NYT: The Diminished President

[mardi gras skin]

The Diminished President
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/op...=2&ref=opinion

Ever since the midterms, the White House’s tactics have consistently maximized President Obama’s short-term advantage while diminishing his overall authority. Call it the “too clever by half” presidency: the administration’s maneuvering keeps working out as planned, but Obama’s position keeps eroding.

Start with the first round of deficit debates this winter. After the Republican sweep, the White House seemed to have two options: double down on Keynesian stimulus or pivot to the center and champion deficit reduction. Instead, Obama chose to hover above the fray, passing on his own fiscal commission’s recommendations and letting the Republicans make the first move.

The strategy worked, in a sense. Goaded by the president’s evasiveness, Paul Ryan and the House Republicans put forward a detailed long-term budget proposal of their own, whose Medicare cuts proved predictably unpopular. But while the subsequent policy debate favored Obama, the optics of the confrontation diminished him. The chairman of the House Budget Committee looked more like a leader than the president of the United States.

Then came the spring’s great foreign policy dilemma, the civil war in Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Libya. The president (wisely) didn’t want to put America’s blood and treasure on the line for the rebels, but he also didn’t want to take responsibility for letting Qaddafi crush the revolt. So the White House opted for a kind of quasi war, throwing just enough military power at the problem to ensure a stalemate and then punting responsibility to our NATO allies. An Obama adviser told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza that the president was pioneering a new American way of statecraft: “Leading from behind.”

Again, the strategy worked, sort of. An immediate humanitarian crisis was averted, and Libya quickly fell out of the headlines. But it left Americans to contemplate a peculiar and unpresidential spectacle: The leader of the free world taking the country to war while pretending that he wasn’t, and then effectively washing his hands of the ultimate outcome — which, 135 days and counting later, is still very much in doubt.

The same pattern has played out in the debt ceiling debate. Instead of drawing clear lines and putting forward detailed proposals, the president has played Mr. Compromise — ceding ground to Republicans here, sermonizing about Tea Party intransigence and Washington gridlock there, and fleshing out his preferred approach reluctantly, if at all.

The White House no doubt figured that this negotiating strategy would either lead to a bipartisan grand bargain or else expose Republican extremism — or better still, do both. And again, the strategy is arguably working. Americans were given a glimpse of right-wing populism’s reckless side last week, and the final deal will probably let the president burnish his centrist credentials just in time for 2012.

But winning a debate on points isn’t a substitute for looking like a leader. It’s one thing to bemoan politics-as-usual when you’re running for the White House. It’s quite another to publicly throw up your hands over our “dysfunctional government” when you’re the man the voters put in charge of it.

[Prosperity]

I'm not sure how the Libya crisis diminished his authority, or if there was any better way to handle that situation. The rest of the points seem about right, but that's what happens when you elect a centrist I suppose.

[Teller]

I'm not sure how the Libya crisis diminished his authority, or if there was any better way to handle that situation.

Yeah, hard to argue from either side on Libya, IMO.

[Kilmer17]

I think the issue with Libya is how it seems like a strange place to make an exception to his other for. policy positions.

We arent acting the same way in other nations with similar issues.

I like what he did there. But he should be doing the same elsewhere.

[Redskin Diehard]

God Bless Him!!! I wouldn't want to be President of the United States at this point in our history for all the gold in fort knox. Have we ever had this many catastrophic events and circumstances occur during the same period of time in our history, since the great depression? Barrack has proven himself to be a career politician and possibly the highest paid wannabe stand up comedian of all time... not the crusader he painted himself as during the last presidential election. Its very disappointing to see him go out like a chump in all these various negotiations that have taken place since he took office but hey... what are you gonna do? That's just the nature of politricks. I guess.

[Teller]

I agree D Crap star.

[Predicto]

There are some telling points in that article. I am quite disappointed with Obama's leadership skills.

---------- Post added August-1st-2011 at 03:06 PM ----------

I think the issue with Libya is how it seems like a strange place to make an exception to his other for. policy positions.

We arent acting the same way in other nations with similar issues.

I like what he did there. But he should be doing the same elsewhere.

On this one I disagree. It's pretty easy to understand why he did what he did in Libya. He sees the Arab spring continuing, he wants to help it along, and he wants the people of the Middle East to feel like the USA is on the side of the people and democracy instead of on the side of the dictators. If Libya goes, Syria becomes more likely to democraticize, as do many other autocracies in the area. A possibly huge return on a minimal military investment.

[twa]

Syria is a mess right now,and escalating fast....gonna be interesting

I don't think we have handled Libya well,but I certainly understand Predicto's point on his motivation.
overall I think he has been a better leader on foreign affairs than at home.

I have not been impressed,but it has been no cakewalk like Clinton inherited either

[mardi gras skin]

Obama reminds me a lot of Bush 1. And that's a good thing. Bush Sr. came across as weak during his presidency and always too ready to compromise with the Democrats. Those compromises always seemed to come back and bite him.

At the time, he appeared feckless, but in the rear view mirror I think he was a much better president than most of us gave him credit for. That's kind of the vibe I'm getting from Obama. He might be a better president than he appears to be.

Maybe its good that Bush Sr. only got one term. Maybe the country can only take so much of that type of leadership. But I would be interested to know what a second term compromiser-type president would look like.

[DRSmith]

I think he is learning to handle things a bit better, for instance asking the people to put pressure on congress the thing is like the right he should have surrogates do that for him so he can keep the independents.

Dealing with the debt ceiling not only for the president but even the speaker because you were dealing with a group of extremists in the tea party folks, Clinton at least got to deal with folks who knoew the score and although they were dug in they did know how to come part way to make a deal

[JMS]

I'm not sure how the Libya crisis diminished his authority, or if there was any better way to handle that situation. The rest of the points seem about right, but that's what happens when you elect a centrist I suppose.

I have two thoughts...

First takes me back to the 1990's when Newt Gingrich tried to run the government from the speakership of the house and people were calling Bill Clinton a diminished and historically weak President... Which all proved to be bunk.

Second takes me back to a Kenny Rodgers song the gambler... "Never count your cards while you are sitting at the table. There will be time enough for counting when the game is done." The republicans were crying foul when this deal was anounced and now they are calling out victory; while many of the most prominent in the GOP are voting against the debt deal. The Dems are likewise crying into their milk saying Obama got a bad deal....

History will tell all based upon who makes up the super comitee who will recomend "Tax Restructuring" measures..... And that's really not looking terrible good for the no new taxes radicals from where I sit..

Fiscal Conservatives Barred from Supercommittee (Updated)
Will Senate Republicans be able to prevent tax hikes?

The debt ceiling deal will pass the Senate early this afternoon. No suspense there. But the vote will be worth watching for another reason: Three Republican Senate sources tell TWS that senators who vote against the deal will be ineligible to serve on the so-called “supercommittee” for deficit reduction that the legislation creates.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...ee_581921.html

Super comitee is made up of 3 house dems, 3 senate dems, 3 house republicans, and 3 Senate republicans. The democrats will be comitted to new taxes, resonsible increasing government revenue from it's now historic low rate compared to GDP. All they will need is one republican to conceed to burden sharing and the tax ceiling is lifted and the GOP membership is insolated from there bases backlash. Looks like Obama pulled a rabit out of his hat.

[youngestson]

I think the issue with Libya is how it seems like a strange place to make an exception to his other for. policy positions.

We arent acting the same way in other nations with similar issues.

I like what he did there. But he should be doing the same elsewhere.

When have we ever done that?