August 3, 2011--Other People's Messes

Barack Obama is getting roundly criticized for folding up to Republican pressure not to increase taxes in order to help reduce the nation's debt. He may deserve much of this criticism since he knows that there is no way out of this mess without increasing revenues. My guess is that even many Republicans pandering to the Tea Party know this.

The most savage attacks on Obama, though, are coming from the left. If you read progressive blogs such as the Daily Kos you will get a quick taste of the intensity of this criticism. Kos bloggers are calling for someone to challenge Obama for the 2012 nomination. The way Gene McCarthy took on Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and thus contributed to his downfall and the ultimate election of Richard Nixon. Lots of luck.

Though much of what we are hearing is understandable--Obama was elected by promising to bring about real change and by claiming that he would take on and solve our deepest programs--what in fact could Obama do in the face of the very real threat that Republicans in Congress (in the control of their intransigent Tea Party colleagues) were seemingly all right with allowing the country to fall into default?

If Obama had drawn a line in the sand and said, "I will not agree to or will veto any deal that does not bring in more revenues by increasing taxes on the wealthy and closing the most outrageous of corporate loophole," if he had done that with credibility it is likely that the controlling Tea Party wing of the Republican Party would have said, with actual enthusiasm, "Bring it on."

They are apocalyptic minded at their core and feel that The End is not only near but necessary to bring about both the political and eschatological millennia.

Beside various forms of posturing for cheap political gain, Obama in effect had two choices--not budge, and when Congress couldn't agree to anything, time ran out, and we faced default, invoke dubiously the 14th Amendment (and face certain impeachment since the 14th Amendment was specifically about what to do about the Civil War debt); or Obama could have agreed to a Republican-driven "compromise" that included spending cuts without enhanced revenues. That is what he did; and this, even with the hindsight of just two days, on quick glance looks awful.

But here's another way to think about what Obama ultimately agreed to--

It took more political courage than any other, more politically macho alternative.

He chose the path of seeming weakness. It took real guts to do that.

Rather than preside over the first national default in our history and to his political base look like a hero--not caving to those "satanic" Republican "hostage takers" who "put a gun to his head" (language left-wing Democrats actually used; what would we liberals say if the Republicans had evoked those violent images?)--rather than this Obama took the "bad" deal, thus avoiding default for a least 18 months, and the battle will now turn to the 2012 elections when voters will get a chance either to toss out the Tea Party and their craven GOP followers or put even more of them into office so that The End will loom yet nearer.

In the process--one scenario or the other--it is likely that by this action, a version of intentional passivity, Obama sealed his political fate. He is as a result more likely than ever to be a one-term president. The GOPers of course still despise him, his progressive base is searching for an alternative "to primary" him, and independents are abandoning him in droves.

This result, ironically, may be looked back upon by history as a very different kind of profile in political courage. He allowed himself to look ineffective, accepted a seemingly terrible deal, but at least for a while saved the country.