There’s a somewhat lengthy piece by Euegene Goodheart in the summer issue of Dissent–“Obama On and Off Base”–that’s well worth reading. Goodheart makes the case that far from selling out his liberal base, the President is operating as efficiently as he can within the the constraints (from constitutional to political) his administration faces, and has some genuine accomplishments to boast of–not, actually, a bad record for a president in his third year. I think it’s well worth reading for those who don’t understand why we don’t have single-payer, why Copenhagen went so terribly wrong, why enough isn’t being done in terms of economic stimulus. In any case, the historical comparisons to (and contrasts with) Lincoln and Roosevelt are insightful and rewarding.
There’s a disingenuous element here, too, however, in that the author, focusing pretty much entirely on domestc policy issues, doesn’t touch on military spending or the wars–two items that, to my mind, threaten the well-being being of the republic more than most anything else. The president doesn’t require supermajorities to drastically alter US involvement in Iraq and Af-Pak; when it comes to his status as Commander-in-Chief, he need accede to no powerful Senator nor fear a filibuster. In fact, a growing number of congresspeople and senators are pushing de-involvement, and there does exist a VERY broad colaition, which includes paleo-cons, who would vociferously support withdrawal. Unfortunately, standard-issue Dems are reluctant to criticize the President on this most critical of issues–the election of Obama was the single worst thing that could have hapened to what there was of an antiwar movement, as we got, not “Bush Lite,” but but Bush squared–and a movement that decided to castrate itself in obesiance.
I have no idea how to rescuscitate that movement, but I’m open to suggestions.
Continue reading Obama, here—and there
