by Madeleine KandoThere is an article in the Sunday New York Times by Drew Western entitled ‘What Happened to Obama?’, in which he accuses the President of being weak and too compromising. He blames him for not having provided the public with a narrative and leadership that they expected from someone they had such high hopes for.
All the things that Obama did: stimulus package, health care reform, credit card reform, bailing out the banks and more, was never explained to the voters. The stimulus package, which was too small to be effective, was perceived as the government, yet again, spending money we didn't have. The Health Care Bill was attacked so viciously by the opposition, including the fabricated 'Death Panels', that no one really understood the benefits of it.
The article goes on to describe Obama as an inexperienced, conflict averse, opportunist, whose policies are motivated by wanting to be re-elected.
Western compares him, unjustly in my view, to leaders like FDR whom the author idolizes. 'FDR had a clear vision where to take the country. He branded the depression as a Hoover depression. President Obama did not tell the story right' Western says. All the things that he is now blamed for: unemployment, economic crisis., are Bush creations, but he is too polite to put the blame where it belongs (my words).
Many of his speeches have contradictions. He is talking about supporting off-shore drilling in a 'climate change' speech.
'Most importantly, voters in the center want a President who shows strength. To satisfy both sides and thinking that that will make people in the middle happy is an illusion. Clinton was a centrist too, but he came across as strong. This president has blinked'. Western even goes as far as saying that President Obama is of the opinion that government is the problem, not the solution.
Ok. So what exactly is Obama blamed for? For not being born a salesman? I agree with that. He couldn't sell ME a pair of shoes even if he tried. But is it fair to blame him for the incredible hatred from the Republican Party for him? It is like blaming a rape victim for being raped.
I understand that most of us are looking for a scapegoat. That is the nature of the beast. When things get tough the tough start blaming. But is it going to change anything to blame Obama for a dysfunctional government? Does it make sense to take out your frustration on someone whose hands are tied behind his back?
When Obama tried to pass the health care bill, there was a lot of resistance to it both in the House and the Senate. But he did it. Did we already forget about that? He blinked a few times, yes. When he chose to extend the tax cut so that the unemployment benefits wouldn't be cut as a counter-measure. He blinked when the Republicans were willing to let the US default on its debt.
When you are hated so much by the opposition that nothing you do will ever change your opponents' hatred of you, do you really need to be hated by your 'friends' as well? leave comment here
12 comments:
To scapegoat means to assign to an other or others, outcomes for which they have no responsibility. The scapegoat is not a cause. The scapegoat is an effect.
Obama's role in occupying the office of President entails the greatest responsibility in our nation. His job is to be a cause and not an effect. He cannot, by definition, be a scapegoat. In other words, no matter what happens by way of decisions made, initiatives taken, adversarial battles fought, or responses made to unforeseen acts of God--a leader is only a leader because he or she makes decisions in a timely fashion and assumes responsibility to followers for the consequences of those decisions.
When effective leaders lead in wrong directions, followers can stop following and chose to follow another. But the ineffective leader commits the error of abandoning their followers because they lead in no direction at all. In doing so, they cast the fate of their followers to the winds, leaving them adrift to fend for themselves upon an uncaring sea.
Obama needs to hear from those who need him to lead. His job is to be their causal agent and not a mere effect. His job is not to be a mediator between disparate warring factions. His job is to lead with conviction and a constancy of purpose or to die trying.
Evidence to the contrary, leading a nation of people is not a game. Lives depend on it.
A scapegoat is someone who gets blamed for the mistakes of others. A scapegoat is neither a cause nor an effect. It is a tool to make others vent their frustration.
I am sure he is listening to his critics, on either side. I just wish that someone would give him credit for the many things he HAS done.
Not to belabor the point, but if you think about it, your person who "gets blamed for the mistakes of others" is product---an effect---produced by the blamers.
More importantly, with regard to Obama, you "scapegoat", you say I and others should...
"...give him credit for the many things he HAS done."
Economic Advisory Team: 100% Wall Street mavens.
Tarp Fund: 80%-90% to bailout Wall Street firms, Banks, corporations and speculative investors who created the crisis. Very little to public works.
Health Care: Universal mandate (likely to be declared unconstitutional) that creates historic boom for private insurance companies and does virtually nothing to decrease costs or increase affordability.
Afghanistan: 70% escalation of hopeless/endless war against...???
Wall Street/Bank Regulation: Made fine print on on credit card contracts somewhat bigger and fractionally increase capitalization requirements but otherwise left business as usual.
Corporate Profits: At record highs. 1.4 trillion in cash siting in corporate coffers.
Unemployment Since 2008: No significant change.
Home Prices and Forclosures: Increasing across the board..
Wealth Polarization: Increasing at an increasing rate.
State Governments: Melting down.
Bush Tax Cuts: Still in effect.
Debt v. Stimulus Debate: Focus is now on debt.
Congress: Paralyzed.
Gitmo: Still in business.
Patriot Act: Civil rights infringements still in full force.
Libya: Military intervention to support insurrection by unknown sectarian and tribal forces.
Middle East: In the middle.
Iraq: We're still there and begging them to let us stay longer.
Soc. Sec. and Medicare: Now regarded as negotiable items in the budget wars.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Don't ask.
Politics: Extremism on the right becoming increasingly extreme.
Electorate as a whole: More confused than ever.
Have Obama's mediations between warring ideological camps made our likely future better or worse?
This is certainly a debatable matter, but by my reckoning the future does not look by increments, a little bit better. Instead it looks a good deal worse. In taking a middle road that constantly veers right, Obama has strengthened the hand of the forces of darkness that massing in the wings.
In the late 70's, Jimmy Carter, a most well intentioned but rather ineffectual leader, set the stage for a sea change that began with the election of Ronald Reagan and continues today. Now, we are faced with a similar situation, except that the stakes are much, much higher.
My vote for Obama in the 2012 election is a foregone conclusion. An ineffective leader is better than an obviously wrong-headed leader and third parties "can't" win as things now stand.
I had honestly hoped that the election of Obama represented a milestone in U.S. history, but today it seems quite possible that his election was more a matter of style rather than one of substance. The course we were on before his election remains largely unchanged today. Could Obama have done better or has he been merely a victim of his circumstance, making do as best he could?
Although circumstances limit what is possible in any given time and place, if we accept the idea that we are victims of circumstance, we must abandon all hope of ever doing better because we are always fully embedded in our circumstance.
Maybe I am just a grumbling old man. Some say that all of this is just another tempest in a teapot---that the pendulum of history swings this way and that. Just now I am reading "To End All Wars". It is a fascinating account of the events leading up to WWI and in particular, of those who protested what their
"good" leaders were doing. That tempest in a teapot cost 20,000,000 lives and shaped the course of history going forward in ways that have yet to be tallied.
Marc: You are confusing policy with political reality. There is more than one cook in the kitchen and blaming the chef for everyone’s mistakes is wrong.
Just one example of your attempt at using Obama as a scapegoat is the Universal Mandate. A universl mandate is the ONLY way that health care for all is possible. It is NOT a lack of vision on Obama’s part.
I understand your frustration. But I do believe that, God willing, Obama will go down in history, not as an ineffectual, oppotunistic weakling, but as the first President who made Universal Health care a reality in this country.
We disagree about the nature of reality and the role of leadership in changing it.
The mandate to purchase health insurance from private insurers who increase costs by 20% plus and litigate to avoid compensation to those in need, was the "only" reality because Obama dropped the public option. Once that was gone, what remained was a recipe for substandard care and tantamount to a tax on those who can least afford it. Like the Bush deal with big pharmaceuticals companies, it was corporatist "solution" if ever there was one. It was a bad outcome for those who needed as solution most.
The realities you mention are what Obama was hired to change. Regressive taxation, bailouts for rich speculators, corporatist banking policies, deep water oil extraction, nuclear power proliferation, failure to fund jobs directly, failure to force the hand of banks, military adventures abroad, and circumvention of civil rights are all realities that need to be changed. As I see it, Obama's approach to the job of leadership has accomplished little of what needs doing.
The tragic reality is that I am not alone in seeing this. If he loses the presidency and/or senate in 2012 he must stand accountable for that outcome as well, in which case, we all lose, if only because the alternative is even worse.
You are being very hard on Obama. Yes, it would have been nice to have a public option. It was Obama’s preference too. I do think that the new Health Care Law has great value, even without the public option.
Prohibiting insurance companies from refusing someone with a pre-existing condition and extending health insurance to 36 million Americans (approximately the population of Canada) is a step in the right direction, don’t you think?
If Obama had pushed harder, like Clinton did, would we even have accomplished that?
Do I have it wrong about the new healthcare plan?
Insurance companies can no longer refuse to insure people based on "pre-existing" conditions, but they can set the price of insurance for people with PECs however they like.
Sounds like the insurance companies win and consumers lose. Correct me if I am wrong.
You are certainly correct in one thing though. I have been hard on Obama. I suppose it's because Obama was the first presidential candidate since I reached voting age, that I did not regard as the lesser of two evils. I hoped he could be a game-changer. He's turned out to be more of game player than changer. Quite a let down for me, and it seems, for much of the world as well.
But shouldn't we be hard on our leaders? Isn't why they get paid the big bucks?
----Tangential rant follows------
As far as I can tell, Obama's leadership has got millions hunkered down in the trenches, just like the Western Front in WWI. The sides of a trumped-up conflict, are stalemated, gaining a few yards first this way, then losing them that way. In the meantime Fat Cats behind the lines just keep raking in wartime profits.
One would think the soldiers in the trenches would put down their weapons and quit the game---fire the generals, pack-up and go home. They could, it would seem, just decide to put the war profiteers out of business.
Maybe that's what's really been going on in the cities of England. Maybe Cameron's urban "criminals" are just a bunch of youngsters who are just saying No! Enough is enough! Silly kids.
They say that radicals become conservative with advancing age, implying that substituting a view to the future with one to the past, reflects increased wisdom. Seems to me that it is actually a case of PTSD. Those not completely bought-off get so shell-shocked, they just give up and hunker down in the muddy trenches of their reduced aspirations and let the rats nibble at their toes.
The frustration of people's efforts to make things better is not due to human nature. If it were due to human nature, ROEWs (Rats of Exorbitant Wealth) would not need to spend so much of their wealth, power and influence convincing their soldiers that humans are naturally hateful and warlike toward each other. (See " original sin", "social darwinism" and "free market theory".)
So if not leader Obama, then who will change the game? Better said, how to change the game? You've got yours and I've got mine, but driving hybrid cars, recycling trash and eating organic foods just won't do it.
We are on the wrong course, of that I am certain, and time really is running out. We need to change the game and as far as I can tell, player Obama isn't helping.
PS - ROEWs: Religious Hierarchs, Aristocrats, Royals, Oligarchs, Plutocrats, Capitalists, and all the other ISTs who controlling more wealth than they or I can count in a lifetime of counting.
Marc:
Section 2704 of the new Health Care bill states very clearly that health insurance companies can not deny coverage or charge more for people with pre-existing medical conditions.
The problem is that it won't go into effect until 2014. In the meantime there is a government program called the 'Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan'(PCIP) run by the US. Dept. of Health and Human Services.
Section 2704 sounds a bit better, though I wonder what "more" really means, since healthcare plans and qualifiers vary so much. At my age and today's rates, I could not afford the cost of any useful coverage. Luckily, my wife is still working and has coverage that is good enough, I suppose.
My son just sent me a video link that says it well from my point of view. Despite our disagreement about Obama's accomplishments, I am guessing you will like it very much, as would Tom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdANElmRU6k
Best,
Marc
I think that a part of the problem with Obama's administration is that they were entering into an impossible situation. I remember many comments from news agencies saying that the economy and government were going to get worse and that whoever became president would be blamed for the state of affairs, well I guess those reporters were right. On the other hand I think that the public was expecting more results from a man that had the campaign slogan "Yes, we can!"
In an article in Time Magazine, Fareed Zakaria also refers to Drew Western's critique of Obama. He comes to the conclusion that Obama's 'Centrist' position is NOT because of childhood trauma (an aversion to conflict), but a simple pragmatic approach to a country devided over core issues.
If people expected more it is because of short memories, a lack of attention to detail and wishful thinking.
omg, after 3 years of failed leadership and you are still defending the clown. He's too plaintive, too "talk-but-no-action". The guy dragged his sorry ass all over Europe to apologize for America's arrogance instead of demonstrating America's exceptionalism. If he was in Asia and he say stuffs like he did, he would be tried and found guilty of treason. The guy preached unity but we Americans are too further divided since he took over the Executive Branch. The guy compromised his own principles and belief and bow to Hispanics for votes. His Atty General has permitted several Latin American countries to join the lawsuit against the State of Arizona. That is so UNAMERICAN. He is the Chief, he has to protect American interest, not bowing to illegal immigrants. America is broke, THE WELL HAS DRIED UP. Time to shut the door on illegal immigrants and fully enforce immigration laws..like deporting illegal aliens back to their homeland. If we were to talk about Obama, I can provide you with a long list of disdain. I just hope the left wakes up from their fairy tale dreams of one world where everyone hold hands and sing Kumbaya...It's funny that the left has nothing to praise him but still defend his incompetence and cover up his stupidity.
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