'Get your head of out your television set, and start paying attention to government.'

[seafan]

Matt Stoller at Naked Capitalism asks why, in the face of the serially disastrous policy decisions embraced by this president, he continues relentlessly down this dangerous path.

Stoller points out that when examining Obama's political strategy, it is quite obvious that he serves the American oligarchs, thus his actions are not from the genuine desire for 'compromise or incrementalism'.


Stoller asks the critical question -- how then, does Obama capture liberal support at the same time he embraces oligarch-friendly policies? Stoller's pointed answer is: by making sure that liberals only focus their attention on the 'ceremonial non-governmental' portions of the Presidency.



Absorb that concept for a moment.



He then describes three different dynamics of the criticisms that liberals aim at the president, and, importantly, how that criticism reflects liberals' view of the role of the president.


The president's role as:

1) Legislator-in-Chief
2) Narrator-in-Chief
3) Governor-in-Chief

When Obama is criticized as not fighting Republicans hard enough, it’s an implicit endorsement of the “legislator-in-chief” role. As such, the blame for illiberal policies like bailouts, poorly designed health care plans, cuts to entitlements – well, these are the Republicans fault. Obama is simply helpless before the onslaught. Similarly, every time an establishment liberal says in the newspaper that “Obama’s policy choices are jeopardizing his reelection chances”, they are implicitly endorsing the narrator-in-chief role, and ignoring his role as an incompetent and highly radical President causing enormous damage to millions of people. Again, he’s helpless before a mean-spirited press corps and Republican establishment bent on his destruction. This is easy to show on TV – just pop up some video of mean Republicans.

We see the roles of Legislator-in-Chief and Narrator-in-Chief endlessly played out on television by this president, and portrayed in the manner the media selectively choose to portray them. These are the two roles on which the Establishment wants us to concentrate. And as Legislator-in-Chief and Narrator-in-Chief, the argument is made that the ensuing damaging policy is "not Obama's fault".


Stoller warns us instead, to turn away from the television and focus on the role of governor-in-chief.

Governor-in-Chief – Some people think that Obama runs the country, as he is the head of the executive branch of government and the Commander in Chief. Here his record is clear. His law enforcement chief, Eric Holder, has engaged in a policy of legalizing control fraud on the part of large banking institutions and gone after whistleblowers more aggressively than Bush did. Obama has launched secret wars and enlarged at least one overt war in Afghanistan. His stewardship of the BP spill was problematic to say the least, his foreclosure program has been a disaster, and his small business lending program passed in late 2010 and framed as a key job creator has lent out almost no money.

As narrator-in-chief and legislator-in-chief, the President has not been particularly effective, but one could at least argue that it is not his “fault”. Perhaps he made poor choices, but it could simply be a strategic disagreement. He could not get a liberal health care plan through, he couldn’t achieve a big enough stimulus, etc. But on how he actually governs, which is actually a pretty big part of the job, there is no debate. He has pursued a governing strategy that is both radical in its lawlessness and authoritarian in its structure around civil liberties, war, and deference to big finance while destroying faith in government through nearly unprecedented incompetence in the millions of people touched by the HAMP program. And what, pray tell, explains the ongoing Libya fiasco?

If one only watches the two roles presented to us on television ---the Legislator-in-Chief and the Narrator-in-Chief--- one is distracted from the scrutinizing the role that is the most important---the role of Governor-in-Chief.


And that role has been secreted to horse-trading behind closed doors.


By shutting out liberals from scrutinizing THAT role, is how Obama expects to acquire liberal support in his reelection. He must have a stellar cast of advisers.


We liberals have news for the president. It ain't working.


Stoller ties it all up:

All of this is to say that how one sees government is critical to how one judges Obama. And if the only consideration is the boundaries of television, then of course, Obama is going to look like a mediocre narrator-in-chief constrained by wild forces he cannot control. Of course, Congress will make him seem like a somewhat inept but well-meaning legislative leader or party leader. It is only in turning off the boundaries set by a narrow TV-dominated discourse that one truly sees Obama’s real handiwork – the wars, the bailouts, and most tragically, what could have been but never was.

It is, indeed, an American tragedy.

[rainy]

1. Well thought out and very interesting!

[cprise]

2. Wow, K&R!

n/t