Barack at 21 Months

Obama giving a weekly address -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
This is Election Eve, November 2, 2010. All signs point to a Democratic drubbing – if the Democrats are lucky, they’ll keep a Senate majority, and barely that. They’re almost certain to lose the House as well as several governorships to the GOP. The pundits are working overtime to figure, “How did we get to this point?”. In his piece today, Beware the GOP Coronation, Howard Kurtz provides us with a recent historical contrast. At 100 days, the media was having a slobbering love fest over Obama, painting him as something between FDR and Jesus. Now at 21 months, the tide has turned and many of those same pundits (e.g., Howard Fineman, Jonathon Alter) are more restrained in their glowing Obama tributes. Meanwhile, a lily white Tea Party has energized the GOP rightwing flank; they’ve promised to “take back America” (I have to guess, from socialist people of color?).

I’m in Obama’s corner, I think, but have to wonder at points if Obama is even in Obama’s corner. Let’s consider 3 things that occupy the air waves now:

Afghanistan – Obama authorized a big troop surge but tied it to a near-term withdrawal date. Military analysts everywhere feel like Obama hedged his bet in a coy, duplicitous way. He probably should’ve soft-pedaled the withdrawal date, pending major military milestones. I’m not opposed to Obama’s Afghanistan strategy per se – I think Afghanistan is a quicksand pit that offers little hope of a meaningful Democratic resolution. But his presentation was too equivocal for his conservative audience – he could have framed it better.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – Obama has successfully straddled the fence with acrobatic finesse. He at once has said soothing words to the LGBT community while giving senior military officials and homophobic Congressional chairmen the free hand they need to maintain the status quo. In fact, the Federal government (headed by O’Man himself?) is now in the bizarre position of fighting a judicial stay of DADT.

Stimulus – The Tea Party has vilified deficit spending as the ‘poison tonic’ in our current economy. We’ve had one sip of the tonic and now we’re ready to declare it a failure. There hasn’t been an adequate stimulus effort to set any wheels in motion. There is also some question about how it was administered -- TARP funds going to business executives versus federal project funds paid directly to federal employees. Obama needs to give assurance to his own policies and back up his advisors – not timidly withdraw when it meets a first wave of resistance. Is there a confident, committed doctor in the house?

The stimulus shyness is Obama’s biggest stumbling point, and brings me to the “dismal science”, economics. Economics doesn’t have to be dismal – it can be very rational and precise if you’re dealing with logical, fair, level-headed people. The very people who want to scramble the topic as some kind of impenetrable, mysterious fog are rich people who stand to lose if the public gets wise to it all. Obama needs to make it clear what he envisions and (sorry to borrow from Bush) “stay the course”. He’s now more like a disengaged Herbert Hoover circa 1930, serving bland aphorisms when people want action. What we need is an impassioned leader, bringing in the sheaves with some Old Time fervor and vitality. Obama’s collegial, cool style is a quality that American people disdain in a politician, especially in times of crisis.

What of tonight’s election? The American people are acting reactively, emotionally and angrily to a situation they think can right itself with a simple “throw the bums out” gesture. Obama didn’t do anything wrong so much as he did it incompletely and without great resolve. America’s reaction is both spastic and misdirected. The GOP will restore the policies which gave us 2008’s financial crisis and this will yield us a slow trudge further into the mud. Let’s hope that someone projecting strength and clarity can eventually get us out of the mud. Who he is and when he appears is anyone’s guess – it could even be a reinvigorated Obama.

© 2010 blogSpotter