How Many Things?

February 18, 2010

There are some op-eds that remind me of nothing so much as those pictures you used to see in the funny pages of the newspaper captioned “How many things can you find that are wrong in his picture?”. The op-ed by Walter Rodgers in The Christian Science Monitor is one of those. Let’s start with the first paragraph:

To save the agenda for which he was elected, he must give up the pretense of being a postpartisan professorial president and start acting like an Oval Office tiger.

Was “the agenda for which he was elected” following the Bush Adminisration’s lead in Iraq, escalating the war in Afghanistan, continuing the Bush Administration’s bailouts of large banks, bailing out GM and Chrysler, enacting the largest spending program in American history (in dollars), implementing a “cap and trade” system, and reorganizing a sixth of the economy? Really?

I seem to recall that President Obama was elected by a coalition of progressives, moderates, libertarians, and independents and as I look around me I think he moderates, libertarians, and independents are getting darned nervous. 2008’s election was no landslide. Without those members of the coalition we’d be talking about President McCain right now.

Or this:

Republicans, big bankers, and Wall Street, and the pharmaceutical and health-insurance industries see Mr. Obama as the enemy.

Again, really? Republicans, sure. But I doubt that big bankers, Wall Street, the pharmaceutical and health-insurance industries see Mr. Obama as the enemy. I think they see him at best as a dupe and at worst a co-conspirator.

The remainder of the op-ed is a combination of false erudition and paranoid delusion. Let me present an alternative prescription for President Obama. I think that the president needs to identify the one thing that he most wants to accomplish and strive with all of his energy to accomplish it. Don’t delegate it to the Congress. Don’t leave it to the experts. Don’t rely on taking his case to the people. Don’t try to regain the narrative. Work. Lead. Cajole. Twist arms. Persuade.

If he does that not only will he save his presidency but he’ll have a presidency worth saving.

2 comments… add one
  • Steve Verdon Link

    Don’t forget that Obama is now agnostic about tax increases for even those making under $250k/year. Does being a Oval Office “tiger” also mean reneging on campaign promises?

    Obama during the 2008 campaign,

    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec09/democrats_08-04.html

    “If you are a family making less than $ 250,000 a year……you will not see your taxes go up. Not your capital gains tax, not your payroll tax, not your income Tax, no taxes. Your taxes will not go up.”

    Obama now,

    http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-11/obama-agnostic-on-deficit-cuts-won-t-prejudge-tax-increases.html

    President Barack Obama said he is “agnostic” about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.

    Obama, in a Feb. 9 Oval Office interview, said that a presidential commission on the budget needs to consider all options for reducing the deficit, including tax increases and cuts in spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

    “The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table,” the president said in the interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.”

  • Steve Verdon Link

    I seem to recall that President Obama was elected by a coalition of progressives, moderates, libertarians, and independents and as I look around me I think he moderates, libertarians, and independents are getting darned nervous. 2008’s election was no landslide. Without those members of the coalition we’d be talking about President McCain right now.

    And if he can’t hold the coalition together he might be a one term President.

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