“Obama can boast a record of accomplishment that bests any president since Roosevelt, and has fewer demerits on his record than any of them, including Roosevelt.”
That’s
arguable at best. Chait says that LBJ’s accomplishments were offset by Vietnam
without bothering to discuss whether they were greater or not.
And,
if we use “greater” in terms of political realignment rather than “better for
America,” Reagan had greater accomplishments, indeed. In fact, it’s Reagan, the
Reagan whom Obama praised in 2008, that set constraints on what future
Democratic presidents have tried to do, for the good, while bolstering some of
what Democrats have done for the bad financially, like throwing out
Glass-Steagall in Clinton’s reign, and Obama hiring Clinton’s finacial advisers
and their followers, like Tim Geithner, quite possibly an unconvicted criminal.
And,
while we’re on it, let’s not forget that Reagan, for worse rather than better,
established the modern imperial presidency that thumbed its nose at Congress
and the Constitution on war-making.
And,
that leads to this.
Reality? Chait lists not one of Obama’s real “demerits,”
such as expanding drone killings even to US citizens; calling anybody killed by
a drone a “military target,” being more ruthless than Bush about “plugging
leaks,” the shameful treatment of Bradley Manning, etc. And, all of that stems
from St. Ronald of Reagan and his “record of accomplishment.”
He then, to excuse, I guess, Obama not doing
more on anti-recession stimulus and other things, pens this:
How can a president “work his will” in such a way as to force autonomous members of the opposite party controlling a co-equal branch of government to sacrifice their own calculated self-interest?
Simple. Peeling off people where possible.
With the modern Senate, pushing Harry Reid to
actually challenge a filibuster threat.
Making more use of recess appointments.
And, on that stimulus packages, several things:
1. Not using Clinton retreads who
underestimated the size of the problem, and the size of the solution needed;
2. Listening to outsiders like Paul Krugman and
Joseph Stiglitz who knew better;
3. Not “compromising away the compromise” for
what he did decide to do, as Rahm Emanuel actually did, just to come in under
$1 trillion.
Now, let’s look at Obama’s signature
accomplishment of Obamacare.
First, since so much of it was backloaded to
2014 effective date, the jury’s largely still out.
Second, I’ve argued that, contra Chait, the
cost controls in Obamacare aren’t as much as they are touted to be. And, given
that Congress continually votes to cut Medicare payments to doctors, then takes
that back every year, who’s to say how many of these cost containment items
will stay in place?
Third, Obama didn’t take charge of this issue
from the start, to some degree, and to an additional degree, he let known
neoliberals, like “Mod Max” Baucus in the Senate run the show.
To be honest, given the circumstances, overall,
I’d probably give Obama a “gentleman’s B” on domestic policy, NOT counting
civil liberties issues. Note the “gentleman’s” part and that caveat.
The rest of his work? Let’s discount the actual
value of killing bin Laden and give Dear Leader a straight D.
No comments:
Post a Comment