Press

Big Bite, Tough Chew

12.21.2009

The following is an excerpt from Will Marshall’s piece in the latest issue of American Interest magazine:

President ObamaHow to grade President Obama’s first year in office? As Zhou Enlai replied when asked his opinion of the French Revolution, “It’s too soon to say.” Obama has set in motion a host of bold reforms that could break some of America’s deepest political impasses, or cause massive disillusionment if they fail. The big question now is whether his tenacity matches his audacity.

The string of “incompletes” on the Obama report card, however, hasn’t kept partisans and ideologues from rushing to judgment. To Charles Krauthammer, the President is “a man of perpetual promise” who has “achieved nothing.” That must be a relief, since the conservative columnist also maintains that Obama is a European-style social democrat bent on expanding government at home and appeasing America’s foes abroad. The backbone issue also arises on the Left. Many liberals fret that Obama isn’t tough enough to face down Republican obstructionists, or keep balky Democratic moderates in line. They also worry that his pragmatism and coolly logical approach to governing lacks the power to stir progressive souls. At this stage, though, all such judgments seem as premature as the Nobel Committee’s risible decision to award him a Peace Prize.

The President does have one big accomplishment under his belt: preventing the U.S. economy from sliding into the abyss. As Alan Blinder notes, the Administration managed to rescue the nation’s largest banks and get a hefty stimulus bill through Congress with impressive dispatch. That vigorous response, buttressed by an open-handed Fed, surely played a part in the stock market’s healthy gains since the Inauguration, as well as the economy’s return to growth (3.5 percent in the third quarter). But even if the recession is technically over, millions of working families are hurting. White House economists say unemployment will hit double digits soon and stay high well into next year. Consumer confidence is low, credit is still scarce, and there will likely be more foreclosures next year as mortgage rates reset.

Washington’s hyperactivity, moreover, seems to have awakened fears of “big government”, especially among independent voters who hold the balance in U.S. politics. There’s simmering anger in Middle America over taxpayer bailouts of greedy speculators and inept auto companies, reinforced by a sense that the government has intruded too deeply into the workings of private companies. None of this has led Obama to temper his ambitions. He is also trying to fix the health care system, create a new regulatory framework for finance, pass a complicated “cap and trade” scheme for carbon emissions, and turn around failing public schools. He’s promised to take on the highly combustible issues of entitlements and immigration reform just as soon as he can.

On the security front, he is attempting to check a spreading insurgency in Afghanistan, abet Pakistan’s struggle against extremists, and withdraw U.S. troops without destabilizing Iraq; shut down nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea en route to a “world free of nuclear weapons”; rekindle Middle East peace talks; and meet his one-year deadline for closing the Guantánamo Bay prison. Give the man his due: He’s not dodging the tough ones.

But by taking so many challenges on at once, Obama risks diluting his focus and making a themeless pudding of his presidency. His determination to solve stubborn public problems seems commendable, but his frenetic activity has yet to gel into a coherent story about the kind of society he wants America to be. The narrative of Obama’s presidency so far is more about him than us.

Read the rest of the piece at American Interest.