I think Ezra misses the point:
But though Obama's program is quite liberal, he doesn't seem to care much how it's achieved. A public option would be nice, but if it's not there, then that's fine, too. Full auction of permits is a good idea, but if most get given away to corporations, then that's how it goes. Infrastructure spending is good, but if tax cuts are the price of passage, then tax cuts there shall be. The best description of the administration's ideology probably came from Rahm Emanuel when he said, "The only nonnegotiable principle here is success."
You could imagine a lot of presidents more dogmatically liberal than Obama, but I wonder whether there are a lot of plausible hypotheticals in which they amass more liberal achievements than Obama. At the executive level, it might be the case that being too liberal is a liability to, well, liberalism. That, Tony Judt would probably say, is why countries need a healthy left.
A few things.
1. Define "success." Rahm's definition of success is transactional. Mine is substantive. Rahm defines success on health care reform as passing a bill, any bill, so long as the bill is "called" Health Care Reform. I don't define any compromise, any solution, so long as it passes, "success." That's the definition of a legislative PR stunt, not leadership, and not success.
2. Obama's program is not liberal. He not only doesn't care how his program is achieved, he also doesn't care "if" it's achieved substantively. He only cares if his program is achieved in name only. See point one, above.
3. What "liberal achievements" is Obama racking up? The stimulus package, in which he gave away 40% of the money to relatively useless tax cuts in order to buy only 3 Republican votes? The tax cut money was wasted, several hundred billion dollars worth - that's neither liberal nor conservative. It's puffery - see point one, above. The health care bill? It remains to be seen how liberal the effects of this legislation really are. So far, the only clear winners are the health care industry. It's not at all clear that our premiums are going to significantly decrease, or our benefits significantly increase, under this legislation - and that was the goal, wasn't it? (The vehicle might have been bringing costs down - but the goal was to help the consumer get better health care at a lower price. And it's not entirely clear that this legislation will bring costs down either, since the public option was to provide real cost competition, and now that's gone.)
4. A final point that many of the President's defenders keep ignoring. You don't praise your kid for getting a C+, or even a B-, on an exam, when they could have had an A, but simply didn't try. If anything, praising your child for blowing off the exam and getting a B- sends exactly the wrong signal. This administration is far too consumed with whether it is liked, far too afraid of being criticized, and far too obsessed with about avoiding conflict at all costs. President Obama was handed the presidency by a rather healthy margin, an opposition in utter ruin, a Senate with a filibuster proof majority, a House with overwhelming Democratic control, approval ratings through the roof, and on his signature issue, he dropped the ball for nine months, until the climate was so poisoned by incessant attacks from the right, that he "had no choice" but to cave on the most important promise of his campaign. That is not leadership. And it's not liberalism. It smacks of fear and weakness, and political naivete. I've worked in politics in this town for twenty years, and this is not "the way things work," nor is it the way you win.
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