There is probably no better time than the State of the Union to render forth my verdict on the first year of the Obama administration. Unlike what the folks in teabagger land think-it has not been the complete disaster they portray it to be-nor has it been as good as some might have thought it was or could have been.
If I had to give Obama a grade-it would be a C+, although my gut feeling errs to the lower grade.-straight C.
Part of the problem does not lie with the President at all-it lies with electorate he was selected to lead. Joe Klein is right and Lex is horribly wrong-a large number of them ARE really stupid and are unable to comprehend the problems that are at hand. As Klein stated-they are too dumb to thrive. Just because there may be a large number of them who may all feel the same way-and because they have the right to be stupid if they so choose-doesn’t make them any smarter. The collective ignorance however, does aggravate Obama’s problem which is primarily of communication. He has yet to communicate with them on terms that they can understand. Most of them anyway. The percentage of the population that operate on my overall level of intellectual brilliance was always small-and has gotten smaller over the last decade.
To paraphrase Rumsfeld-you govern with the people you have, not the people you wish you had.
And clearly Obama has been unable to communicate with them on why they need to pull their heads out of the sand and actually do something about their problems.
When I was a young man-people actually believed that government had a role to play in developing the whole of society-because the one thing that makes America different is that it wants to uplift all of its citizens. Not be like India or China who are perfectly comfortable writing off a third of their population to poverty to ensure life is good for the rest. Even Nixon still stood for that in some of his proposals. Then along came the late 70’s which set the stage and then the Reagan and Clinton eras where Republicans were able to reverse the message: “Government is the source of your problems. Trust in the markets and all will be well.”
The problem was demonstrated clearly in the first decade of this century: Markets don’t fix things and a lot of good hard working people get left behind. Markets are about a large number of losers and a small group of winners. The evidence was there in the 80’s and again in the 90’s and if you weren’t paying attention then-the last nine years should have really driven the point home-the markets, left solely to themselves, have failed the average American.
And that is where Obama really failed. Because he never came up with a coherent, easy to understand, sound bitey, make the people feel good, message about why there are some things that only government can or should do. Because only it has the resources and more importantly the charter, to float all the nations boats. Markets can be partners in that effort-but they can’t be left to do it on their own. They have to be incentivized to do the right thing.
Because otherwise, they won’t.
His opposition was able to come up with a message that resonated-because the majority of the American population was either unwilling or unable to listen to the factual evidence. That by the way was Klein’s main point: “ The Obama Administration has done a terrible job explaining the stimulus package to the American people…especially since there have been very few documented cases of waste so far.”
Substitute “Health care” or “Why Iraq is hurting our long term national interests” or even “Why the Afghan people are hopeless” into that above statement-and it reads the same. The President has done a poor job of communicating the mess we need to extricate ourselves from. Or why the Bush administration deserves so much blame for steering the train off the tracks.
So in this “advanced placement” class of national problems, C’s don’t cut the mustard.
The President needs to be doing it better and harder because he’s only got a limited window of opportunity. More importantly he has yet to rid himself or at the least discipline his two biggest albatrosses: Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Those two people are the face of the Democratic party in America today. And to put it bluntly-as symbols of a party, they suck. More importantly, leaving the business of getting a bill designed and passed up to them has simply played into the hands of his opposition. If Obama hopes to accomplish anything-he’s got to beat the stuffing out of both of them and soon.
Very well, what has Obama done that was right?
Well first of all, he has the right idea about Iraq. That god-forsaken country is a loss leader that will bring us nothing but misery-no matter how hard we try to help them. Every day Americans spend there is wasted resources that could be put to better use. Our objectives in Iraq were accomplished five years ago-we are more than a little late in leaving.
Second, he has done a lot to restore an American image that was tarnished by his predecessor-although its not totally blemish free. Nonetheless, if he can convince the other nations of the world that the US is serious about coming to grips with the new realities of the multi-polar world, the better off we will all be. Much of the last year, I think, has been a temper tantrum by people who should have recognized that the world dominated by the USA is giving way to a new era-where it won’t be two nations in competition-it will be many nations in competition. And there is not a damn thing we can do about it. Obama seems to show that he recognizes it-even if he can’t say it aloud.
He’s not really changed anything from the Bush foreign policy-which he ought to be at least getting some credit for, but he’s not. There’s that communication thing again.
Domestically, he’s right, things could have and would have been, a lot worse without acting to stop the downward slide. However, those masters of the markets, failed to recognize that they had a responsibility too-and as a result they have gotten a pass on really sleazy behavior. If had my way, there would be more than a couple of bankers in jail right now-or hanging from lamp posts. They were supposed to take the money they got and pump it into the markets-but they didn’t. They were more concerned with getting themselves able to pay obscene salaries to their executives.
But here again-that has not been highlighted.
“What we have here-is a failure to communicate”.
And that is why, on balance, the last year has been wasted. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, has it really fallen? It would appear not, because the other side has been doing all the talking. That either changes or the grade point average will decline.