The
Disappointment Presidency
History
does not unfold in a vacuum, and neither do presidential terms. Nearly four
years have passed since Barack Obama was elected, and in order to evaluate his
tenure in the Oval Office, one must examine the circumstances that led to that
election. Unfortunately, this means revisiting the unhappy presidency of George
W. Bush.
The Fail Guy
The
Bush years can best be described as the Failure Presidency. Though not the
bumbling hayseed satirists made him out to be, the ineloquent, reductionist Bush
was overmatched from the start. In all fairness, the September 11 attacks would
have posed a huge challenge to any leader, and Bush did acquit himself quite
well in the immediate aftermath. However, things were mostly downhill from
there. A self-styled “compassionate conservative,” Bush oversaw huge increases
in spending and government regulation. Under the aegis of spreading democracy
and fighting terrorism, his foreign policy propelled America into two wars,
alienated allies, and, paradoxically, incited Jihadists across the globe. From
warrantless surveillance of American citizens to the botched federal response
to Hurricane Katrina to outright kidnapping and torture, the Bush
administration became synonymous with corruption, cronyism, abuse of power, and
incompetence. By the time Bush left office, he had a 19% approval rating, and
the country’s economic downturn was well underway.
These
are the circumstances upon which Obama capitalized to assume the presidency. At
first glance, it would appear that he wouldn’t have had to do much to triumph
over a Republican brand that was badly tarnished. But as John Kerry’s woeful
2004 campaign taught us, merely being the other guy is not enough. Fortunately
for Obama, he was able to offer something new, even if that something was more
stylistic than substantive.
Hope and Change
“Hope
and Change” were the buzzwords that steered the Obama 08 campaign, and while
one would have to be naïve to have seen him as a transformational figure, there
was certainly a kernel of truth to those words. Yes, Obama was inexperienced,
but along with that inexperience came a (relative, and certainly by Chicago
standards) lack of corruption. Moreover, Obama seemed to offer a conciliatory
style and a broad-minded approach to governance. Whereas Bush filled cabinet
positions by rewarding those who had served him well, Obama favored a “best and
brightest” strategy, mixing Democratic stalwarts with recruits from the ranks
of academia and Republican appointees. And as a multiracial man (then) under
the age of 50, Obama revitalized the idea of America as a land of opportunity.
From
a policy perspective, the hope Obama represented was considerably more feint,
albeit still present. On the negative side, his foreign policy inexperience and
affinity for large public spending boondoggles (high-speed rail, anybody?) were
apparent from the start. However, based on both his campaign and his Senate
career, it was reasonable to expect that his presidency would offer a greater
respect for civil liberties and a less trigger-happy approach to diplomacy.
Furthermore, when was the last time a Democrat of his stature had good things
to say about charter schools and merit pay for teachers?
Both
because he was not Bush and because he offered something more than not being
Bush, Obama created a significant number of expectations, expectations which he
abetted by vowing swift action within the first 100 days of his presidency. But
after more than three years in office, he has fallen well short of achieving
those goals. If the Bush administration represents the Failure Presidency, then
the Obama administration, with its broken promises and inadequate governance,
represents the Disappointment Presidency.
The Economy, Stupid!
If
polls are any indication, no issue was more influential in determining the
outcome of the 2008 presidential election than the economy. By the time of the
election, the 2008 financial crisis was already underway. The causes of this
crisis were many, but for sake of argument, let us accept the Democratic line
that Republican mismanagement precipitated economic decline. Was that the case,
then surely some time under Democratic governance would right America’s
economic fortunes.
The
actual results of that governance, however, paint quite a different picture. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
the national unemployment rate for January 2009 – the month Obama took office –
was 7.8%. Throughout Obama’s term, that rate escalated as high as 10%. The most
recent data puts it at 8.1% for August 2012. While the unemployment rate is not
the sole indicator of economic health, these numbers nevertheless point to a
failure to right the ship.
It
is a failure that is inexcusable for several reasons. First, Democrats,
including Obama, have turned job creation and protecting the middle class into
their mantra. For them to fail at this task is both bitterly ironic and a
damning indictment of their competence. Second, this lackluster “recovery”
follows a very costly stimulus package, strongly supported by Obama, that was pushed
as being necessary to avoid precisely this outcome. Third, blame cannot be
placed elsewhere. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during Obama’s
first two years in office, thereby ensuring passage of his favored programs.
The idea that this can somehow be attributed to the Bush administration is
laughable. After all, there came a point during the Bush years when neither the
September 11 attacks nor Clinton-era policies could excuse the current
administration’s failures. We have since reached a similar point under Obama.
The Song Remains the Same
To
his supporters, the image Obama projects as a statesman is one of cool-headed
rationality. To his detractors, it’s one of kowtowing weakness. Unsurprisingly,
his predecessor elicited a similarly divisive response. Depending on whom you
asked, Bush was either a resolute leader with strong moral vision or a belligerent,
myopic blowhard. What is surprising is that despite the differences in
perception of the two leaders’ styles, their policy remains substantively unchanged
in several areas.
Like
Obama’s domestic policy, the Bush Doctrine is best characterized by a drive
toward massive action. Cloaked in the rhetoric of peace, freedom, and democracy,
Bush and a complicit (lest anyone forget) Congress immersed America in two
costly, bloody wars and raised the possibility of several others. Moreover, the
Bush administration asserted, rather chillingly, that it had the right to
detain American citizens indefinitely without charge vis-à-vis the troublingly
broad “enemy combatant” designation. To be certain, this approach to foreign
policy was not without positives: it contributed to the downfall of Saddam
Hussein and the toppling of a theocratic Afghan regime. However, it also
saddled the nation with political, moral, and economic costs that we are still
paying for today.
For
critics of this doctrine, Obama was supposed to have represented the antidote.
Unlike many wavering Democrats, Obama was never tainted by a senatorial vote in
favor of authorizing a war. He explicitly campaigned on bringing an end to the
War in Iraq and promised to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Within
months of his inauguration, Obama was in Egypt promising “A New Beginning” in
American-Middle Eastern relations.
A
few short years later, and the new beginning looks suspiciously like the old
way of doing things. Guantanamo Bay remains open, a sad testament to Obama’s
lack of political willpower. Troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, but they remain
entangled in Afghanistan, and skirmishes in Pakistan have threatened to cause
even more regional instability. Whereas the Bush administration was content to
detain and possibly torture American citizens that had been dubbed enemy
combatants, the Obama administration has outright targeted them for killing.
Just as with the Bush Doctrine, there has been an upside to such an aggressive foreign
policy approach. Osama bin Laden has finally been rooted out and exterminated,
and, the troubling circumstances of his and his son’s deaths aside, Anwar
al-Alwaki is presumably preaching his murderously anti-American vitriol in
hell. The larger concern, however, remains the present and future costs of a
course of action that Bush began and Obama betrayed supporters by
enthusiastically co-opting.
The Worst in All of Us
At
the dawn of Obama’s election, many of those who feared what Obama represented
politically nevertheless had praise for him personally. His willingness to
confront the complexities of race drew plaudits from Republicans from Peggy
Noonan to Mike Huckabee, and his smooth rhetorical style offered an appealing
contrast for conservatives to the increasingly-embarrassing outbursts of Bush
and Sarah Palin. Obama’s character, temperament, and eloquence thus inspired some
hope that the debates regarding his governance could, at least for a while, be
limited to the policies rather than the man behind him.
Of
course, this was not meant to be. Like many presidents of recent vintage (Bush
and Clinton in particular come to mind), Obama came to inspire unshakable gut-level
antipathy among his detractors. Though perhaps at its fiercest among the “Birthers,”
this sort of irrational distaste has not been limited to the lunatic fringe.
Newt Gingrich, a man Republicans have considered presidential material from
time to time, condemned Obama for failing to bomb and then for bombing Libya
within a span of a few short weeks. Obama opponents have variously tried to
depict him as a godless secularist, a secret Muslim, and a disciple of Jeremiah
Wright. The glaring lack of logical coherency common to these criticisms suggests
that if the president switched wholesale to the Ronald Reagan playbook, Obamaphobes
would lambast him for being unoriginal.
But
if a sizeable swath of Obama opponents are divorced from reality, so too are a
number of Obama supporters. Witness the spectacle of those who elected an
anti-war president defending that president’s war-mongering as evidence that he
isn’t spineless. Grimace as every critical observation is, conspiratorially,
tagged with racist intent. Or, simply laugh as Obama sycophants like Tim Kaine
praise him for “putting results ahead of ideology” while simultaneously
ignoring a good many of those results.
To
be fair, blame for the rabid rhetoric (pro and con) that Obama has inspired
cannot be laid solely at his feet. While a more partisan, gloves-off Obama has
emerged over the last few years, he has yet to fan the flames to as great an
extent as his predecessors. From a rhetorical standpoint, the disappointment of
the Obama presidency isn’t sinking down into the muck as much as it is no
longer giving us reason to believe we can do better.
In
a mere matter of weeks, the Disappointment Presidency will either receive a
second chance or meet its fateful end. Undoubtedly, what one thinks of the
alternatives to another Obama term will influence one’s decision to support or
reject it. But an examination of broken promises, changing positions, and a
failure to deliver should make one thing clear: in 2012, the answer to “Yes We
Can” is “No, You Probably Won’t.”
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