Obama, Teddy, & the Perils of Governing Without Conviction (M.S. Bellows, HuffPo)

[highplainsdem]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows/obama-teddy-the-perils-of_b_430055.html

M.S. Bellows, Jr.

Posted: January 20, 2010 02:26 PM

Obama, Teddy, & the Perils of Governing Without Conviction


Four years ago, I wrote a pair of meditations on my irascible old blog, VichyDems, warning of the harm that would occur if Democrats regained national power without first abandoning the incrementalist, centrist approach advocated so unsuccessfully by the Democratic Leadership Council and instead returning, consciously and assertively, to their traditional, liberal roots. On the one year anniversary of the inauguration of Barack Obama, and the day after Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat was lost to a conservative male pinup with a pickup truck, my fears about the dangers of trying to govern without referring to fundamental principles seem to be coming true.

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The reckoning is coming in 2010, not 2008, but otherwise, the crumbling of the national party is occurring exactly as I feared -- and for exactly the reason I predicted. On healthcare, Afghanistan, Wall Street reforms, LGBT rights, and every other issue where they hold both the moral and the policy high ground, the White House and Senate have waffled and compromised.

Even worse, they not only have allowed Joe Lieberman to continue pretending that his interests and goals are even minimally aligned with theirs -- letting him caucus with them, retain his chairmanships, and counting him among the fetishistic "60 votes" Reid supposedly possessed until Tuesday -- but they also have allowed his rebellion to infect others in the caucus. (The reason you remove bad apples from the barrel is that they ruin the apples next to them; Ben Nelson would never have the courage to block healthcare reform by himself.)

By allowing Lieberman to block passage of an institutional public option instead of affirmatively blocking his games by using reconciliation or by mimicking the Republican threat to declare filibusters unconstitutional, as they arguably are; by increasing troop strength (twice) in Afghanistan instead of bringing our troops home; by deferring a decision on Don't Ask Don't Tell, and naming Wall Street insiders Larry Summers and Tim Geithner to oversight posts; by constantly courting the center, placing comity above principle, triangulating instead of leading, and seeking incremental advances instead of bold new deals -- by all these concessions, Obama and Senate leaders have forgotten that courage begets voter confidence and voter confidence begets electoral success. To the extent the debacle in Massachusetts is a referendum on anything besides Martha Coakley's execrable and lazy campaigning, it is a referendum on Democratic leaders' failure to hew to liberal principles.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who knows no legislative strategies besides "compromise", bears much of the blame, as do other senior Senate Democrats. (The House side's coffee is noticeably hotter than the Senate's these days.)

But the ultimate responsibility for the Democratic Party's tepidity, and its electoral setback Tuesday, rests with Barack Obama, who for one year now has governed with an unseemly timidity. In his first year, Obama did not issue an executive order eliminating discrimination against gays in the military, as the Commander-in-Chief unquestionably has the right to do (and as Democrat Harry Truman did to desegregate the military in 1948). He did not go to bat for the public health insurance option when it was on life support in the Senate Finance Committee and again on the Senate floor. He elected (twice) to increase troop strength in Afghanistan instead of acknowledging that Afghanistan is no longer Al Quaeda's base and bringing our troops home. Instead of appointing agents of real change, he named Wall Street insiders Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to key oversight positions and appointed a consummate triangulator and centrist, Rahm Emanuel, as his Chief of Staff.

The bragged-about fact that Obama passed 97% of his Congressional agenda this year demonstrates merely that he played it too safe. As Robert Browning wrote over a century ago: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

There is a divide among Democratic activists today, between those who urge unity and support for Obama, and those who advocate dissenting at least enough to stop Obama from taking his base for granted and force him to shift left. What some people don't realize is that this divide, between progressive ideals and the pseudo-pragmatic impulse to compromise, is part of Obama's nature itself. The man himself doesn't seem to know which camp he belongs to.

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It's not too late yet for Obama to deliver the change he promised -- and to salvage as much as possible of Democrats' Congressional advantage next November. For example, he doesn't need Congress to eliminate DADT; he simply needs to act like the Commander-in-Chief, order an end to discrimination, and tell his soldiers (including the general staff) to follow his orders.

Likewise, healthcare reform can be salvaged without any disrespect to Massachusetts voters by the simple expedient of pushing House progressives to pass the Senate bill as-is, with a promise to effect further reforms later this year (via reconciliation if necessary). If that fails, a bold, principled Obama could rock the GOP's world by immediately pushing a singlepayer plan through the budget reconciliation process -- which could be accomplished well before the November elections and re-establish Democrats as a party with the courage of its convictions -- after which Obama could negotiate with conservatives to replace that (to Republicans) intolerable law with a reasonable compromise, including a strong public option, that they would not dare to filibuster (because that would leave singlepayer in place) and that would not be subject to reconciliation's ten year sunset provision. (Mark Kleiman wrote brilliantly on that negotiating strategy here.)

Obama could even do what the GOP threatened to do three years ago by dispatching Joe Biden, as President of the Senate, to declare the filibuster unconstitutional and simply call a vote on any healthcare reform package that can win a simple 51 votes. That may seem crazy, and it may be overreaching, but as a lawyer who's examined both sides of the Constitutional argument, I've concluded that Kevin Drum arguably is right about this and that the "nuclear option" could be exercised -- or at least threatened -- in colorable good faith.

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[niyad]

1. and am sure the un'rec crowd will be along any minute.

[highplainsdem]

2. kick

[highplainsdem]

3. kicking for the morning crowd