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Where is Our Crisis President?
Obama should have steered us away from disaster. Instead he drove us straight to it.
Like most American spectators watching this slow-motion train wreck of a budget disaster, I have assumed that at the last minute the damsel would be pulled off the track of the oncoming train. Somehow, the Republicans would appreciate the stakes, a compromise (albeit on sickeningly Republican terms) would be reached, and the nation would be spared the catastrophe of default—a gratuitous deepening of an already dire economic mess.
Now I am not so sure. In the last 48 hours, the Republicans have dug in even more, and Democrats are drawing the line at the Reid plan (which is already far too Republican).
For those who think that a default won’t happen because it is in nobody’s interest, think back on World War I. It was in nobody’s interest. Yet it destroyed Europe’s common civilization and ushered in nearly a century of economic instability and war. World War I occurred because both sides dug in and assumed the other would have to blink first. But that was a miscalculation. Instead of a last-minute deal, we got four years of trench warfare, economic ruin, and millions of wasted lives. Oops.
This is where we are headed. As I have written elsewhere, the only thing that will spare us now is for President Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment. I’ve written this so many times—for the Prospect, for Huffington Post, and last night at the invitation of Politico that it almost feels like I’m recycling myself.
Mike Tomasky, our former executive editor, has a good piece in Daily Beast/Newsweek today making the same argument but questions whether Obama has the nerve to do it—the usual question with our president.
And Representative James Clyburn, the third ranking Democrat in the House, has been fairly pleading with his president to take the 14th. There will be a press conference today, at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue (get it?) by Democratic House members, led by Clyburn and urging this course.
This may sound churlish at such a moment, but in addition to blaming the recklessness of today’s Republican party, the man who deserves substantial blame for this impending economic doomsday is Barack Obama. For two and a half years, he has been all but training the Republicans, Pavlov fashion, to keep rejecting compromise. He has done this by rewarding them with a treat every time they up the ante or move the goal posts.
Obama’s job, as a crisis president, was to define the nature of the economic disaster and the way out of it, to move public opinion in his direction, and then to make it very costly for Republicans to resist. That’s what the great crisis presidents have done.
Instead, his manner—conciliation at all costs—in addition to costing the Democrats a midterm blowout, has only produced a more radical and intransigent Republican Party. Even this week, his manner at his address to the nation was earnest, professorial, even pleading. So if the Republicans, like Europe’s leaders of 1914, miscalculate and create disaster, the responsibility will partly be theirs but also partly our overly eager-to-please president.
The 14th Amendment option gives him a belated chance to recoup—to spare catastrophe, to demonstrate nerve and leadership. What do you say, Mr. President?
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35 Comments so far
Show AllI could care less. we'd be better off if this financial house of cards was allowed to run its course and die. That said, let Obama invoke the 14th. I'm rather betting he'll bite anyway. He's got absolutely nothing to lose. His presidency is sunk. Its over. He'll save this sinking system for the banksters, the Chamber, his buds over on Wall Street and will allow the Press's sales departments to have at least one more Christmas season. Its a (temporary) win-win for all of them. He'll be repaid later. The long term winner: The Tea Party. They'll show no mercy on the republicans in 2012.
"Instead of avoiding this financial crisis, Obama steered us into it" is a model that Obama has applied to nearly every issue during the past three years.
Although the 2008 financial meltdown gave Obama more opportunities to push progressive legislation than any president has had since FDR (75 years ago) Obama consistently steered us in a regressive, not a progressive direction.
The 2009 stimulus, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and Bush Tax Cut Extension are the most costly examples.
Invoking the 14th will cost Obama his corporate funded billion dollar 2012 campaign war chest...and he will sell every one of us down the river before he will give up his billion dollar war chest goal.
Horrors!
The ship of state is foundering in the turbulent straits, doomed to be dashed upon either the Scylla of "the catastrophe of default" or the Charybdis of "the catastrophe of a swindle enacted to preserve the financial overclass and Empire by further crushing ordinary unprivileged citizens".
And where's Obama? Scheer remains dismayed and bemused to find that he's not exactly keeping a firm hand on the tiller, dropping the anchor, or even lashing himself to the mast.
Obama's presiding up on the poop deck, letting events take their course, and making sure his golden life jacket is properly inflated.
Except that this is Kuttner, not Scheer. I sometimes make the same mistake. They usually sound so much alike. But I like your comedic send-up of Obama as Odysseus, lashed to the mast of his foundering ship. Our picaresque president makes a poor mythic hero. He's a joke of world class proportions. But the Repubicans will be thanking him for his great puppet act of 4 years, allowing them to drown the whole country in Grover Norquist's bathtub.
Damn. And now that you've locked my erroneous comment by replying to it, I can't even sneak back in and fix it! ;)
True, I get my Poor Deluded Roberts mixed up-- I could've as easily written "Reich", who could've as easily written this article.
writer asks: "Where is Our Crisis President?"
easy - he's out there creating crisis after crisis
we should have been more clear when electing him - we were hoping he would solve a few but we weren't clear enough i guess
now there's a crisis you can believe in
"For two and a half years, he has been all but training the Republicans, Pavlov fashion, to keep rejecting compromise."
Well, he WAS a community organizer. He has certainly organized the GOP!
The only thing that matters, unfortunately, is who gets the most WS campaign bribes.
Direct democracy
When Obama is not on the phone checking with the Tea Partiers to see what else he can give in addition to Social Security, Medicare, etc., to the Republicans, Obama is otherwise occupied with phone calls to and from his Wall Street bankster paymasters.
Hey Robert welcome aboard. It's about time that the smartest kid in the class recognizes what the B- student has known for a long time. I did not try to outwit, out think or out maneuver Obama. I have not had your eminent career. Instead I've been out here in the trenches taking the blows to the head while you, from a relative position of power and influence, have written about what Obama should do, what he needs to realize, how he could best Marshall his resources. But because I have felt the hurt sooner, even in my somewhat dazed condition, I have realized sooner than you who Obama was and what he was willing to do. You must have taken a right jab too because I now see that your thinking is clarified. It's a fine mess he's gotten us into Olie, now start writing to us about what we should do to save ourselves and quit wasting your breath and your intellect on advise to Obama.
Your rejoicing at Kuttner's conversion is mightily premature. Nowhere does he say he's leaving the Democratic Party, or refusing to support Oblahblah in the upcoming orgy of cash known as the Presidential Election. In fact, I imagine his rag will be busily vilifying any challenges from the left, just as it has done in all previous cycles.
Excert from "Where Is Our Crisis President?" by Robert Knuttner:
This may sound churlish at such a moment, but in addition to blaming the recklessness of today’s Republican party, the man who deserves substantial blame for this impending economic doomsday is Barack Obama.
* * * * *
My Comment:
Robert Knuttner is concerned about sounding churlish. He's essentially apologetic for even daring to criticize "our" President Obama, considering how "obviously" impossible and unreasonable those Republicans are.
The progressives' and liberals' incandescent, impassioned ardor for Obama as a Historic President, arguably the Second Coming of FDR, has been gradually smothered and quenched by the abysmal reality of Obama's performance.
But amidst the soggy lesser-evil ashes still fitfully flickers a rearguard dull red spark that extols Obama as "the only adult in the room".
Obedient Servant,
Shame on you! Don't you know you are just being churlish!
Still, churlish or not I must admit you do have a certain way with words.
Please tell me. Doesn't the rearguard get it?
Adults are almost always more dangerous than either children or lunatics!
:>)
The WW1 analogy is 1000000% incorrect--The Kaiser wanted War, and made certain he got what he desired. And he came very close to winning.
Personally, I think the Money Power favors default, as they've already placed their short-sell positions and would make many billions, just as they did in 2008. Back then, I called them Financial Terrorists--they still are.
I agree. General Smedley Butler said it best - "War is a racket."
Obama will invoke the 14th Amendment only if he is forced to do so. This artifically manufactured crisis has accomplished precisely what he and his supporters want it to accomplish: provide cover for him to put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the cutting block.
The 14th Amendment gives him an easy way out of the manufactured crisis, but it will not enable him to make these cuts. Hence, it is not the preferred option.
For this reason, I think a last-minute "crisis-generated" compromise that enables him to make these huge cuts in the social safety net is the most likely scenario.
Agreed, Old Guy. This is nothing but theater. The debt ceiling will be raised just before the deadline on August 5, after Obama "compromises" by giving the Rethugs everything they want, and more. The dirty little secret - although not so very secret at all - is that Obama and the Dims want the exact same thing: cut SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. They are only pretending to "debate" their buddies across the aisle, all part of the theatrics. Every one of the millionaires in Congress/WH have vested financial interests in Wall Street and the Corporate Oligarchy that runs Amereicha, and there is no way they would make the U.S. default on its debts, causing the stock market - and their net worth - to crash.
Nothing but theater here. I guaran-fucking-tee the debt ceiling will be raised, and the safety net of the New Deal will be the cost. Bank on it.
Yep. The meltdown of 2008 was nothing more than a dry run for what's coming.
Congress makes the cuts, not the president. Bohener's delayed the vote yet again, so the Senate cannot put forth its version and force the whole process into conference committee. I noted my changed opinion on the Kucinich thread: there will be no default.
Take it from a senior citizen. NO member of our government who has ANYTHING to do with cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid will EVER get another vote from a senior. And we are quite a large bloc!!!!!
America's "crisis president" passed away on April 12, 1945.
FDR started the present crisis when he made certain Truman would be Veep, not Wallace, and when he fired "Dr New Deal" and emplaced "Dr Win The War", who has yet to be fired and provides the reasoning why Wallace was nixed. The whole post-war plan for Imperium wouldn't have gone anywhere with Wallace as president, nor would the atom bombing of Japan occured. Indeed, those two decisions, the latter in 1943 and former in early 1944, are two of the most understudied yet important events of the 20th century and our current fate can be directly traced to them both.
Fougetaboutit! Obama has no stomach to challenge his parties radicals only the other party's. Oh, right like Krugman said he's a moderate Goper they all became Dems. after the Brownshirts took over the old GOP.
This is too funny. The Republicans are stopping Obama from selling out our elderly and ill. Will wonders never cease?
"You never want to let a serious crisis to go to waste" -- Rahm He-man-uel
Looks like Barack is just following Rahm's advice.
Without Obama, the public bathtub would never have been drained. He pulled the plug and is now watching the poor and the middle class swirl down the drain -- and prolly enjoying it.
His hero Ayn Rand would be proud of him.
And how many fools on this site loved Obama in 2008?
I saw him for the corporate fool he is.
So why did not the public in general? He is under qualified for the job. He owes too much politically to too many. He is a small man in big shoes.
Obama is a Boner sucking pussy. He couldn't stand up to mickey mouse! Truman used the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling. No one is talking about this in the MSM. It is already precedent. He should step in and do it tomorrow. Watch the stock market collapse on Boner-heads failure to get a vote on his own bill!
Obama is such a moron.
Now now. Pussies are either cats, which are adorable creatures capable of defending themselves nicely; or else they're highly desirable and useful things that are so resilient that they can take a pounding from the stupidest dicks and snap right back. Don't insult pussies by comparing them to Oblahblah.
I would think that nobody actually believes this "crisis" will end in default. Of course it won't. O will sell out everything remaining of a safety net, apologize again for having done it-but the big mean Rs made him-and he will cruise on to reelection as the lesser of two evils. What a charade.
Succinct and right on the money.
So after a long complaint about how Mr. Obama hasn't acted like the kind of president we need, one of our professional Left ends his complaint with a plea that Mr. Obama now act like the kind of president we need.
I could at this point write, "Mr. Kuttner, aren't you just showing the same naivety as Mr. Obama?" But I'm not going to fall into the same trap. Pundits like Mr. Kuttner don't listen to us when we tell them to stop expecting this lout to ever act like a good progressive president.
There's no point in Mr. Kuttner asking Mr. Obama to man up instead of thinking the solution is to ask the GOP to compromise. But there's also no point in my asking Mr. Kuttner to realize that he's relating towards Mr. Obama precisely in the same way he complains that Mr. Obama relates to the GOP.
I won't be that naive. But then I don't think that either Mr. Obama or Mr. Kuttner are actually naive about this. I think it's something else going on and I want nothing to do with it, not even pretending I think these are decent, reasonable people anymore.
When this drama has ended, we will know who the President of the United States is. We may be surprised. We will also know the defining limits of our Government and the Power that controls it. What we are going through is the dying of the light, Fate has become our ruler and we are all at fault.
It is interesting watching Obama and the Republicans play good cop bad cop.
This time he won't have to "crave". The Republicans will let him win and of course, we will lose.
Kuttner states: "Instead, his [Obama's] manner—conciliation at all costs—in addition to costing the Democrats a midterm blowout, has only produced a more radical and intransigent Republican Party." Obama's role in "costing the Democrats a midterm blowout" is one that needs to be emphasized. The fact that Tea Partiers in Congress are blocking progress can be attributed to the lousy leadership of Obama, resulting in the election of these ideologues. Historians will likely judge Obama harshly.