Robert L. Borosage: Obama's First Year: It Ain't No Crystal Staircase
[Robert Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America's Future, and he has written on political, economic, and national security issues for publications including The New York Times and The Nation.]
Barack Obama is a leader of great capacities and great contradictions. Perhaps the measure of his capacities is the magnitude of his contractions. He is a man of exceptional grace. But the grace misleads; this is a politician of intense ambition, discipline and grit. He understands and wields the power of the word. But his soaring oratory misleads, for his temperament is moderate; his predilection is for compromise. He rouses a new generation to politics, but prefers to cut the deals in the backrooms. He calls us to a new direction, then staffs his administration's team with the acolytes of the old ideas he scorns.
One year is too soon to measure a president or assess an administration. Hell, this administration has less than half of its political appointees in place. But here in brief are six propositions on Barack Obama's first year:
1. This is the most progressive president since Lyndon Johnson.
His election ushered in what could be the greatest era for progressive reform since the 1960s. After fighting for years simply to stave off further horrors, we're now fighting over how to get to comprehensive health care, how to address global warming, calling the world to move towards nuclear disarmament. It is a big difference and should not be ignored.
Obama leads this wave. Listen to the music of the administration. Time and time again, on the economy, on civil rights, on disarmament - Barack Obama sounds a transformative call. His soaring words show us that another world is possible. The hard slog of his first months reveals just how hard it will be to get there. This ain't no crystal staircase.
2. This president seeks to do big things.
This isn't Bill Clinton running on school uniforms and TV monitors. Defying conventional wisdom, in his first year, Obama summoned the country and the Congress to address challenges that can no longer be ignored: a recovery act to stave of potential depression, comprehensive health care reform, progress on climate change, financial reform, new engagement with the world, and yet to come - immigration reform, empowering workers, and more. Powerful interests are challenged. The arguments are brutal. But the stakes are at least worth the game...
... 5. He deserves a progressive movement that is more independent, and less obedient.
Obama's remarkable leadership inspired millions. New activists, new resources, new energy - all roused by the hope he has engendered. The administration, not surprisingly, has sought to discipline this energy, to channel it into support for its agenda. But with his agenda delayed by entrenched lobbyists and diluted by compromised Democrats, the president would have been better served by independent movements demanding far bolder change from the White House, challenging those in both parties standing in the way, exposing and confronting the lobbyists and the clubbable legislators, mobilizing outside populist anger to counter inside establishment dealing. The mobilization around the"public option" on health care, when Max Baucus, the insurance lobby and the White House were ready to discard it, shows the potential. The populist challenge to this administration should not be abandoned to the crackpot right. Roosevelt had a disputatious left, an aroused labor movement; Johnson had the Civil Rights movement; Obama deserves a movement that will march on him, not just with him...
Read entire article at Campaign for America's Future
Barack Obama is a leader of great capacities and great contradictions. Perhaps the measure of his capacities is the magnitude of his contractions. He is a man of exceptional grace. But the grace misleads; this is a politician of intense ambition, discipline and grit. He understands and wields the power of the word. But his soaring oratory misleads, for his temperament is moderate; his predilection is for compromise. He rouses a new generation to politics, but prefers to cut the deals in the backrooms. He calls us to a new direction, then staffs his administration's team with the acolytes of the old ideas he scorns.
One year is too soon to measure a president or assess an administration. Hell, this administration has less than half of its political appointees in place. But here in brief are six propositions on Barack Obama's first year:
1. This is the most progressive president since Lyndon Johnson.
His election ushered in what could be the greatest era for progressive reform since the 1960s. After fighting for years simply to stave off further horrors, we're now fighting over how to get to comprehensive health care, how to address global warming, calling the world to move towards nuclear disarmament. It is a big difference and should not be ignored.
Obama leads this wave. Listen to the music of the administration. Time and time again, on the economy, on civil rights, on disarmament - Barack Obama sounds a transformative call. His soaring words show us that another world is possible. The hard slog of his first months reveals just how hard it will be to get there. This ain't no crystal staircase.
2. This president seeks to do big things.
This isn't Bill Clinton running on school uniforms and TV monitors. Defying conventional wisdom, in his first year, Obama summoned the country and the Congress to address challenges that can no longer be ignored: a recovery act to stave of potential depression, comprehensive health care reform, progress on climate change, financial reform, new engagement with the world, and yet to come - immigration reform, empowering workers, and more. Powerful interests are challenged. The arguments are brutal. But the stakes are at least worth the game...
... 5. He deserves a progressive movement that is more independent, and less obedient.
Obama's remarkable leadership inspired millions. New activists, new resources, new energy - all roused by the hope he has engendered. The administration, not surprisingly, has sought to discipline this energy, to channel it into support for its agenda. But with his agenda delayed by entrenched lobbyists and diluted by compromised Democrats, the president would have been better served by independent movements demanding far bolder change from the White House, challenging those in both parties standing in the way, exposing and confronting the lobbyists and the clubbable legislators, mobilizing outside populist anger to counter inside establishment dealing. The mobilization around the"public option" on health care, when Max Baucus, the insurance lobby and the White House were ready to discard it, shows the potential. The populist challenge to this administration should not be abandoned to the crackpot right. Roosevelt had a disputatious left, an aroused labor movement; Johnson had the Civil Rights movement; Obama deserves a movement that will march on him, not just with him...