The President of Cool
21 August 2009 10:28 am by Taylor Marsh
The White House position, though, is vintage Obama: Lay out some broad principles, seek consensus, and try to float above the nitty-gritty details of the argument on the way there. Obama has never claimed he was a doctrinaire liberal; in fact, part of his message last year was that he’d get past the tired debates that paralyzed Washington in the name of finding common ground, even if that common ground – as he described it – mostly tended to involve Democratic policy ideas. His approach on healthcare has followed that model; he started the process off by enlisting the very industries the reform legislation will affect, in an attempt to get them into his consensus. – Obama’s just not that into you, by Mike Madden
Most ardent Obama supporters, the people who have been beside him for a very long time, just don’t get who he is as a politician. Neither do many of the big name opinion makers, Eugene Robinson leading that pack. Paul Krugman writes about “Obama’s Trust Problem” today. Since Krugman was never enamored with Obama’s health care ideas, I’m sure writing this column didn’t come as much of a surprise. The Washington Post revealing that Obama’s now suffering from a crisis of confidence on health care that if he’s not successful could scuttle any major changes he wants to enact.
When I wrote “Flyover,” you cannot imagine the emails I received and this was back when I had absolutely no intention of going partisan in the presidential primaries. I bring this up because Mike Madden of Salon.com reached back into the primaries to be one of the only people to get the foundation that is our President. Obama “never claimed he was a doctrinaire liberal.” Madden’s subheading, however cute, is also to the point: Liberals and the president struggle to find common ground on healthcare. But are they really meant for each other?
Maybe not, but we’re certainly stuck with each other.
George Stephanopoulos is the only interviewer to get at the root of Obama, a quote to which I refer whenever we’re in situations like the current one on health care, with Pres. Obama in a war with the activists who believe manifesting Democratic policy changes is more important than Obama’s signature kumbaya.
“I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason and that’s been in short supply over the last several years. I’m not an ideologue, never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by, you know, sort of more radical or left wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense; that believes that you make progress by sitting down listening to people, recognizing everybody’s concerns, seeing other people’s points of views and then making decisions.” – Barack Obama (on ABC’s “This Week”, )
Segue to Eugene Robinson, who reveals his political analysis is about as good as anyone blinded by Barack Obama’s star power, gift of oratory, as well as his once in a lifetime candidacy, which never had anything to do with doctrinaire liberalism, something Robinson has never gotten. Mr. Robinson’s column today is proof that the Pulitzer Prize will never equate to astute, even if he was part of the Obama wave.
There’s not enough passion on the Democratic side, not enough heat. There’s some radiating from the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, too little emanating from the Democratic majority in the Senate, and not nearly enough coming from President Obama. Republicans, by contrast, have little going for them except passion — but they’re using it to impressive effect.
Heat? Seriously? Expecting “heat” from Barack Obama on a point of policy?
Barack Obama was never about heat, not ever. Maybe from his supporters to him, or from the sheer star power of his oratory and sheer coolness, but on policy the man has always been lacking, especially on passion for manifesting liberal policy prescriptions.
Obama’s cool pegs him over any other description, which has been a big part of his charm across the political divide. It’s also why he’s the ultimate Blue Dog, THE Blue Dog in fact, which for me has never just been about conservatism, but more about cool; the coolness of any passion towards liberal ideas and the ideology we are supposed to manifest because it represents what’s in the long-term best interests of the American people.
But Obama isn’t a believer, never has been.
It’s also why Obama, even as he invoked Reagan, now has revealed he never got Ronnie. Reagan was sunny, optimistic, but he was also a hard core ideologue. Yes, he compromised when he had to, did what he must, had cocktails with Tip O’Neill after hours, but Reagan never forgot what he was there for, the purpose of his presidency, which was to enact conservative principles through policy, something we’re paying for right now. Obama just saw the character actor, missing the passionate conservative message of the man, which was never in doubt.
But that’s just not Obama’s style. And it never has been his purpose. Go back to the quote with Stephanopoulos. Obama’s the President of Cool, the anti-ideologue, at a time when what we really need is a fire breathing liberal to utilize the majority we’ve got and implement change, especially on health care, that will last.
That’s where we come in, though there’s no guarantee we will win.
