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The Failed Presidency of Barack Obama
How the president's timid response to the economic crisis failed to capture America's populist outrage
Some presidents have first-rate minds, others have first-rate temperaments. Barack Obama had both. In the first months of Obama's presidency, every appearance he made reinforced the public's admiration. It was an Aaron Sorkin show brought to life, except with likable characters. The Obama family's Portuguese water dog, Rushbo, charmed visitors with his antics and yapping. Rahm Emmanuel amused everyone by graduating from the f-word to the c-word and even beyond. Obama oversaw ambitious and well-received spending on everything from school teachers to solar-powered windmills. And yet 2013 would see the inauguration, once again, of a Republican president.
The Great Recession began in 2008 when Americans abruptly realised that their wealth had vanished. The purchase of billions of massage cushions and ceramic frogs no longer seemed prudent, so everyone decided to try saving and producing instead. But this didn't work very well, since without consumers there could be no producers. So Washington stepped in to fill the void. Since America had no money saved anymore, it borrowed from China, which was eager to sell off a growing backlog of massage cushions and ceramic frogs. Everyone hoped this might restart the old party.
While Obama encouraged vigorous debate among his advisers on most things, economics was different. No one seemed to agree, and no one seemed to speak English. Debates became a combination of solemn jargon and angry epithets - like "neo-Wicksellian", "Hodrick-Prescott filter" and "Austrian". Obama needed a sturdy guide to an unfamiliar field. His choice was Lawrence Summers, whom Obama found to be brilliant, persuasive and even intimidating. If Summers had curious social habits, like screaming at people while eating pizza and falling asleep at odd moments, he at least had a clear answer to everything. Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner tended to reinforce whatever Summers said. Meanwhile, advisers like Paul Volcker had trouble being heard.
Cerebral by nature, Obama favoured Summers, Geithner and other economists who counselled pragmatism over emotionalism on rescuing Wall Street. Fairness was nice, they said, but not at the price of mayhem. "This isn't a morality play," the White House told Washington opinion writers. "This isn't a morality play," Washington opinion writers told the White House. Everyone agreed it wasn't a morality play, except for ordinary Americans, who saw a morality play. They saw that a financial elite - once omnipotent and untouchable - had created its own undoing. They saw that this elite was demanding - begging, cajoling, blackmailing - to be saved, no matter how high the cost or unjust the policy. And they wanted a stern enforcer to open the books and say, if necessary, "Tough sheets".
But Obama preferred stern talk to stern action. Instead of forcing banks to open their books properly, Obama tried to buy them time by getting more money to them, hoping they'd patch things up. Instead of allowing house prices to fall to a level that would allow more people to afford homes, Obama sought to aid banks to keep prices as high as possible. Instead of confronting the biggest malefactors, he wound up indulging them. Obama forgot that he'd effectively run as a warrior priest, not a technocrat. But Americans were far more willing to forgive mistaken policies based on firm principles than mediocre policies based on expedience.
The stimulus packages were well intentioned. The goal had been to do the opposite of anything Herbert Hoover did. Since "starve this fevered patient" had been the wisdom of 1930, "force-feed this fevered patient" was the wisdom now. But the patient remained purple - albeit now fat and purple. Some economists advocated the fiscal equivalent of the second word war, forgetting that wartime economics depends on wartime feelings. Americans didn't feel the higher purpose that they'd felt after Pearl Harbour and 9/11. Appeals to shared sacrifice rang hollow when tax dollars were going to AIG. Inflation returned.
Republicans captured the new mood of populism in the nation. Candidates like Mitt Romney, who now spoke with a southern twang and carried a pitchfork, asked why savers should bail out lenders and borrowers, why taxpayers should prop up bank directors and why houses should be expensive instead of affordable. Border control, which Obama had never properly addressed, also began to resonate with ordinary Americans amid the job shortage. The 2012 race looked close, but Mike Huckabee, running on the slogan "God help us", eventually pulled out a persuasive win.
During the next presidency, the economy finally recovered. The recession, deep as it was, had run its course. The new leaders, unfairly, claimed vindication for their policies of tax cuts and deregulation. The public, unfairly, believed them. Obama retired to Chicago, where he returned to teaching constitutional law, and liberalism's brief renewal, the dream of FDR reborn, slipped quietly away.
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90 Comments so far
Show AllThe Huffington Post is essentially a corporate shill as well.
"In the future", George Wanker Bush famously said, "I'll be dead." It's 2013 and I am speaking to you from the ether, trying to find my way back to mortal life but the only parents available down there are Republicans; so I'm trying to stay out here but it's like being caught in a riptide. George Wanker Bush is still alive and gave the keynote address at the 2012 Republican National Convention that nominated now president David Petraeus and Vice President Glenn Beck. Can I please be reincarnated in Norway?
What the centrist to corporatist author of this article does not say is that the next presidency is going to be just as failed as this one, if it is indeed won by a Huckabee type.
No president, Democrat or Republican, has ever questioned two recipes for continued disasters and pain: capitalism and imperialism.
As long as we are in that predicament, presidencies will be failures of one sort or another.
Personally, in my heart of hearts, I, of course, do not want Obama to fail: I want him to dismantle the Evil Empire and to rein in very stringently the machinations of industrial and financial capital, but nothing he has said or done thus far indicates that he will.
Far Left is the same as Far Right. Both of them are forms of enslavement via Monopolization. A single government monopoly or a few corps/banks owning the economy/government - there is no difference really. Stand behind the constitution and get rid of empty Obama-hope. There is no Santa Claus... time to grow up.
Compelling and deep comment!
Ending the Evil Empire and curbing the savage capitalism that is ruining this country and the world is far left now. Hum, Dude, you deserve the congressional medal of honor, for you play right into the present corrupt Congress's hands.
As for the Constitution, it is a worthwhile, albeit imperfect, document, no doubt about that, but it obviously is not able to prevent imperialism and savage capitalism.
By the way, I didn't know there was no Santa Claus, and I am going to tell my mother right now.
Now Wait! Don't insult my intelligence, I KNOW THAT SANTA EXISTS -- I JUST SPOKE W/HIM LAST NIGHT AND HE TOLD ME HE CHANGED HIS NAME FROM CHRISS KRINGLE TO BARACK OBAMA.
He's just not giving out any gifts this yr. He claims he's broke.
max53 et al., take a look at Al Jazeera's English news. They are fair and balanced enough to be on the AG's list, I'm sure. They have broadcasts featuring discussions of both sides of issues, and they have reporters and cameramen in the field who are not embedded with the censors.
Worth at least a look. http://english.aljazeera.net/
Bush's presidency was not a failed presidency. Obama's presidency is shaping up to not fail either. The president, and congress, serve "at the pleasure of" corporate military elites, the US oligarchy. Obama talks pretty and has reversed some bad Bush policies, but not the important ones. The theft of a nation by the oligarchs continues unimpeded. There are some signs of populist anger over the AIG bonus's, but it will probably blow over, and it's only symbolic, a trivial amount to the billions upon billions that have already been squandered and wasted.
The one common ground that could unite progressives, lefties, blue collar workers, libertarians, rational conservatives, students, or anyone with a conscience, is the antiwar movement. The war party controls all, and they must be abolished. Only a united movement of all concerned can bring an end to the insane military spending and it's imperialist murdering policies. The war economy is so pervasive that most are blind to it, but it's destroying the nation and the world. All else is just a devious distraction from the machinations of war.
Nice balancing point Rebel.
Hope and change indeed! I hope that after 4 years of this clod, that a revived conservative movement can change the tide for the better.
Welcome back, Carter.
Already? He's only been in office, what, a little over 50 DAYS, and he's "failed"?
I'm sorry, this is just idiotic.
Well in the eyes of the public he is failing. The eyes of the financial/corporate bigwigs he's doing just fine!
Well, in 50 days he and a democrat majority managed to garner a lot of rage, when the public found out AIG was riding high and playing fast with bail out money. Who put that little paragraph in the bail out bill, anyway. It appeared as if by magic. Not one democrat did it, so it must have been a pesky republican. It's well known that democrats don't take donations from companies like AIG. But it's a democrat scandal all the same. It only takes 50 days to show that democrats are just as greedy and corrupt and fearful of intrenched power as republicans.
Anyone like to discuss the two party system again?
EdgeCrusher:
If Obama is a clod, what is Bush? You can answer later if you're listening to Rush right now...
Oh, puh-lease. Fifty something days into his presidency and he's FAILED? What is this commentator, a sitcom writer who has all the problems of his characters solved in thirty minutes? This editorial wasn't worth the time it took to read it.
a few years from now...
"Oh, puh-lease. 1,200 something days into his presidency, 15 trillion given to Wall Street so far and he's FAILED? What is this commentator..."
Yes there is the concept of giving people a chance BUT it also true that if a group of people call a Chicken a duck and throw it into the river to watch it swim, the people who point out "It is a chicken and is gonna DROWN" will not need three months or 6 months of 3 years to be CORRECT.
Who is this TA Frank? How shallow can he be?
President Obama's first two months ends the DAY AFTER TOMORROW! That's two down and 46 to go! For God's sake, give the man a chance!
People seem to overlook the fact we are a democracy not a dictatorship. For those holding it against Obama for the AIG bonuses getting paid, let's remember he cannot just dictate what he wants done. There are laws to follow and the horrendous contracts made my AIG and its "financial experts" were legal. No one was more outraged than I but only the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao and others of their ilk could have stopped such ludicrous payouts (and likely some heads would have rolled, literally).
We put up with an incompetent nincompoop the last eight years. Give Barack Obama, an intelligent, reasonable man, the opportunity afforded the previous administration. He inherited all of this disaster and needs support.
http://freesolaradvice.blogspot.com
It depends on what you mean by "we are a democracy" -- sure we can have elections but that doesn't mean that power resides in the hands of the people because it doesn't. Power resides in the plutocratic class of corporate/financial swindlers.
The Democrats have been in control of Congress for 2 years. Obama has been a Senator for 4 years, voted and twisted arms for the bailout, voted for FISA bill, attacked Pakistan, sent more troops to Afganistan, etc... Democrats=Republicans.
"Obama pulled in $150,000 from AIG"
"As the White House attempted to contain a furore that threatens to damage the President's standing, New York newspaper Newsday reported that AIG donated $US101,332 to the US President last year, second only to Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, who received $US103,100."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story
/0,25197,25209062-5013948,00.html
WTF is Newsday? Rupert Murdoch's personal bathroom reading material? If that is so true, then why is it not in the Times or even the Washington Post? I think you know the answer to that Arktig...
Arktig:
Of course, you fail to mention that virtually all major presidential candidates got campaign money last year from AIG. Yes, Obama got a larger sum than most but frontrunners usually do. Here's a tally of the top ten from the Center for Responsive Politics:
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut: $103,100
President Barack Obama: $101,332
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona: $59,499
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: $35,965
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana: $24,750
Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney: $20,850
Vice President Joe Biden: $19,975
Rep. John Larson, D-Connecticut: $19,750
Sen. John Sununu, R-New Hampshire: $18,500
Former presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani: $13,200
Yes, even Snake Oil Slick Rudy Guiliani got some cash.
All it takes is a few keystrokes on Google to neutralize arguments made by people like you.
I agree with you completely my fellow San Diegan, thank you for expressing a concise and honest opinion regarding this ridiculous article. As you point out correctly, the complete imbecile that occupied the WH for the last 8 years obviously gets a free pass from TA Frank, while Obama gets lambasted after being in office 2 months! Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Obama himself say after he was elected that he will be judged (and judged correctly) for the success/failures of his polices at the end of his term? He said that if we don't approve of the way that he has done things, then elect someone else who you do approve of... Name one other POTUS that has had the rocks to make a statement like that?
It would've been reasonable to give Obama and the Dems some 'time' to address the financial meltdown -- IF they had at least begun moving in a perceptible progressive direction in the past 2 months......in other words, IF they'd begun enacting, or at minimum announcing specific legislative time-lines to enact, fundamental reforms designed to make the corrupt US System more politically democratic and economically just.
Instead, Obama, as the new Decider, has begun moving in exactly the opposite direction than he promised: He's holding no elitist ideas accountable for anything that's happened to the economy (let alone the provable perpetrators) --and he's indebting taxpayers to the tune of $$trillions to do no more than rebuild and re-intrench the same flawed System of economic and political privilege that caused the economic crisis to begin with.
Aside from his recent official indignation at AIG's executive bonuses and a few other domestic and foreign policy windowdressing gestures, Obama and his crew of Same-Old-System Insiders have publicly offered no honest critique of, or plausible plan to change, the corrupt elements in the System he promised to reform.
Give Obama and the Dems time to make needed changes? Well, sure, if they're sincere.
But if you hire someone to dig you out of a hole who then proceeds to claim he's doing so, even as he digs the hole deeper with no comprehensible plan, how much time is it reasonable to give?
The economic (and by default the political) system has got to go. It is not by mistake that we are having the current 'meltdown' and 'bailout,' it is by design. The corporate elite are again getting taxpayer money that they don't have to be accountable for (and for every AIG that is reported about, there are 10 that aren't mentioned)
We have been ripped off by the elite for the past 5,000 years, and society is no more willing or aware (take your pick) to address this injustice than the ignorant masses 5,000 years ago. And we have computers. Go figure.
There are some who think that Obama is correcting the situation and are happy, there are some who are unhappy that Obama didn't carry through on his campaign promises, and a minority who understood that Obama never promised change that you (or I) would see and therefore are unaffected by the current Obama actions that support the corporate elite at the expense (and tax dollars) of the unimportant. The person who is getting the million dollar bonus isn't reading commondream. He/she already accomplished their personal dream, and the hell with everyone else.
Yet the masses still go along and think it is just an oversight on someone's part. And the corporate elite are depending on the masses to just go along, and all they have to do is to offer us a few bones and we'll shut up and go along like the good dogs we are. And that is why we are treated like dogs.
It it too late to wake up. Go back and dream of hope.
Decent article for the most part, except for this bit:
"During the next presidency, the economy finally recovered. The recession, deep as it was, had run its course."
The idea that the economy will recover in the next 4-8 years is so optimistic that Pollyanna might blush to express such a thought. The problems that we're going through now are systemic and may very well represent a true paradigm shift for the "civilized" world. What we are experiencing is not a recession, but a depression, as these guys predicted several years back:
www.dailyreckoning.com/depression-ii-the-horror
(For a less flippant take on the situation, try Richard Koo.)
Worse yet, the population of humanity is nearing the earth's carrying capacity just as the main natural resource (oil) which has allowed it to explode exponentially is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to obtain. Not to mention the increasing environmental damage that continued use of this resource is wreaking, including, but not limited to, global climate change.
America's chickens are coming home to roost and they're defecating over the rest of the world as they fly overhead.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." - George Orwell
I don't come to commondreams.org nearly as often as I used to. I used to read everything posted here, every day. But I am tired of being enervated by so-called progressives who only seem interested in seeing what is wrong and interested only in criticism.
We need leaders, and I expect putatively progressive writers with the privilege of an audience like me to BE leaders, not merely whiners, who can frame the challenges we collectively face in appreciative, positive lenses. There is responsibility vested in any leadership and someone writing about what we need to do to advance the progressive agenda has a responsibility to generate POSITIVE, useful, uplifting energy.
I am tired of being dragged down relentlessly by the progressive press.
Nobody ever suggested that Obama was a radical or even a progressive. A radical would never have gotten elected. It is preposterous to project onto Obama a demand that he act radical. Real change evolves incrementally. It does not come abruptly, as a tsunami. It comes bit by bit, step by step, bird by bird. Obama can't wave a magic wand and neither can anyone else.
I am tired of being enervated by this kind of crappy column. Look enervate up, Ms/Mr. Frank (I don't know your gender). You are enervating me, pal.
And most of the writers on commondreams enervate me. Like many Americans, I long to feel uplifted, inspired, filled with a renewed sense of hope. For cris-sakes, let me enjoy some uplift during Obamah's early days in the White HOuse. I never expected him to change everything. I don't expect him to be great, actually.
But he's better than what we had, better than any of the other candidates who made it onto ballots (I don't think Kucinich has the organizing skill to be president, although I love his thinking . . it takes more thank ideas, it takes organizing skill and Kucinich, like much of the left, seems to think that being shrillly right is enough for real change. It isn't enough.
Wow, someone has been expressing how I felt for years working with activists:
1. The president, as any politician, is only a man. My mother always says "Only one perfect man walked the Earth, and the Romans killed Him." We keep looking for some Superman to save us, and get ticked off because there's some Kryptonite around. Obama isn't perfect and never will be. Its our job to make him better through effective (organized, purposeful and truly diverse) direct action and lobbying.
2. But along with that lobbying comes an effective, thought out plan. Ideals are one thing, but you better have an idea how to implement those ideas. In the business world -- its the guy who applies the concept to a solid plan and not necessarily the originator of the idea who gets ahead. As Tree Fitz pointed out, Kuicinich has good principles but he rarely comes up with an effective means to get it carried out.
Nader can rail against Obama all he wants -- in fact, I agree with Nader's model of turning federalizing crumbling banks and turning them into national credit unions. I totally think that Obama caved in on the banking bailouts.
But it still doesn't negate the fact that a skinny Black guy from Chicago did in one shot what Nader has been trying to do since the 70's -- become the first non-European male to be elected to White House. The difference? Obama had a plan to win and Nader just kind of shows up with his manifesto and a bullhorn.
3. Whining gets you nowhere & the only way to change politics is to take it over, bit by bit. People laugh when I push getting involved in local politics here on CD. But, the Bible says it best -- "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much."(Luke 16:10)
Many of the Left can't handle the small things of politics. So, no one will (rightfully) trust you with the big show. For all you small business owners out there, would you hire someone with no pedigree or experience to manage your business? Probably not. So why should we expect anyone to put real progressives in positions of authority when we most of spend out time blogging, writing papers and otherwise disengaged from the process?
If you can't keep the wingnuts from taking over your local school board or prevent state funding cuts to the homeless shelter, how are you going to change the course of the ocean liner called the Federal Government?
Where is it written that abrupt, real change is only possible for shock-doctrine-exploiting right-wingers and that Progressives have to be content with one step forward for every five steps backward?
It is up to Progressives to hold fast to the progressive agenda and make the Obama administration look conservative in comparison, because he is, essentially, still a sell-out to Corporate interests that run this country. All of the candidates not completely marginalized by the corporate press are.
In 2012, maybe we can forget the Republicans and have the real race be between the Dems and Greens. Mitt Romney won't even be invited to the debate. But only if we ignore the Corporate media.
perfection is impossible
I agree that the progressives complain more than they present action alternatives. I think that we all have a responsibility to reduce energy consumption and pay off our debts as soon as possible. We were all willing to go into extreme debt to look like the executives and gamblers who now receive rewards for bringing it all down. The whole value system that said we must spend 400.00 on a pair of shoes was embraced by all of us. We all own enough "stuff" to share it with people who really have nothing. I think Obama is the best we could do and he certainly hit the ground running. Just do your part and we all come out of this. Barbara
For $400, I could buy a good pair of shoes, trousers, a sportcoat, a shirt and a necktie (or a nice polo shirt or such), plus half a dozen prs of socks and half a dozen sets of skivvies; and I'd still have enough money left to buy groceries for the month and pay my electric bill. (And that's if I bought everything new.)
Sorry, but not all of us are extravagant. (A lot of us couldn't afford to be, even if we wanted.) Only illness or accident could put me in extreme debt. I haven't used a credit card once in nearly a decade.
By the way, if I reduced energy consumption much more, my birds and I would be sitting in the dark every night, and I would be off line permanently.
There are plenty of folks like me out there, and I for one am sick of hearing about how "we all" took part in such excesses.
It's odd to think that liberal Democrats would get so bent out of shape by criticism directed at Obama, who's so far followed Bush's policies to the tee. Bush even recently said he hopes Obama will succeed.
On the other side of the political fence, you've got the Republicans, with their lock-step conformity and no exchange of ideas. That's what loyalist Dems seem to yearn for - at least here on Common Dreams.
Tree Fitz wants to follow the leader, like Republicans do. Stop talking about things I don't want to think about, he says. Again, it sounds rather like the lament of a Republican.
Why does voting for a candidate that raked in millions from Wall Street firms make you more pragmatic when your supposed liberal principles are being sold down the river? Are you more organized trying to influence politicians that vote against your interests? Does excusing "perfection" mean continuing wars of aggression, continuing domestic spying, continuing extraordinary extradition, continuing torture (while denying it as official policy), etc.?
I have to laugh at the "I'm more of a volunteer than you" quip. How can Tree Fitz possibly know what others do with their time?
DaveBronstein below has done a thorough point-by-point refutation. I don't have the energy for that. It's "enervating" to have to follow the slime trail of loyalist Dems who claim to be so positive while hurling insults at progressives.
The insults seem unprovoked. Attack the messenger instead of refuting the message. This is a big problem for loyalist Dems. We are waiting for them to change, not Obama. We had that guy figured out long ago.
-TIA
All those "Progressives" who are putting forth criticisms like these are actually doing Republicans a favor (much like they did when they voted for Nader in 2000). So if you want to OBAMA bash I ask one question. In the past 30 years please name a president who was more progressive.
So Far Obama has done some very amazing things:
1. No more enemy combatants
2. Closing GITMO
3. Huge investments into renewable fuel research
4. Lifted ban on stem cell research
5. lifted ban on funds to foreign facilities that conduct family planning
6. Planned decrease of troops in Iraq
7. Actually addressed the current race issue
8. Has a global popularity that is unprecedented
9. Has done a whole lot for women's rights
10.Stopped raids on legal medical marijuana dispensaries
11.Repeal the Bush tax cuts for the rich and replace it with a tax cut for middle class.
12.His proposed budget also has significant increases in monies for nonprofit service providers (The DV Agency that I used to work for loves this)
This is just some of the things I came up with off the top of my head and it's only been two months. I am particularly surprised at the speed in which he is moving the government leftward and I look forward to his next few years. I've been a peace nik ever since I could vote and for the first time I am actually considering joining the armed forces because I am starting to actually trust the commander a chief.
Personally I have no problem with continuing the war in Afgan because everyone who studies Afghan knows that now things are considerably better than they were under the Taliban. Our presence is working to stabilize the country and the potential for utilizing the military to do development work is enormous. Plus I still want to catch OSAMA especially since he continues to advocate gross violence against innocent people.
Ok so go ahead an Bash OBAMA. At the same time I suggest you embrace your brethren at the GOP because you, like they, aren't concerned with the positive. You only want someone to pick on so you can post BS articles like this one and feel good about yourself much like a bully feels in gym class.
Pathetic!