Obama's long game

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Obama’s long game

January 18, 2012 by Arun

Andrew Sullivan has the strongest argument I’ve seen lately for Obama’s reelection—not that I personally need any convincing—and where he rubbishes the right—not hard to do—and critiques the left in the process. Read it here.

Posted in USA: politics | 19 Comments

19 Responses

on January 18, 2012 at 23:16 | Reply Fake Herzog

“Rubbishes the right”? I don’t think so:

http://patterico.com/2012/01/17/when-andrew-sullivan-is-useful/

Strong argument and Andrew Sullivan don’t belong in the same sentence together.

Having said all of that, I do think Obama will be tough in the general as I think the American people like their government goodies and are deeply divided over the scope and role of government. I also think the President deserves some praise for his continuation of Bush-era foreign/national-security policy.
on January 18, 2012 at 23:24 | Reply Fake Herzog

P.S. I wouldn’t think of bothering you with a discussion of religion if we were to meet in Chicago — I’ll be too busy asking you questions about France — a country I’ve visited briefly once and I’m anxious to go back to again. I love France — especially good French food and good French films (I just saw “Tell No One” on DVD which I thought was very good, even if the central premise was kind of silly). I also like French history — Remember the Vendee!
on January 19, 2012 at 00:05 | Reply CCinna

@Arun
@Fake Herzog
I agree with FH about Andrew Sullivan, and about underestimating how difficult it will be to defeat Obama, a sitting President. The election will be about Obama, the economy, and Obama’s total failure to fulfill his promise for “Hope & Change” which hasn’t worked out fir anybody except his crony Capitalist pals and the Chicago thugocracy that rules Washingto

  You contradict your own argument for the reelection of Obama in your preceding post where you cite but one instance where Obama has governed in an extra-constitutional manner by signing into law the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, a blatant act of pandering to shore up what he kniws are hus weak National Security credentials and bungled incoherent foreign policy. When pertaining to American citizens, it blatantly violates the 4th amendment right to due process in the Constitution, one of the fundamental rights of citizens that amounts to a bill of attainder. It will not withstand constitutional scrutiny and will be thrown out by the Supreme Court.
  Only someone with profound contempt for the Constitution and the induvidual rights guaranteed within would even think to attempt this ultimate violation of rights when the actual state of the Union is not at stake.
   This is not the first time Obama has tried to put forward his agenda & worldview with an attempted end run around the Constitution. He believed it is an outdated 18th c document written by dead white men, and no longer valid nor relevant as the supreme law of the land. Indeed, Obama’s State Dept legal advisor, Harold Koh has written extensively about giving animals the right to sue in US courts!
  In his recent latest legal setback Obama lost in SCOTUS in an almost unheard of 9-0 unanimous decision about a church’s religious liberty.
  The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the government should not interfere with religious groups’ internal affairs in the case of a disgruntled former employee of a Lutheran school.
   That means all justices agreed with the opinion written by CJ John Roberts, a conservative. All- including the leftist Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, Kagan & Sotomayor.
  Obama has no record to run on.
  Andrew Sullivan is a disgruntled former conservative who is a single issue thinker. And blinded by his thinking, which is not done with the head on his shoulders!
on January 19, 2012 at 17:06 | Reply Arun

@CCinna: Re your “You contradict your own argument for the reelection of Obama in your preceding post”… I anticipated this before your comment and was going to add it as an addendum to the post. Obama’s record in this particular domain has been disappointing to miserable. It would be worse with a Republican in the White House (and it was Bush-Cheney who initiated all this to begin with, after all). The way I will respond to a left-wing detractor of Obama’s who brings this up – and they are many (including numerous personal friends) – is to quote a liberal commentator (I can’t remember who offhand), who drew a parallel with FDR and the internment of Japanese-Americans, saying that while reprehensible this did not undermine FDR’s many acheivements or give an argument for not supporting him for reelection in ’44.
- on January 19, 2012 at 20:39 | Reply CCinna
  
  The FDR analogy does not hold up. We were at war; the Empire of Japan attacked us and declared war against the US. Ditto for Abraham Lincoln, who suspended Habeus Corpus during the Civil War. That argument to your leftist friends is a hollow one.
  
  Obama has shown a flagrant disdain & disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law. This is but one instance.
  
  Saying that someone else would be worse does not justify violating the Constitution which is the law of the land. When Obama promised to “fundamentally transform America” this is exactly what he had in mind.
  - on January 19, 2012 at 23:02 Arun
    
    @CCinna: Uh, for the past decade – and particularly between late ’01 and early ’09 – Americans have been told by politicians and the media that America is “at war” and that POTUS is a “wartime president.” I have strenuously objected to this, BTW, as you will note in my post “9/11 and America at war,” posted on 9/11/11.
on January 21, 2012 at 10:21 | Reply dojero

Andrew Sullivan’s take on Obama is rife with omissions; he frankly doesn’t bother to address most of the criticisms from the left at all. Perhaps as important, his rebuttal of the right’s criticisms are that Obama actually supports their causes more than they know!

Consider: Sullivan tells the Republicans that they’re wrong about Obama’s health care reform because it is after all not that much of a change. But that’s precisely why it’s so bad. Obama spent an enormous amount of political capital and ended up with a pathetic private insurance plan instead of a national health care program.

Sullivan mentions Obama’s stimulus program of $750 billion without noting that what was needed was a stimulus package twice that size. And without saying that the stimulus included far too much in the way of tax cuts and tax rebates instead of the needed job programs and infrastructure development.

Sullivan suggests (a brief comment in the article) that somehow Obama’s “long game” is to challenge Netanyahu’s settlement program in Israel/Palestine. What a strange claim this is! Netanyahu effectively told Obama and the US to go to hell when the US even hinted at not wanting the settlements to continue. There is no “long game”.

Sullivan says that Obama’s administration doesn’t torture. We don’t actually know this, of course, since no administration admits to torturing prisoners (Bush’s administration denied it throughout Bush’s two terms). What we do know, and what Sullivan doesn’t mention, is that Obama has illegally used drone missiles to kill innocent civilians in Pakistan and that Obama has illegally killed a US citizen abroad without that citizen being charged with a crime or having the benefit of trial. This murder is something that even George W. Bush didn’t do. But it is surely in keeping with Bush’s disregard for US law.

Sullivan suggests that Obama has fulfilled one third of his campaign promises, as though this is evidence of success. Talk about seeing the glass half full. Indeed, Obama’s omissions are as serious as his outright failures. They include non-action on immigration issues, the continuing embargo of Cuba, non-action on the prosecution of anyone in the Bush administration for their war crimes and violations of US law, non-action on providing relief for the victims of the Lesser Depression being suffered in the US, and failure to prosecute any of the bankers or other financial industry criminals.

Speaking of which, Sullivan boasts that the bailout of the auto industry and banking industry were successes for Obama. But that ignores the fact that the banking industry is still in terrible shape and that Obama missed the opportunity to nationalize the largest banks that perpetrated the crimes (specifically Citi and Bank of America).

I could, of course, go on, but the point, I think, is made. The reason to vote for Barack Obama in 2012 has nothing to do with his pathetic performance since 2008. It has only to do with his opposition, all of whom seem more than prepared to do even more damage to the country than the current president.
- on January 21, 2012 at 10:54 | Reply Arun
  
  @dojero: I am not unsympathetic to much of what you say here. I’ve critiqued Obama on a lot of this myself over the past three years (and on this blog since I launched it), notably on health care (in not pressing hard enough for a public option) and dealing with Wall Street. But one cannot underestimate the opposition he’s had to confront in Congress, not only the GOP but Democrats bought and owned by special interests. Obama of course has to take responsibility for his failings but much of it is systemic. There are major problems in America’s structure of government, of its political institutions, that both undermine democracy and make it very difficult to bring about major reform in the short term, and particularly in a progressive direction.
  
  In any case, your last two sentences sum up the situation for the left.
  - on January 21, 2012 at 11:15 dojero
    
    Thanks for that response. I would challenge only your suggestion that Obama’s failures are systemic more than they can be ascribed to his own shortcomings. While it is of course true that the Democrats in Congress are bought and owned by special interests, that is also true of the Democrat in the White House.
    
    One of the reasons behind Obama’s failures in dealing with economic crisis is that he chose as his advisers the very people who were part of the problem. It looked like an alumni gathering of Goldman Sachs every time a meeting was held at the White House.
    
    Obama today faces impossible opposition in Congress. But that wasn’t true when he was elected. He squandered a huge majority in both houses in the first two years in office. That wasn’t systemic failure; that was a failure of will on the part of the president.
    
    But we do agree in the end. Never in the history of the country has such a woeful lot sought the nomination of their party as is currently seeking the Republican nomination. While George W. Bush was probably the worst president in history, if one of these guys gets elected, it’s possible even his record will be surpassed.
    
    So yes, the leftists must vote for Obama. But no, we should not pretend that he’s been a good president (which is how Sullivan would have it).
  - on January 21, 2012 at 12:24 Arun
    
    Obama’s shortcomings are well-known and on which I have had several posts on this blog. What I mean by systemic is the undemocratic structure of certain institutions of government and as mandated by the Constitution (a flawed document), notably the structure of the Senate—with two Senators per state regardless of population, which seriously distorts representation and in what is no doubt the most powerful legislative body in the world—, lifetime appointment of Supreme Court justices and who act as legislators—thus saddling the polity with rulings such as Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. FEC, and over which there is no recourse—, and of course the electoral college, which, among other things, distorts the entire electoral process in giving outsized importance to particularistic interests in swing states (in which the majority of the electorate does not live). Trying to bring about major change in short order is just very difficult with these systemic constraints.
    
    There is also the reality of institutions and the way they work. E.g. in the areas of defense, national security, and foreign policy, there are major institutional actors and ways of thinking that a president has to deal with (the military, foreign policy establishment, intelligence community, etc). He cannot simply snap his fingers and make things happen. And his cabinet and other appointments will necessarily come from these milieux (a president who appoints rank outsiders unknown in Washington as top policy advisers will come up against a brick wall).
    
    This is also (unfortunately) true with the economy. A propos, Obama is not bought and owned by special interests here. But he does seem to be enthralled by the Goldman Sachs/high finance world. He’s been rubbing elbows with the people for a while—beginning at Harvard—and it’s rubbed off on him.
    
    As for lefties, I informed already disappointed lefty friends in early ’09 that Obama was as good it as would ever get for them, at least for the foreseeable future.
    
    Voilà my new campaign slogan: it’s the system, stupid!
  - on January 21, 2012 at 16:36 dojero
    
    I’m interested in your comments about systemic problems. I agree with much of what you’ve written, but wonder how you can explain the far more significant advances that the system was able to achieve under presidents before Obama. For examples (staying in the 20th century), consider FDR’s New Deal changes and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society changes.
    
    When Obama ran in 2008, I think there were many on the left who wrongly expected that kind of systemic change and that kind of leadership. Obviously, he hasn’t come even remotely close. But I don’t think it’s systemic only (else how did Roosevelt and Johnson overcome the same systemic issues); it’s the fact that Obama simply isn’t a progressive man.
  - on January 22, 2012 at 13:24 Arun
    
    @dojero: On systemic problems and explaining “the far more significant advances that the system was able to achieve under presidents before Obama.” FDR’s New Deal happened at an exceptional moment in history, when unemployment was at 25% and the very capitalist system itself was threatened, thus giving legitimacy to the new economic paradigm of Keynesianism. And FDR had of course come into office in a landslide victory and with huge majorities in the House and Senate (a lot of the Dems were Southern but so long as FDR didn’t talk about improving the condition of the Negro – to use the terminology of the era – he wouldn’t have a problem with them). All of the New Deal legislation was enacted during FDR’s first term. But he started to have problems in his second term, particularly in the response to the 1937 recession (Krugman has written a lot about this), and which led to big Republican gains in the 1938 midterms. It was ultimately the war which pulled America out of the economic doldrums and saved FDR’s legacy.
    
    As for LBJ, almost all of the Great Society legislation happened in 1965, in the wake of the landslide victory against Goldwater – considered an extremist at the time – and with big Dem majorities in Congress. Civil rights legislation could be passed thanks to liberal Republicans – there was such a species at the time – and the Southern Dems – who controlled many congressional committees through the seniority system – could be bought off with government spending in their states and districts. The economy was running at full employment, the real GDP growth rate was over 6%, and Keynesianism was intellectually hegemonic. But the Dems still suffered a big setback in the 1966 midterms, then there was 1968, and the rest is history.
    
    So what we see here is that when there is major change via legislation, it occurs in the wake of a big electoral victory and within a narrow political window of opportunity. In this respect Obama should not be sold short. More than one liberal analyst argued in late 2010 that Obama had been the most activist Democratic president since LBJ and had a more than honorable record of accomplishments as a liberal and given the circumstances. And one can hardly claim that he has governed to the right of Bill Clinton.
  - on January 22, 2012 at 16:50 dojero
    
    @Arun: Your response on the Johnson and Roosevelt changes seems to me to come to an odd conclusion. While Obama’s victory in 2008 wasn’t of quite the magnitude of either Johnson’s or Roosevelt’s, it was massive, including a huge majority in both houses of Congress. If indeed that’s the formula for change, Obama had it all.
    
    You suggest that somehow he did something with all that political power. While I’d agree that we couldn’t expect the New Deal or the Great Society, I’d argue that Obama didn’t come up with anything.
    
    Obama’s economic policies weren’t just not Rooseveltian, they weren’t even close to adequate by the standards of the pre-eminent Keynesian economist of our day, Paul Krugman. And that wasn’t hindsight from Krugman, he lambasted Obama for caving to the Republicans before the stimulus was put into play.
    
    Obama’s health care plan isn’t even close to the Medicare system that Johnson initiated. And again, there were plenty of commentators who warned Obama that by continually seeking “bipartisanship”, he was dooming his program to failure (see Krugman again, for one of many).
    
    To argue that Obama isn’t to the right of Clinton is to damn with faint praise indeed. Bill Clinton is the president who dismantled the welfare system in the US and then put in the three strikes laws for felons, resulting in a terrible increase in the numbers of young black men receiving life sentences.
    
    Obama is not a liberal (nor was Clinton). They’re centrists. It makes more sense to compare Obama to Nelson Rockefeller or Charles Percy than it does to compare him to Roosevelt or Johnson.
    
    The point is: Obama wasn’t held back in 2008 by the systemic problems; he was held back by his own centrist approach to governing.
    
    What’s amazing is that Americans have come to accept the 70s Rockefeller Republicanism as the liberal side of the spectrum. But that doesn’t make it so. There are many of us who remember the campaigns of Robert Kennedy, George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy and realize how far to right the Democratic Party has moved.
  - on January 24, 2012 at 10:41 Arun
    
    @dojero: You’re selling Obama short. It is simply not the case “that Obama didn’t come up with anything.” The health care bill (“Obamacare”) was no small matter, despite its limits. It was not a réformette. Comparing Obama to LBJ is neither here nor there. That was a different era, when, as I mentioned, Keynesianism was hegemonic, the US economy was booming, and the Republicans were not as crazy as they are now. Also: the labor movement was a major actor back then (cf. nowadays) and states still enjoyed a measure of sovereignty in the economic domain (i.e. when financial markets didn’t call the shots). As for attaching labels – liberal, centrist – or denying them, I think this a futile waste of time. I don’t even know what it means anymore to be a liberal (or centrist).
    
    Take a look at the article I just posted on the Obama memos.
  - on January 22, 2012 at 06:28 CCinna
    
    @Arun & Dojero
    “The reason to vote for Barack Obama in 2012 has nothing to do with his pathetic performance since 2008. It has only to do with his opposition”
    In America, a candidate can never win on a platform of “I’m not the other guy”
    A POTUS who has his own base believing that his performance has been “pathetic” is in big trouble for reelection.
  - on January 22, 2012 at 11:02 dojero
    
    @CCina: I don’t know why you say that a president can’t win election by saying ‘I’m not the other guy.’ I think that was actually one of the reasons Obama won in 2008. I think many people voted for Obama because he wasn’t John McCain (who, in fairness, was seen as an extension of George Bush). Bush was so unpopular that no Republican had a chance of winning that election. It made no difference who the Democrat was.
    
    And I’m not sure what you consider Obama’s “base” to be. Certainly, it’s not real leftists, who have always been uneasy about their alliance with Obama. Leftists in the US are always either voting for the lesser of two evils or writing in a candidate. I don’t think there’s ever been a leftist candidate from one of the two major parties.
    
    If, instead, you mean the liberals in the Democratic Party are Obama’s base, then I’d say that while they’ve been disappointed by Obama’s performance, they continue to have hope in his future. They’ll have no problem voting for him.
    
    The real question, I think, is who the people in the middle will vote for. In general, I think those people will stay away from the Republican candidate if it’s not Mitt Romney. The others are too extreme. Obama has courted the middle throughout his first term and that will pay off in the general election. But if Mitt Romney gets the nomination, then I think Obama faces a tough race.
    
    Even with Romney, though, I’d pick Obama to be re-elected at this point.
  - on January 22, 2012 at 06:44 CCinna
    
    @Arun
    Who was the largest contributor to Obama’s campaign? Goldman Sachs. He us bought and paid for. This alliance between crony capitalism, big business and big government has been seen before… it is called the path to fascism.
    As to your comments about the systemic flaws of our system, and the US Constitition being a flawed and outdated document show just how out of touch with reality you are. You won’t find 20% of Americans who agree with you, even among liberals and Democrats. Obama agrees with you, and that shows how out of touch he is.
    To the guy who said all leftists will unite around Obama, he’s probably correct. Leftists yes, the other 80% of the population, don’t count on it.
on January 22, 2012 at 13:32 | Reply Arun

@CCinna & dojero: I analyzed a lot of this in my January 3rd post “Comment on eve of Iowa caucuses”
- on January 22, 2012 at 15:56 | Reply Arun
  
  @CCinna: P.S. Here’s one for you
  http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/the-fof-theory-of-the-gop-primary/

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