is a psychological issue, though. I think it stems from authoritarianism. Many Republicans are strong authoritarians and GOP leaders run a tight ship. Loyalty is valued and independence is condemned. The opposite traits are true for a lot of Democrats. That is a gross oversimplification, but I have written lots of things on authoritarianism in politics and psychology that do not need to be repeated here.
On a more objective note, the meme that Obama is a do-nothing president is a brilliant political extension of the effective campaign criticism that he was all talk and no action. It was not true during the campaign that all Obama ever did was make speeches about broad concepts without giving details, but that didn’t stop it from becoming a widespread meme. It’s so good because it turns Obama’s strength in communicating and inspiring into a perceived disadvantage.
Keep bringing in your fifth column, Latinos( did I pronounce that with sensitivity) and you’ll get your paradise. Of course white liberals never consider that once the “minority”has a reached a majority in any district, they never elect a white man to represent them. This behaviour in a predominately white district is immediately thought racism. What is the complex explanation for this double standard. We uneducated whites will try to understand.