{"id":815,"date":"2011-08-01T22:13:48","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T22:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=815"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:04:37","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:04:37","slug":"obamas-base-boos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/08\/obamas-base-boos\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s Base Boos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Ross Douthat is a good sport. In today\u2019s column,<\/strong><\/a> he dissects President Obama\u2019s mistakes with an objectivity, even a sympathy, that few conservative commentators would bother to muster. Indeed, the project doesn\u2019t seem to have taken much brain sweat at all. In each of the year\u2019s crises, from Libya to the debt ceiling, Douthat sees the same pattern at work: staking out a patch of safe middle ground, Obama manages to skirt catastrophic failure, but only at the expense of anything like bankable success:<\/p>\n

The same pattern has played out in the debt ceiling debate. Instead of drawing clear lines and putting forward detailed proposals, the president has played Mr. Compromise \u2014 ceding ground to Republicans here, sermonizing about Tea Party intransigence and Washington gridlock there, and fleshing out his preferred approach reluctantly, if at all. <\/p>\n

The White House no doubt figured that this negotiating strategy would either lead to a bipartisan grand bargain or else expose Republican extremism \u2014 or better still, do both. And again, the strategy is arguably working. Americans were given a glimpse of right-wing populism\u2019s reckless side last week, and the final deal will probably let the president burnish his centrist credentials just in time for 2012. <\/p>\n

But winning a debate on points isn\u2019t a substitute for looking like a leader. It\u2019s one thing to bemoan politics-as-usual when you\u2019re running for the White House. It\u2019s quite another to publicly throw up your hands over our \u201cdysfunctional government\u201d when you\u2019re the man the voters put in charge of it<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Salon,<\/i> Steve Almond proves Douthat\u2019s point with a scream of anguish.<\/strong><\/a> Titling his piece \u201cThe President We Wish We Had,\u201d Almond runs through Obama\u2019s record issue by issue, comparing the president\u2019s actual \u2014 and to his mind, mealy-mouthed \u2014 statements with the thundering rebukes he\u2019d rather have heard:<\/p>\n

The stimulus debate <\/p>\n

What Obama said: <\/p>\n

It is absolutely true that we can\u2019t depend on government alone to create jobs or economic growth. That is and must be the role of the private sector. But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life.<\/p>\n

What we wish he\u2019d said: <\/p>\n

For eight years, the GOP did the loyal bidding of their corporate sponsors. They sucked hard-earned cash from the pockets of working Americans and funneled it to the gambling addicts of Wall Street, who, in turn, trashed the economy and left millions out of work. It\u2019s now my job to clean up their mess. Until such a time as the private sector grows a set of balls \u2013 and a conscience \u2013 the government will have to help. To those Republicans now whining about excess spending: You had your shot. You blew it. Unless you\u2019d care to explain why you spent the taxpayers\u2019 money like a drunk frat boy at a Las Vegas whorehouse, shut the fuck up and get out of the way.<\/p>\n

Healthcare reform <\/p>\n

What Obama said: <\/p>\n

Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.<\/p>\n

What we wish he\u2019d said: <\/p>\n

The reason our healthcare system is broken is because we\u2019ve put corporations in charge of curing the sick. Period. Your illness \u2014 or that of your child \u2014 isn\u2019t a moral burden to insurance companies. It\u2019s a financial opportunity. Which is why they keep jacking up your premiums while paying millions to their CEOs and lobbyists. The fundamental mission of the modern conservative movement is to get people to blame the government for their problems, so corporations can go on fleecing them. Conservatives can\u2019t stand Medicare precisely because it proves that the government does a better job of providing medical care people than corporations. They are right to be terrified about a government takeover of health care. If our nation finds a cheaper and more compassionate path to healing, some of their biggest donors will be put out of business. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And so on. But if, among members of Obama\u2019s base, Almond\u2019s reaction ranks among the rawest, it\u2019s far from the most cynical. Also in Salon,<\/i> Glenn Greenwald argues<\/strong><\/a> that the debt ceiling deal represents no failure on Obama\u2019s part; the man\u2019s wanted to slash the budget all along:<\/p>\n

As I wrote back in April when progressive pundits in D.C. were so deeply baffled by Obama\u2019s supposed \u201ctactical mistake\u201d in not insisting on a clean debt ceiling increase, Obama\u2019s so-called \u201cbad negotiating\u201d or \u201cweakness\u201d is actually \u201cshrewd negotiation\u201d because he\u2019s getting what he actually wants (which, shockingly, is not always the same as what he publicly says he wants). In this case, what he wants \u2014 and has long wanted, as he\u2019s said repeatedly in public \u2014 are drastic spending cuts. In other words, he\u2019s willing \u2014 eager \u2014 to impose the \u201cpain\u201d Cohn describes on those who can least afford to bear it so that he can run for re-election as a compromise-brokering, trans-partisan deficit cutter willing to \u201ctake considerable heat from his own party.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

None of these pundits claims the last word, but still, you get the idea: the natives \u2014 or at any rate, a significant proportion of them \u2014 are getting restless. According to Gallup, Obama\u2019s approval ratings are down at 40%, which Douthat calls \u201cGeorge W. Bush-esque.\u201c At this rate, Obama will head into the 2012 elections looking like the second coming of John Kerry. That is, he\u2019ll be nobody for Democrats to vote for, just someone through whom they can vote against whoever the GOP picks; an unsatisfying form of protest. \u201cRibbon-in-Chief\u201c is not a job I\u2018d care to buck for.. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat is a good sport. In today\u2019s column, he dissects President Obama\u2019s mistakes with an objectivity, even a sympathy, that few conservative commentators would bother to muster. Indeed, the project doesn\u2019t seem to have taken much brain sweat at all. In each of the year\u2019s crises, from Libya to the debt ceiling, Douthat sees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,74,188],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-economy","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nObama's Base Boos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ross Douthat is a good sport. 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