William Broyles: Oval Office Appeaser

William Broyles, a screenwriter and former editor of NEWSWEEK, supported Barack Obama in 2008.

When Barack Obama was inaugurated, a Republican president had taken the peace, prosperity, and budget surpluses of the Clinton years and given us two wars, a devastated economy, and an almost trillion-dollar deficit. Obama was going to be our Franklin Roosevelt, our Winston Churchill—a visionary leader who would give America hope again. Instead, he has turned out to be the Neville Chamberlain of American politics, drifting toward national catastrophe, one compromise at a time.

In the 1930s, desperate to keep the peace, Chamberlain caved in to every German demand. And he got war anyway. Let me be clear: the right-wing radicals in control of the Republican Party of course are not Nazis. But Obama is like Chamberlain. A decent man who values peace and civility at any cost, he’s no match for his Republican adversaries.

Chamberlain had a weak hand and played it poorly. Obama had a strong hand and threw in his chips. Immediately after his inauguration, he could have announced a bold effort to put America back to work—not a stimulus, but a recovery. When the Republicans threatened to filibuster, he could have taken his case to the American people and demanded an up-or-down vote to save the country.