Fred Barnes: Obama's No Henry Clay
[Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.]
"I go for honorable compromise whenever it can be made. Life itself is but a compromise between death and life, the struggle continuing throughout our whole existence. .  .  . All legislation, all government, all society, is formed upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these, everything is based.”
Those are not the words of President Obama, though he would have you believe they express a sentiment he personifies. Rather, they come from a Senate debate in 1850 and were spoken by Henry Clay, known then and now as the Great Compromiser.
Clay authored the three greatest compromises in American history, two limiting the spread of slavery outside the South (1820, 1850) and one on tariffs (1833). Obama has talked about compromise, but has neither sought nor produced a single one.
Obama has succumbed to the temptation of large majorities. The lopsided Democratic margins—59-41 in the Senate, 254-177 (four vacancies) in the House—allowed him to win approval of his health care plan without making a single meaningful concession to Republicans. And he’s pursuing a partisan, no-compromise strategy with his remaining initiatives this year.
This approach is politically risky. On health care, Obama not only spurned Republicans, but also defied public opinion. By compromising, he surely would have wound up with a more popular bill. As it is, Obama-care is the target of a drive to repeal it. Repeal now outpolls the bill itself, 54 to 38 percent.
When threatened with defeat on the economic stimulus package last year, Obama’s tactic was to peel off just enough Sentate Republicans—three, it turned out—to win approval. This is not the same as reaching a compromise, and the stimulus isn’t regarded as even faintly bipartisan. It soon lost favor with the public....
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"I go for honorable compromise whenever it can be made. Life itself is but a compromise between death and life, the struggle continuing throughout our whole existence. .  .  . All legislation, all government, all society, is formed upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these, everything is based.”
Those are not the words of President Obama, though he would have you believe they express a sentiment he personifies. Rather, they come from a Senate debate in 1850 and were spoken by Henry Clay, known then and now as the Great Compromiser.
Clay authored the three greatest compromises in American history, two limiting the spread of slavery outside the South (1820, 1850) and one on tariffs (1833). Obama has talked about compromise, but has neither sought nor produced a single one.
Obama has succumbed to the temptation of large majorities. The lopsided Democratic margins—59-41 in the Senate, 254-177 (four vacancies) in the House—allowed him to win approval of his health care plan without making a single meaningful concession to Republicans. And he’s pursuing a partisan, no-compromise strategy with his remaining initiatives this year.
This approach is politically risky. On health care, Obama not only spurned Republicans, but also defied public opinion. By compromising, he surely would have wound up with a more popular bill. As it is, Obama-care is the target of a drive to repeal it. Repeal now outpolls the bill itself, 54 to 38 percent.
When threatened with defeat on the economic stimulus package last year, Obama’s tactic was to peel off just enough Sentate Republicans—three, it turned out—to win approval. This is not the same as reaching a compromise, and the stimulus isn’t regarded as even faintly bipartisan. It soon lost favor with the public....