One Year: He Told You So

[babylonsister]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/01/one-year-he-told-you-so.html

One Year: He Told You So
Posted by Larissa MacFarquhar


We’ve heard a lot about the dissatisfaction of progressives. Obama has betrayed them. They thought he was their man, but he was not their man. They thought he was going to sock it to Republicans and stage a revolution. He didn’t. But this perception on the left wasn’t based on anything Obama actually said. It didn’t need to be. It seemed obvious: he was against the Iraq war, he used to be a community organizer, he was black—how could he not be one of them?

In fact, yes, he was against the Iraq war, but he was also for the Afghanistan war. On health care, he ran to the right of Clinton and Edwards. And, most importantly, during the campaign he spoke over and over again about changing the corrosive political culture in Washington. He wanted an end to partisan bickering, he wanted politicians to come together for the sake of the country. He said this a lot. He spoke about it, it seemed to me at the time, as much as any other issue—as much as health care, as much as Iraq.

In the primaries, the contrast with Hillary Clinton could not have been starker. While she talked the traditional Democratic talk about fighting greedy corporations and battling the right, Obama tended to avoid blaming Bush and the Republicans. He preferred to talk about America’s problems as “ours,” and how “we”—a nonpartisan we—might begin solving them. And he has always done this. In the most famous passage of his 2004 Convention speech, he rebuked pundits for slicing and dicing the country into red states and blue states. When Obama talked about change and hope during his campaign, in other words, he was talking as much about changing Washington and hoping for a new kind of politics as he was about anything else. But for some reason, this simply didn’t register. People just didn’t hear it. Or they heard it but didn’t believe he was serious. It would seem to be evident that a guy who was running on a promise of patriotic bipartisanship was not going to be the guy to crush Republicans and try to make real the most ambitious hopes of the left. But, somehow, it wasn’t.

He was serious. Obama’s belief in bipartisanship is not just about cordiality and tolerating different viewpoints—it goes deeper. When I interviewed Cass Sunstein—who knew Obama when they were both law professors at the University of Chicago, and who now works for the administration—for a profile of Obama early in the campaign, Sunstein said: “I think with Obama it’s like Learned Hand when he said, ‘The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.’ Obama takes that really seriously. I can’t think of an American politician who has thought in that way, ever.”

It’s now clear that there’s a reason for that. In his attempt to change Washington, Obama has failed. For the most part this failure should be blamed on Republicans, but it has also become clear that one of Obama’s crucial flaws is his overestimation of his ability to bring people together. But are we worse off for him trying? I suspect that even though a more conventional Democrat might also have won in 2008, she would not have inspired so much cross-over voting, or so much idealistic passion, and would not have carried with her so many House and Senate victories. Would the economy be doing better, or would health care be in better shape, if Obama had not even tried to get the Republicans on board? It’s hard to say.

In his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama wrote: “We must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side.” It’s rare for any sort of person to think this way, and for a politician it is radical. Maybe it’s politically stupid. It certainly hasn’t worked out too well during this past twelve months. But it’s a profound creed and a noble hope. And don’t say he didn’t tell you.

[Cha]

1. Yeah, we're all here to learn..

none of us are perfect.

President Obama knows the history of these neocons though so I can't see how he really thought any of them would do anything but bite his hand?

[babylonsister]

2. I think this article is directed more at his 'supporters' who are so

disappointed. He's exactly who he said he was, yet they seem to forget what he campaigned on.

[Fire1]

6. Well..........Uh......one thing in particular, I do recall him stating

repeatedly during his campaign that he wanted to put an end to politics as usual and in so doing first put an end to lobbying by special interest groups. He reneged on that early on and never should have said it. See, this is the low hanging fruit that progressives are picking to substantiate their argument. He DID contradict himself on that one.

[babylonsister]

7. True, but did anyone really think miscues and errors wouldn't happen

along the way? He is only human, and maybe didn't realize the odds he was up against, or the power of the lobbyists. He did make a stab at reducing their numbers, which I was grateful for.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x20952

WaPo: New Obama Policy Bars THOUSANDS of Lobbyists

[Fire1]

9. Agree. Just saying that some folks are cherry picking these

issues to substantiate their arguments against him. Just sayin.

[treestar]

3. Wow

“We must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side.”

that's exactly what the progressives want. They may not use the term God. But they are certain of their righteousness, just as self righteous as any right winger could be.

That's where all the wimp and waffle language comes from too. Capitulation and caving is their word for reaching a common understanding. They are just reverse Republicans.

[Fire1]

5. Bingo! n/t

[goclark]

4. Excellent article

"“We must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side.” - Barack Obama

Maybe the Nobel committee saw in him what others see as being weak.

I see him as a strong leader that approaches issues in an intellectual way. Yet, he really wants to work to bring people together, have them all "sit down together at the table of brotherhood."

[Born_A_Truman]

8. Instant gratificaion

We want it all; we want it now. Politics still doesn't work this way. Networks want sound bites. No one is willing to read a paragraph; it's all about the headline.

In my life, IG has caused major mistakes and I finally learned to have some patience. But then, I'm in my 60's. In my 20's, not so much.