The Irrelevancy of Obama
So many of us, conservatives as well as liberals, have become ensnared in the cult of personality -- and particularly of the President as Celebrity-in-Chief -- that we have failed to see something that, with a few minutes of clear thought, becomes fairly obvious -- the fact that Barack Obama has become largely and astonishingly irrelevant, at least in terms of broad matters of public policy and the direction of the country.
Think about it. On what matters lately has Obama driven an agenda that is clearly his own or shaped the terms of debate? The health care battle was almost exclusively a battle between what Harry Reid could get 60 votes for in the Senate and what Nancy Pelosi's minions would ultimately accept in the House. The whole health care push, while the President was happy to join the bandwagon, has been a priority of congressonal Democrats since before anyone had heard of Barack Obama. Closing Guantanamo, one of the President's signature agenda items, has disappeared into the mist. Ditto educaton reform in the direction of greater choice and accountability. Climate change is hopelessly stalled. Financial reform? Chris Dodd's swan song. The President gives a "major address" on immigration reform, and the response is a great, big collective yawn from just about everyone.
Some of this should have been expected (again, except for the blindness brought on by the Celebrity factor) -- this was a man who came into the Presidency with precisely zero executive experience and, with less than one term in the Senate, almost no reservoir of personal political capital to draw on. He had no knowledge of how to impose his will on Congress, and few levers with which to do so, other than his supposedly impressive ability to mold public opinion through his speeches.
But a good deal of his current irrelevance is also self-inflicted. From the moment he delegated the scripting of the stimulus bill to Pelosi and Reid he signaled an unprecedented willingness to let congressional Democrats occupy the driver's seat in his administration. Obama's other enormous mistake has been his alienation of "moderates" and "independents" through his intemperate and highly partisan rhetoric, his recurring "apology tours" overseas, his continued indulgence of organized labor, and his unwillingness or inability to break with the left of his party on any substantive issue whatsoever. With a substantial following among independents, the President has leverage over the left-wing congressional leadership -- he can generate support where they cannot, or he can tip that support over to the opposition in order to keep them under control. Without that, all he can reliably deliver is the support of people who already support the Pelosi-Reid-Dodd-Frank cabal -- and what good is that? The most relevant people in Washington today are the left-wing Democratic leadership, who are driving the agenda, and the "moderates" in the Senate -- the Scott Browns -- who are the ultimate gatekeepers of what gets through and what doesn't.
Virtually all presidencies ultimately drift toward irrelevance, particularly in second terms. But has there been any modern President who has become this irrelevant this quickly? Jimmy Carter would seem to come the closest, but even his slide into irrelevance didn't begin in earnest until after the 1978 mid-term elections. What we're witnessing with Obama is really quite astonishing.
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May '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
Like you, I was struck by how little attention his immigration address got. Conservative blogs talked about it some, but in the media it was a one-day story.
I do remember a cover of Time Magazine about Bill Clinton captioned "The Incredible Shrinking President" in June 1993, which was even earlier in his term.
Jun '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
I think our Seminar Director in Chief would strongly object to your characterization, IF the consensus of Democrat leadership is that you're wrong. He'll get back to you.
May '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
I think we've settled once and for all the existential question of which precedes the other: doing or being. Barack Obama is performing a kind of philosophical science experiment in which he is pure being. He is the first black president. He is hope. He is change. He is cool. He has attitudes and opinions, and gives speeches to let us and the world know what they are, as a further expression of his public being. Even when he acts, it is only symbolically, as when he ejects Churchill from the Oval Office, or has beer with a cop, or bows to foreign potentates. Every day, our President is, and his whole presidency is an exercise in his is-ness.
Yet the more he is, the more he fades away, the less substantial he seems. He does nothing. He occupies what is arguably the highest office in the world, but the longer he occupies it, the less relevant he becomes.
Our greatest presidents, and all great men and women, act. We sometimes miss this because they may eloquently explain their actions. But it is in acting that they become. Being without action is a nullity.
May '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
I remember a controversial piece in Reason by Edith Efron from around the same time. She argued that the spectacular incompetence Clinton had displayed by that point was due to no less than a debilitating cognitive disorder. Prior to the '94 midterms, his administration was a train wreck. The GOP landslide was the best thing that happened to his reputation as a president. Maybe it'll be true for Obama as well.
May '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
Mike, I remember reading that, too!
It was shortly after that that David Gergen joined his staff, and I always figured Gergen had a lot to do with helping Clinton fix his image (which makes Gergen one of the most evil people ever!).
It's an interesting question whether even losing Congress will be enough to change Obama. To me he seems to be losing interest in being President already. I see lots of parties, basketball, and golf in his future.
Jun '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
Let's see if I can remember everything. Obama starts out by getting an $800 million dollar porkulus bill passed. That bill turns out to be kind of a personal Democrat bankroll for use in greasing all their personal cogs. Then he takes over GM and Chrysler by completely ignoring established bankruptsy laws, leaving the secured creditors out in the cold with nothing while handing the companies over to the unions, his constituency. Narry a peep out of any judge. Next he rams a health care "reform" through Congress which will do nothing to improve care, will not cover the original 47 million suppossed uninsured which became 30 million by the time he spoke to Congress, but will extend coverage to a mere 11 to 15 million more Americans. The offshoot of this bill, we all know, will be the collapse of the private health care industry. Now Obama has passed a bank "reform" which will again aggrandize his cronies at the expense of the little guy and our economy in general. The legacy of this , Obama's Congress, will be the 2000 page plus unread bill whose unforeesn consequences not even God could know and from which...
Jun '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
...only lawyers can profit. Not bad for a guy who is irrelevant. Of course, we haven't even spoken of foreign policy.
Jun '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
EXCUSE ME!! Not 800 million, but 800 BILLION!!
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
What Steve writes he strikes me as true--and dangerous. In domestic matters, the nation can get by with House liberals and Senate moderates in charge. The most likely outcome is just what we've seen in recent months: Gridlock. Which is far, far better than more wild activism. But in foreign affairs? We just can't do with an irrelevant chief executive. Maybe, in Afghanistan, where Petraeus can call the shots, just. But Iran is likely to possess nuclear weapons before the end of Obama's first (and, please, final) term.
Trouble ahead.
May '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
Yes, Peter, and that's why I wonder if "irrelevant" is quite the right word; "weak" might be better, since weakness can provoke--be a driver of events--even if unintentionally. Or put another way, if the world erupts due to Obama's irrelevance, he will have succeeded in making himself profoundly relevant to the state of affairs. A "consequential president," just not the way he envisions.
Jun '10
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
Whether weak or irrelevant or inconsequential, I can only hope the process accelerates. The man has done quite enough damage already as "cdor" has reminded us.
Re: The Irrelevancy of Obama
Scott makes a profound point, above: "If the world erupts due to Obama's irrelevance, he will have succeeded in making himself profoundly relevant to the state of affairs. A 'consequential president,' just not the way he envisions."
And there you have it. Nobody in our generation asked to be born into the Top Country, and, as we cope with the anxiety that all kinds of things, in all kinds of places, are slipping the wrong way--see Claire's post of this very morning--we can almost begin to understand the post-war Englishmen who agitated against the British Empire: They had simply had enough. But Top Country ours remains all the same. And what that means is that the President of the United States is relevant, period. If he fades away, if he dwindles, as Obama has done with remarkable speed, into a kind of irrelevance, if he shrinks from performing America's duties to the wider world, then he only achieves a new kind of relevance: the awful relevance of weakness.