Dear Friends,
At his press conference today, President Obama showed the most emotion when he was rebuking me and other liberals and claiming that we just wanted a fight and didn't really care about the real implications for the American people. This approach is insulting and inappropriate.
I want to make my position clear. I am not opposed to compromise. I do it every day as part of my job. Almost never do I get everything I want, and at the end of the day I must assess whether the package that has been negotiated is worth the cost. My criticism of President Obama is not that he compromises. Unfortunately, his style is to compromise with himself before he starts talking with the Republicans. He seems far more concerned about getting Republican support than he does about getting the legislation that is closest to what he wants.
Part of the problem is that there is no transparency about what he really wants. He needs to start any negotiation by being very clear about what he wants the final legislation to look like. If the Republicans don't like that they can propose changes. Then a negotiation can begin. During the negotiation, President Obama should put the full pressure of the White House and the bully pulpit behind his position. He has never done that.
In the health care debate other than laying out some broad principles, President Obama never laid out in detail what he thought the legislation should look like and then campaigned for that legislation. In the recent Bush tax cut debacle, President Obama signaled very early on that he would compromise. He had a clear position, the polls showed that a majority of the people supported his position, yet he never put the pressure on the Republicans to force them to accept what he and the American people wanted.
If you are the President of the United States, you have legislation that you say you badly want, the legislation makes perfect policy sense, it is legislation that you campaigned on, it is legislation that many members of your party campaigned on, your party has big majorities in both the House and the Senate, the American people overwhelmingly support it, you are a great public speaker, and you are unable to get that legislation passed; that loss must be considered a stupendous failure of your leadership abilities.
In his press conference, President Obama claimed that he would fight any further extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans, but he never could explain why he felt the outcome would be any different than it was this time around. He said he would fight for no tax cuts for the rich, but if he fights the way he did this time, the result will be the same.
It turns out that President Obama is a terrible negotiator and a terrible leader. He has two choices. He can change is style and fight and negotiate the way that a seasoned negotiator would and use his great speaking skills and the power of the Presidency to get most of what he wants. His other choice is to withdraw from the 2012 Presidential race. If he does that he can focus on doing what he believes needs to be done without worrying about re-election. He might be able to save himself a good place in the history books.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
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I am kind of done with him. He's a bit like a QB draft bust in the NFL. Looked great in college, but just isn't up to the challenge in the big leagues. I read an article saying that it's not that he's weak - it's that he actually believes what he is doing is the right path. I kind of hope that's not true and that he just sucks at his job.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of accomplishments to point to, of course, but he just made his position clear. He has no intention of fighting for anything but bipartisanship. He is banking on the fact that we all will vote for him in the next election. And it is true that he is better than President Bush or (Heaven forbid) President Palin. But that's also true of your average inanimate carbon rod (to steal a bit from the Simpsons). He may be less progressive than we are, but it's not too much to ask that he at least follow through with the promises he made during his campaign.
"No intention of fighting for anything but bipartisanship", despite the fact that Republican leaders have disrespected him from day one and never had any significant bipartisan intentions of their own.
ReplyDeleteObama won the election with a head full of steam and instead of plowing ahead and forcing the Republicans to jump on the train or face the wrath of the majority who so desperately wanted CHANGE, he hit the brakes and welcomed Bushies into the conductor seat/his cabinet.
Maybe he thought/thinks the only way he could win in 2012 is if he can sell his bipartisan efforts and steer clear of the "radical" label. Or maybe he determined the economy and jobs were beyond repair and wanted the republicans to share the blame. In either case, that's not the type of leader I thought he would be.
As for negotiations, I personally have found it effective to meet the oppositions move in kind. A handshake for a handshake, a slap in the face for a . . . I admittedly have not been paying close attention to presidential politics these days, but it seems like Boehner and others give nothing and get too much.
Maybe it is politically too late for him to return to the bold rhetoric of his campaign, but I HOPE he does.
Happy holidays!
Casey