The criticism continues to pour in from the President's statement yesterday, all across the spectrum. On the left, both Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart tore into him hours later, and on the right, the expected morons running for President criticized him, and today, the Morning Joe crew joined in, both the lefties and the righties.
What struck me in the criticism, though, was not the unity that the statement was tepid and uninspirational. I think we all can agree, whether we support him or not (and I do), that he has been off his game this summer. He got an epic win with the birth certificate putdown (where he showed some anger at the mouth-breathers out there), the smackdown of Donald Trump to his face, and then, the next night, the assassination of bin Laden. At that point, we thought it was over. He'd sealed re-election with a couple of right hooks followed by a left uppercut to the Republicans.
But then the debt negotiations dragged on, and the President was.....flat. Just flat. He didn't use his bully pulpit, he didn't attack, he was conciliatory, only rarely getting pissed at Republican intransigence. I know the House is filled with epic losers, people who so fundamentally twist and misunderstand American history to the point that you want to weep about it if you weren't so pissed at the fact that the lunatics were running the asylum. Not once, not ONE TIME, did he do what Clinton did, what Reagan did, what Nixon did, what LBJ did with his huge majorities, what Truman did, and finally, what FDR did.
He didn't take the airwaves. He didn't smack his opponents around in the media. I don't care if they run a house of Congress, he needs to stop deferring to Congress like he was a 19th century president. The presidency changed. There's a difference between being respectful of Congress and cowering before them, and in this case, only ONE House is run by the mouth-breathers. That means 2/3 of the power is still on your side, and at some point, you have to attack people who are taking hostages. Even Joe fucking Biden, our Vice President, got it. They're terrorists. He said it right. There's only so many times you can "rise above the fray." Sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and dive in.
So, that having been said, back to what I started with. What struck me about the criticism was the absolute validation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. To see a guy like Joe Scarborough get on TV, one of the Gingrich Gang of 1994, and say, "we need tax reform, it's wrong that secretaries are paying more taxes than their Wall St. bosses, and we need to invest in infrastructure and spend money to get the economy moving again," and follow that statement from last week with expressed reverence for FDR's style today, adding, "there is an entire generation of Americans, our parents, who grew up revering FDR. My mom, who is as right-wing as it comes, worships FDR. Why? [at this point, Mike Barnicle joined in him unison] 'He saved the country.'"
They went on to discuss how the President has been very weak, how he's let Tea Party backbenchers win the debate. Scarborough got in the obligatory Reagan reference, but his first words were, "LBJ NEVER would've let this happen. He would've knocked the stuffing out of them. Reagan never would've let this happen. FDR would've hammered them for this." I'm listening to Kenneth Cole right now on MSNBC saying that the President often has a good message, but is a poor messenger, too focused on talking about the cost of something instead of explaining the benefits.
There it was again. FDR. Olbermann has touched on this repeatedly too. I've heard others, too, like David Gergen, say the same things. I think it says something. When both left and right are touting the virtues of FDR, how he fought, how he inspired, how he was willing to try ANYTHING to try and fix things, it validates his politics, his policies, his LEADERSHIP. That's something we're missing today, and it saddens me. The President has the ability. We all saw it in 2008. But he's treated the presidency like it's the 19th century, and the funny thing is that even in that era, there were some strong presidents, men like Jackson and Lincoln, who used the prestige of the presidency to make changes and preserve our union. Jackson sent troops to South Carolina when they tried nullification, and Lincoln did not accede to secession, he fought it.
The American people want leadership. When the Villagers start crying out for it, when Joe Nocera and Andy Serwer (Fortune magazine managing editor) and Mike Barnicle and David Gergen and Joe Scaraborough and Eugene Robinson (who is a great progressive writer) and all of these people who live in the Beltway Bubble, when they are ALL touting FDR as a model of leadership in this sort of economic crisis, it means that we on the left are on the right side of this. Us progressives/liberals/Democrats are on the right damn side of this issue, and Washington is NOT. FDR's policies, his leadership, his inspiration, which have been under fire from the right for 30 years, suddenly look a lot better when the right got their whole way on this horrible fucking debt ceiling deal and S&P dropped our credit rating and the markets start tanking.
Because, let's face it: You can't crow you got 98% of what you wanted and then blame the market drop on the guy you just bragged you took to the cleaners. You look like idiots who don't know what you're doing. This is a golden goddamn opportunity, and it looks like the President is going to pass on it again instead. Again, NOT the way FDR would've acted. FDR would take something like this and would be on the radio (and today, obviously, on TV and other mediums) slamming the Republicans, telling Americans, "The people you voted into office last year do not care about you, do not care about America, do not care about jobs, do not care about anything but trying to make me look bad and protecting our wealthiest members of society. The Republican Party has only those two goals in mind, and they do not care if they run you over in the process. I will not stand for that. I will not stand by and let you be run over and left at the side of the road. I am calling Congress into special session, so that we may pass a true jobs bill, a bill to put people to work, a bill that will repair the infrastructure of this nation and repair the economic malaise that has infected us. I will not go quietly in the night. You elected me to improve your lives, and I will do that or die trying."
If I was hearing that from the President, I would be cheering. I would be excited. I would be INSPIRED. Americans want strong, inspired leadership when things are bad. It's why, after 9/11, even Democrats cheered Bush, because for a couple of weeks there, he was strong and inspiring. He revived our sense of excellence. Reagan Democrats became a political term for 20 years because Reagan, for all his faults, had a strong voice and used the bully pulpit effectively. He was an old man in 1984 who had a ton of disasters on his watch, but he sounded strong and inspiring and he absolutely ran over Walter Mondale with an 18-wheeler.
The President is a giant amongst pygmies on the Republican side right now. There is no way in hell a stuffed shirt like Mitt Romney should stand a chance in hell against this man. The Republicans have not one credible candidate, yet some of them are close in the polls against Obama. 51% of the country thinks he hasn't earned reelection, numbers we would've found stunning in May, when he'd just risen above the mess with substantive actions. For him, once again, to willingly take a backseat and let Congress take the wheel in major economic policy decisions (which health care reform fell under) after he'd just shown what an engaged, emotional president is capable of doing, is stunning. It makes people wonder if he is capable of LEADING.
It's long past time for this President to channel FDR. It's long past time for him to LEAD. He is ABSOLUTELY capable of it. He has more tools at his disposal than Clinton did in 1995, and Clinton CRUSHED the Republicans. He wiped the mat with Gingrich, a man who'd made Clinton look small one year before. He did it because he was willing to fight. I want 2008 Obama back. I want the guy who was willing to smack back at stupid crap coming from Republicans. I want the guy who made big speeches, who evoked a grand vision of a better America. I want the guy who made me think of FDR with his eloquence.
And I'm going to go out on a limb here that others have already walked out onto, but for a different reason. I think that maybe we DO need a primary opponent, someone to challenge the President, to bring out the fighter that he's repressed for three years now. I want somebody to push him, and I don't think he's gotten that, and he NEEDS IT. He needs a serious challenger, because I'll tell you what. Facing Hillary in those primaries, as brutal as it was, it made him stay sharp and be tough and FIGHT. When even right-wing media people are crying for FDR's leadership and willingness to try new things, it's a sign of how low the President's political standing is. That has to change, or it's going to be a dark decade for America. Mr. President, where is the fighter I worked for in 2008?
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