Aaron Miller: Obama's First Year
[Aaron Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is the author of "The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace." His book "Can America Have Another Great President?" will be published in 2012.]
With his poll numbers shrinking and pending healthcare legislation more controversial than ever, President Obama's critics are celebrating his much-diminished presidency....
Still, Barack Obama will today complete one of the more successful first years of any modern president. Love him or hate him, Obama has demonstrated that he can be both president and presidential in the face of some galactic challenges....
Obama is out there (everywhere) in the face of crisis, trying to restore confidence until the economy improves.
Our greatest presidents (Washington, Lincoln and FDR, I would argue) were both transactors and transformers. They addressed the crisis at hand, left the nation stronger and created a legacy on some big political, economic or social issue that changed America for the better and forever.
Obama aspires to be one of those. As the first African American president, he looks to Lincoln; inheriting the worst economic crisis since the Depression, he draws a line to FDR; and on the verge of pushing through huge healthcare reform, he sees LBJ (the master legislator) in the rearview mirror. If this isn't the behavior of a guy who sees himself as a historic figure, what is?...
And herein lies the problem: A president who wants to be transformational is trapped in a dysfunctional political system of oppositional Republicans, unruly Democrats and overly grandiose goals of his own making. He has no large Roosevelt or Reagan coalitions to support him; no martyred predecessor to unite the nation; no nation-wrenching crisis that compels the public to accept bold change and follow his lead.
Read entire article at LA Times
With his poll numbers shrinking and pending healthcare legislation more controversial than ever, President Obama's critics are celebrating his much-diminished presidency....
Still, Barack Obama will today complete one of the more successful first years of any modern president. Love him or hate him, Obama has demonstrated that he can be both president and presidential in the face of some galactic challenges....
Obama is out there (everywhere) in the face of crisis, trying to restore confidence until the economy improves.
Our greatest presidents (Washington, Lincoln and FDR, I would argue) were both transactors and transformers. They addressed the crisis at hand, left the nation stronger and created a legacy on some big political, economic or social issue that changed America for the better and forever.
Obama aspires to be one of those. As the first African American president, he looks to Lincoln; inheriting the worst economic crisis since the Depression, he draws a line to FDR; and on the verge of pushing through huge healthcare reform, he sees LBJ (the master legislator) in the rearview mirror. If this isn't the behavior of a guy who sees himself as a historic figure, what is?...
And herein lies the problem: A president who wants to be transformational is trapped in a dysfunctional political system of oppositional Republicans, unruly Democrats and overly grandiose goals of his own making. He has no large Roosevelt or Reagan coalitions to support him; no martyred predecessor to unite the nation; no nation-wrenching crisis that compels the public to accept bold change and follow his lead.