Check out Pat Lang’s scathing criticism of the Republican candidates vying for their (and his) party’s nomination. Here’s his analysis of President Obama:
On the other hand we have the incumbent, a disguised Rockefeller Republican who opted for Black identity because he didn’t think he could be “white.” Colin Powell made the same decision years ago under the influence of his wife. Obama is a man who wrings his hands and then signs laws like the Defense Authorization bill that authorizes the armed forces to arrest and hold American citizens on American soil and to hold them indefinitely without benefit of habeas corpus. In apology for this outrage he says that he will not arrest Americans in his time in power. Apres lui, quoi, le deluge? Did he put a “frowny face” after his signature?
If you’re not familiar with Pat he’s a retired Special Forces colonel and the first instructor of Arabic at West Point (not to mention being a good egg). The paleocons speak.
I think Pat is pretty accurate here. Obama is usually too eager to split the difference. He has compromised and run to the center on almost everything. Afraid to look weak on defense, he abandons civil liberties also.
(The final vote in the Senate on this bill was 93-7. A veto would have been a useless gesture, but would have signaled Obama’s position on this. What I cannot figure out is why all of the ire about this bill has been directed at the POTUS and not Congress.)
Steve
Misdirection. My default position is blaming the Congress for practically everything.
Congress didn’t run on how much better they would be for Civil Rights than the previous Administration, Obama did. Hell, he claimed he’d give all the protections of the US legal system to every single member of al Qaeda whereever they might be, and now he’s signing a bill to suspend the constitutional protections of every American citizen instead. The Constitution is no longer a meaningful document.
At least the forces of justice prevailed in the NFL! The refs screwed Denver, but Pittsburgh got TEBOWED ANYWAY! YEAH BABY!
I have to say I’m with Ice on this. Presidential leadership was needed. It’s a given that the Congress is a collection of cretins and poltroons. We hired Obama in part to deal with those cretins and poltroons. He failed on this. It’s appalling. It’s possibly the most shameful piece of legislation since the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Rising to the level of poltroon would be a tremendous feat of courage for many Congressmen and characterizing them as cretins cuts them too much slack. I don’t think that Mencken was that far off the mark. Boobocracy is a pretty fair description of our form of government.
If you were looking for leadership, Obama was definitely the wrong man. There’s nothing in his background or experience to suggest it. IMO our present electoral system actively discourages leaders from being elected to higher office. I was hoping he’d be more dominated by the foreign policy apparatus than he has been in fact. I’m concerned that he believes that any reasonably intelligent Ivy educated chap can produce a successful foreign policy.
Good lord, Michael and I agree on something. I believe that’s the Four Horsemen calling on line 2….
I don’t think we want to be led. I know we say we do, but we have no willingness to follow. Even right wingers who generally still have a forelock-tugging tendency won’t really follow a man who’s going somewhere they don’t already want to go.
Think of Hannibal crossing the Alps, off on a doomed effort to destroy Rome. His men are freezing, starving, dying left and right. Or the Mormons following Brigham Young. Or to the Russians with Stalin.
What willingness is there in Americans to follow anyone anywhere? We’re people with 200 channels and 20 theatre multiplexes and Amazon with a million books and supermarkets with 100 different cereals. We are all about individual choice, individual preferences, but in making those choices we’re like a flock of sheep without a sheep dog. Everyone’s playing Farmville, so we will, too. We move like a flock of birds, not like a wagon train following a guide with a specific objective.
Americans won’t even adhere to their preferred church’s doctrines. The national motto is supplied by South Park’s Cartman: Screw you guys, I’m going home.
In a democracy it’s the people who carry the ultimate responsibility. There was barely a peep over this law. As far as I could tell, only the denizens of Reddit even noticed. Obama should have vetoed it, but at 97 votes it would have been a gesture. He could have raised hell about it, but would we have paid attention? Who knows, maybe the flock would have cared, maybe not. I never thought I’d see the day Americans would just sit passively and let this happen.
Or maybe I’m just having a bad night and need to drink this Scotch.
Sounds like the new authority is unconstitutional .
Fortunately, we have a way to deal with such laws.
Ponce:
Yeah, but what the hell is the matter with a Congress and POTUS that pass and sign laws on the theory that the SCOTUS will save the country?
Michael,
I just don’t expect much from our elected government officials.
In a defense of Obama on leadership — it’s damned impossible, I submit, to exercise leadership when the opposition continues to act as nothing else than a Ed Wood production Marat/Sade (with the hapless John Boehner in the role of Marat).
sam, I think you’re cutting the president too much slack. When you appoint the former House majority whip (the primary qualification for which is single-minded partisanship) as your chief of staff, you respond to calls for bipartisanship with “there was an election—I won” and “elections have consequences”, and you refuse to meet with the Congressional minority leadership for months after assuming office, IMO it constitutes a prima facie case that the incoming Obama Administration wasn’t interested in bipartisanship. Granted, the Republicans’ response hasn’t been exactly a Profile in Courage. There was an opportunity. The president slammed the door.
Just to make my position clear I think that the intense partisanship on both sides of the aisle, joined with the president’s tepid or nonexistent support for bipartisanship (cf. Simpson-Bowles) and structural or institutional issues like the redistricting system and the Congressional committee structure has cut the legs out from anybody who actually wants reasonable moderate solutions to problems.
Rockefeller Republican? Rockefeller Republicans wouldn’t support the greatest expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society. They wouldn’t be campaigning on a platform consisting almost solely of wealth redistribution — raising taxes on the wealthy.
Obama has a moderate tone, but he is certainly positioned to the Left of Clinton — intentionally so. With a Republican House and closely split Senate, however, he’s become largely neutered and directionless, but still not a Republican.
And the race stuff is kind of bizarre with respect to a man whose thoughts on racial identity are composed at length in a book. Lang’s characterization is way too flippant and demeaning to Obama and Powell.
And the Defense bill stuff just underscores a tenant of foreign policy realism; there is substantial continuity in American foreign policy. This particular provision can be traced back at least to FDR and his court.
Sounds like the new authority is unconstitutional .
Fortunately, we have a way to deal with such laws.
Functionally it’s only unconstitutional if the Supreme Court says it is. What are the odds that this court is going to do that?
And yes, the Declaration is very clear on how to deal with such laws.
People in organizations DO expect leadership. People expect those running those organizations to provide such leadership. We’re not getting that.
There are many different styles and components of leadership. But one thing is paramount – the ability to accept ultimate responsibility. I’ll go back to my current reading on Grant. What separated Grant and Lee from almost everyone else was that they were willing to take ultimate responsibility for their actions – no kvetching about “we need more this, or someone else needs to do that” or any of the rest of it. That was what Lincoln appreciated most in Grant, the ability to take command without making excuses for why he couldn’t do something.
It is a very rare quality, and I don’t see any of it in Washington these days. Obama’s veto would not have held up to an override, but he should have done it anyway if he believed that proviso to be so wrong. How much to fight after that is a separate matter, but it starts with the veto. Instead, he said he doesn’t believe in it and won’t use it but HE SIGNED THE FUCKING BILL INTO LAW ANYWAY. All his talk is disingenuous bullshit – he plans on using this just as he has been hot and heavy to assassinate Americans and anyone else he can point a drone at overseas. It won’t be long before Obama or one of his successors starts assassinating American citizens on American soil.
No excuses for him or anyone else that voted for this or any judge that upholds these laws.
I voted for Obama and I’ll vote for him again. What’s the alternative?
And I cut him a lot of slack for having inherited a mess from people who now do everything they can to perpetuate the mess and obstruct any effort to deal with it. Here you go, Mr. Obama: two wars and a depression, and now that we’ve dropped that load on you, we’ll oppose everything you ever do, no matter what.
But that having been said, no one holds a gun to these guys’ heads and says “Rule over us or else!” They come to us, hat in hand, with promises flowing and say, “Hire me, I can do it!”
Don’t tell us you just have to be the most powerful man on earth and then make excuses. Do or do not, there is no try.
Partisanship is irrelevant. That’s all talk and no action. Where are the major differences between the parties? This Defense Bill passed the Senate 97 to 3. Both sides supported unlimited bail out the banks at the expense of everyone else, threw sops to the people in the form of payroll tax cuts (and the Bush tax cut extension for that matter) and unemployment extensions (started under the Bush Administration, as were at least one if not two stimulus packagaes) and both parties are hot and heavy to screw over the American people for their own profit and power.
What we could use is some actual partisanship from the two parties. Instead we’re getting the illusion of partisanship while they argue about who gets to wear the fancy Captain’s hat, not which direction the ship is going.
And I cut him a lot of slack for having inherited a mess from people who now do everything they can to perpetuate the mess and obstruct any effort to deal with it. Here you go, Mr. Obama: two wars and a depression, and now that we’ve dropped that load on you, we’ll oppose everything you ever do, no matter what.
Bullshit. First, he wanted the job and said he could fix things. Secondly, he clearly told the Republicans to fuck off at the start – he doesn’t get to bitch about partisanship when he has beern a nasty partisan from the get go. Thirdly, other than spending even more money than the Republicans he isn’t doing ANYTHING substantial that they hadn’t already started. Bank bailoouts? Check. Tax cuts for the rich? Check. Payroll tax cuts are an old idea. He finally got out of Iraq about two years after he said he would, and pretty much on a timetable similar to Bush’s. He’s used the Bush Administrations ideas for Iraq on Afghanistan. Like Bush he has continued the expansion of entitlements and regulatory intrusion. Other than spending even faster than Bush the big difference is that Obama plays more golf.
And given that Obama ran on the idea that he opposed EVERYTHING the Republicans were doing, he not only gets pegged as a liar for not being all that different, but he also doesn’t get to claim that we all need to come todgether.
Quit bitching about why you can’t do anything, Mr. President, and do what you can. It’s all just excuse making.
And you can quit cheering for him now, Michael. You are either just a shill for your team , or you were wrong that this man and your party represent anything other than more of the same.
I voted for Obama and I’ll vote for him again. What’s the alternative?
If you keep voting for the guy you think is a disaster because the other guy is going to be a catastrophe, then you will never do better than disasters.
First, he wanted the job and said he could fix things.
I think that’s what I said: Don’t tell us you just have to be the most powerful man on earth and then make excuses. Do or do not, there is no try. Or at least what Yoda said.
I think you’re wrong that he went into confrontation with the GOP, in fact on his signature event, health care reform, he handed it off to Congress after taking the more dramatic proposals off the table. It ended up being a Republican bill — but still the GOP rejected it.
Michael,
How is Obama supposed to “deal” with those cretins and poltroons? The office of the President, even with a large and powerful federal bureaucracy, is pretty limited when it comes to domestic policy.
And really, electing a President to “deal” with Congress is really putting the cart before the horse unless one is hoping for a Caesar which, sadly, seems to be the case for a lot of people. I frankly can’t understand how so many focus on the “solutions” that Presidents campaign on which will, in practice, require legislation from Congress. And then when Congress fails to implement the plan the President promised, the President gets blamed for not showing enough “leadership” to get it passed. The thing is, “leadership” isn’t this magic unicorn that enables Presidents to coerce Congress to be compliant. Partisans inevitably think that if only their guy/gal was “tougher” and showed more “leadership” that somehow all the obstacles would be bypassed. Obviously there’s tribal psychology at work here, but the real leadership deficit is overpromising in the first place and not coming into office with a realistic strategy to actually get things done.
You look at something like the promise to close Gitmo. Congress prevented that by passing amendments that defunded any plans to close Gitmo and any attempts to transfer prisoners to the US. It passed the Senate 90-6. Yeah, he could have vetoed that too to win a few points with some people, but the leadership failure was trying to implement a policy that you know your own side is against. The administration obviously didn’t do its homework on that one. That’s a leadership failure, not symbolic vetoes.
That’s been my feeling for almost every election that I can remember. I don’t know what I’m going to do this time around, but that’s hardly an usual position I find myself in.
Andy:
It comes down for me to what I can do. I can vote for a President, two senators and one representative. I can’t do anything about the fact that the rest of you people vote for cretins and poltroons.
And of course there’s nothing much I can do about the fact that I’m given a choice between just two menu items. It’s like dinner service on an airplane: do you want the mealy fish or the shoe leather beef? A steaming bowl of cioppino isn’t on the menu.
My entire life as a voter it’s been lesser of two evils. My first vote was for Richard Nixon. That was a choice between evil but intelligent and effective on the one hand, and affable but confused on the other.
I don’t regret my vote for Obama. The alternative was worse. And I think Obama has done okay. But just okay, and I’d like to see “fu–ing great!” Just once before I shuffle off this morta coil.
I think you’re wrong that he went into confrontation with the GOP, in fact on his signature event, health care reform, he handed it off to Congress after taking the more dramatic proposals off the table. It ended up being a Republican bill — but still the GOP rejected it.
First, by handing off what was supposed to be his signature domestic policy achievement, Obama abdicated leadership. The President can’t MAKE Congress do anything, but he can lead: by proposing policies, finding sponsors for his proposed legislation, use of the bully pulpit, etc, etc. He didn’t do that, he did nothing – which is exactly what one expects of a non-ambitious back-bencher in the legislation, not the President of the United States of America.
Second, the Republicans have been clear for a long time now that they don’t want national healthcare. Period. There were proposals a long time ago that went no where. That’s because the base didn’t want them to go anywhere, and occassionally the Republicans do listen to their base. (They’re a little more sensitive to election pressures than the Dems, all other things being equal.)
The reason Mitt Romney isn’t a lock for the nomination this time, and didn’t get it last time, is because he passed a state-wide healthcare reform bill. The R-voters DO NOT LIKE THAT. R-legislators know that and act accordingly. Forget all the “labratories of democracy” and states-rights crap, R-voters don’t want government healthcare*.
And the final bill that passed (by hinky parliamentary manipulations) was a bill put together by Harry Reid, got no Republican support and everyone knew ahead of time it would get no Republican support. None. If the only support it got was from Democrats and they weren’t concerned about having to get 60 votes in the Senate, they could write the legislation they wanted. They knew that, so presumably this bill is exactly what they wanted.
You’re blowing smoke, Michael, and it isn’t working. Obama isn’t post-partisan, he’s more of the same. And the partisanship is only for electoral purposes, not governing purposes. You’re either just being partisan yourself, or you are refusing to admit you’ve been hoodwinked.
* Except for their Medicare and VA benefits of course. Consistency isn’t a strength of American voters.
Andy, Presidents have a lot of power when they’re willing to use it. For one thing, the Presidency is the only office* in the land that is voted for by everyone.
Reagan pushed through large parts of his agenda, despite his party never controlling all of Congress during his terms in office. Clinton got more done with a divided Congress than with a control of it. George W. Bush got large parts of his agenda through a Congress that sometimes narrowly belonged to his party, and sometimes was narrowly divided – and he did so despite coming into office by the slimmest of margins.
That ignores older examples. But a forceful and energetic President can get a lot done even in the face of opposition. You’re telling me that Obama couldn’t get much done despite controlling both houses the first two years of his term? That’s a failure of leadership. (Besides, he appears to have gotten everything he thought consequential done in his first two years in office.)
As for issues like Gitmo – as President he would have large amounts of lattitude to act before Congress could take measures to stop him. He did not do so. He either never intended to do so or this constitutional scholar doesn’t know what the Hell he is doing. Or both.
* And the Vice Presidency too, but no one cares about the VP until it really matters – else we wouldn’t have gotten Dan Quayle and Shut-the-fuck-up-Joey Biden. A bucket of warm piss has to have more utility, though for the life of me I can’t think of anything it would be good for except nasty practical jokes.
If you don’t like what’s on the menu, don’t order the food. Similar methods can be applied to politics. Ric Keller or Alan Grayson is no choice at all. (For those of you not familiar with Florida politics, that is roughly the equivalent of getting to choose between having a horse shit on your head, or having a cow shit on your head. The shit analogy isn’t completely proper, however, because it is easier to get the shit out of your hair than it is to get rid of a shitty congressman.)
Ice:
You will not be able to irritate me today, dude. You know why? Because I found someone who actually 1) Does what they say they’ll do, 2) Does it faster than they say they’ll do it, 3) Does it better than I could possibly do it myself, and 4) Actually comes in under — I repeat, under — budget. Joy reigns. It’s better than weed.
Icepick,
So what? That doesn’t give him special powers over Congress, nor should it.
Such as?
Sorry, but you are talking about “leadership” in exactly the sense I described. Another way to look at it is “tactical leadership.” And as far as it goes, I agree he’s done poorly on that count, but tactical leadership is not some kind of magic pony that can get Congress to do what the President wants. Leadership at the strategic/policy level is what matters more because a prospective President needs to know what is achievable and be able to formulate a plan to actually implement his/her vision. In the case of President Obama, it appears that, on many issues, he drank his own koolaid and believed he really could “change Washington” and didn’t come into office with realistic expectations or a realistic plan to carry out his agenda.
And on that point, I don’t know what the President believes or what his vision is beyond some slogans. It seems to me his goal was, first, to be President as the penultimate notch in his resume. Other considerations, like policy, were secondary. It’s ironic that Romney is probably the greatest example of this kind of boomer nihilism (and the other GoP potentials aren’t far behind him) but perhaps Romney is a fitting candidate to run against the President for that reason.
Michael,
I voted for Obama too as the lesser-of-evils but this time around I will likely do what I’ve often done and vote third party.
As I’ve said often enough before I vote for president almost entirely on foreign and military policy. I voted for Obama last time around because
a) I thought he’d stick with the withdrawal plan Bush negotiated under the SOFA with Iraq
b) I thought he’d make a token upgrade in forces in Afghanistan to satisfy his campaign pledge and then begin drawing down
c) I thought he’d avoid additional foreign military adventures
d) I thought he’d be otherwise more-or-less uninterested in foreign policy and delegate the rest to the State Department
One out of four is better than nothing but it’s not a glowing recommendation, either.
So what? That doesn’t give him special powers over Congress, nor should it.
It gives him special power of being able to state (correctly) that he works for ALL the people. That is a powerful tool, one that a supposedly skillful rhetorician should be able to use.
Such as?
The fact that he has executive power over that facility. He can start moving people to or fro before Congress can act. Merely moving people from one jurisdiction to another affords him tremendous lattitude on how detainees are treated under the law. That is why Bush put them there in the first place – a secure base NOT within the United States proper. Obama was going to move to NYC without asking for Congress’s approval – he could have moved them without telling anyone anything.
The fact that he didn’t do so means that he either doesn’t know how to use the office OR he didn’t want the hassle.
One out of four is better than nothing but it’s not a glowing recommendation, either.
Depends on the game. I believe batting .250 in baseball gives one a chance to have a decent career if one has other skills to bring to the table. In academics 25% is failing unless there is a MASSIVE curve. (I have seen curves not far above this, when professors new to teaching intro courses wrote crushing exams.) This score is probably an A+ in government work.
You will not be able to irritate me today, dude.
Oddly enough, I really don’t start with that as a goal. Although you are making it sound like a challenge. Hmmm….
Icepick,
The fact that he technically works for all the people means little by itself since most people did not vote for this President or any other. However, it CAN be a powerful tool but it is dependent on other factors – it is not decisive.
If you think a President can present a fait accompli and overcome the will of a 90+ Senate majority the the majority opinion of the American people then you are kidding yourself. Sure, he could have flown them to NY or somewhere else. Then what?
Now, a President that actually thought about this would understand where the country is on this issue and play the long-game, knowing that it will take time and effort to change minds. That’s what made Reagan, for example, a great leader – he knew how to pick his fights and fit them within a strategy.
However, it CAN be a powerful tool but it is dependent on other factors – it is not decisive.
That’s what we call leadership.
Now, a President that actually thought about this would understand where the country is on this issue and play the long-game, knowing that it will take time and effort to change minds.
Outstanding. Just which long-game is Obama playing by not doing anything on this issue?
That’s not what I meant. To use a reductio ad absurdum example, there’s no amount of “leadership” a President could employ to get a constitutional amendment settling the abortion issue, one way or another. Point being, “leadership,” however you define that, has limits.
I didn’t say he was playing a long game. I suggested that if he understood the issue and really cared about it then he would be playing a long game. He isn’t and you can come to your own conclusions as to why.
Dave,
Unfortunately you are not most of the country and candidates are not really trying to get votes from people such as yourself.