exercise in triangulation

I think Taibbi’s right on the substance of what Obama’s actually done in office, and Larison’s right in that he never actually promised anything substantial to those of his supporters who wanted something more radical: it was mood music, slick Willie Clinton all over again.

One thing Taibbi missed. He points out that the Fed has passed on taxpayer money at extremely low rates to banks who can lend it out at higher rates, pocketing the difference. A lot of this money’s going to come back to the Democratic Party and Obama himself in the form of contributions in campaign cycles to come. At any rate, the Obama administration has shown that it works for the people who count. So that’s why I also think ‘squared’s right that the insiders have decided that it’s time to stop stringing along the pwogs with all the hopey-changey stuff.

Anyway, the piece d squared linked to by Brad DeLong contains the following inspiring words:

Barack Obama ran as a post-partisan African-American technocrat.

But that was too big to get on the posters, so “change” and “hope” were used to sum up the position. These words were obviously an exact shorthand for post partisan technocracy of an African-American nature.

I don’t think expectations of Obama were entirely due to his willingness to invite large numbers of his voters to fool themselves. The trouble we’re in financially stems from the application of orthodox market economics by politicians generally accepted as moderate, reasonable and pragmatic. The hope that Obama would change things didn’t necessarily stem from programmatic radicalism so much as the belief that a failed system needs changing, that doing what you’ve always done means that you’d get what you’ve always got, to quote the inspiration merchants. In other words, it stemmed from the moderate, reasonable and pragmatic impulses in his voters, however radical they may otherwise be. Of course in changing things, there was the hope that Obama would introduce a larger measure of social justice. Hell, why not, since we’re rearranging stuff. But that would be populism, and would never do.

Comments

[Chris]

I'm sort of sympathetic to people who are complaining about what Taibbi keeps leaving out: Congress. The US has a seriously goofy constitution. There are tons of veto points, and a deeply unrepresentative Senate can thwart a great deal of even a popular President's domestic initiatives. I find Obama disappointing for things that he does more directly control: secrecy (though he's better than Bush, I think), executive control, torture stuff, failure to investigate past abuses, etc. I dunno, do you think that let's him off the hook too easily? Do you think he's failed to push for legislative advances that would have stood a plausible chance of passing?

[jamie]

I don't know how much the veto powers within the US consitution are activley restraining him. I don't get the sense that he's pushing very hard or that it's very important to him to take measures that might overcome them, through impsing greater discipline on the congressional caucus, for instance. It's difficult to believe that he couldn't just utterly crush Lieberman, for instance, if he wanted to do that. And what does the US consitution say about this supermajority business? You wouldn't have someone in your class saying they really wanted to do their assignment, but they needed a supermajority.

I think really that he's just a conventional centre right manager-politician: to the extent that he has any convictions, they veer towards pathological centrism. Over here stands justice. Over there stands injustice. Obama will take his place firmly in between these two extremes.

But then it has to be said that the American system has done very well by him, so it's logical that he should be loyal to it. And as a foreigner I do feel a lingering appreciation for the general absence of craziness.

[dsquared]

I can't help noticing that although this is being sold as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for healthcare reform and something that requires compromise with Congress without end, when it was the bank bailout bill that was getting fucked up by an obstructionist Congress, all sorts of things previously considered impossible became possible.

[Alex]

It's difficult to believe that he couldn't just utterly crush Lieberman, for instance, if he wanted to do that. And what does the US consitution say about this supermajority business?

Isn't this just an argument from WILL? I thought we didn't believe that all political problems could be resolved with enough WILL. It's hardly a new or controversial statement that the US constitution, and even more so its run-time implementation including the case law, the congressional rules of procedure etc, is designed to let senators hold stuff up (I think the Federalist put it more elegantly).

[jamie]

To a certain extent I suppose, though I was thinking more about LBJ than Stalin. And like Dan says, the administration shows plenty of will when it's doing something it really wants to do.

[cian]

Well congress can hold stuff up, but a president can still get a lot through if he really wants to. He compromised from the outset on healthcare. He didn't even bring his own proposal. As a negotiating technique this is obviously hopeless, something Obama obviously realises as he doesn't use it for the ones that matter (blowjobs for Goldmans). If you want to see what a president can get done if he really wants to, and has public support (albeit less than Obama had for healthcare), look at the early Bush years.

[ejh]

He could also call on his supporters to make the same amount of noise as his opponents do, and see which voice was stronger.

[skidmarx]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdSnwufjKtc