What follows is my response to an ISU Daily editorial featured in the paper on January 22nd.
Before anyone says it, I understand that people are entitled to their opinions. However, when someone blatantly or accidentally misrepresents the truth, someone needs to do something about it.
By Ian Barker
During the course of President Obama’s campaign, many interpreted that the effects of his presidency would include the end of partisanship and disagreement in favor of a move toward a benevolent government of and for the people. The problem with this conception is that Mr. Obama never actually promised an end to partisanship or disagreement. In fact, of the five-hundred and three promises that he did make, none of them even mention or allude to an America devoid of partisanship.
Why? Because in order for a president to put an end to political discourse, he would either have to homogenize public opinion through propaganda or militarize the state until the public feared for their lives lest they agree with the governing party.
As far as I know, neither of these are on the agenda.
Many would use the media’s hyperbole as an attempt to see Mr. Obama’s presidency as a failure, but this effectively amounts to moving the goal posts. Certainly, his presidency has not been the utopian romp that some expected, but the withdrawal from Iraq, effort to reduce proliferation of nuclear weapons, development of infrastructure, prevention of an economic disaster, and overwhelming legislative success rate (96.7% according to Congressional Quarterly) are not tempered by the fact that he (admittedly) did not cure cancer in the process.
All told, voters did not expect a New America under Obama. They voted for him because he was charismatic, disagreed with the occupation of Iraq, made bold promises to respect and create social programs that had taken massive hits over the past decade, and, through promised transparency, gave Americans hope that they could, for once, see where and why their country was headed in a certain direction.
He has fulfilled all these promises. Check Politifact.com for the full record.
The one place that disgruntled voters find much agreement is that Obama’s programs are compiling a national debt the likes of which has never been seen. This is fair, however it is also important to understand that Americans’ opinions tend to blow with the wind of here-and-now media coverage, which shortsightedly ignores CBO and economists’ projections that the programs that currently deepen are debt will pay for themselves in the coming years and then begin to pay off the national debt if maintained.
Admittedly, Mr. Obama’s legislative measures (or at least, those that receive the most media attention) have met with resistance in the chambers of Congress. This, however, requires further scrutiny.
If we are to compare the success of one president to another based on Congressional approval of proposed legislation, then George W. Bush’s record far exceeds that of Barack Obama’s given the comparison of No Child Left Behind and the Patriot Act to the Stimulus and Healthcare Reform. The flaw in this comparison, of course, is that it fails to put the measures into context.
After the September 11th attacks, President Bush rode a wave of faith that catapulted many of his initiatives into the forefront of popular political discourse. The public approval of NCLB and the Patriot Act stemmed from widespread fear of the unnamed enemy to the point that even Democratic senators could not afford to vote against their constituent’s perceived fears. These programs turned out to be masked derailing of social programs and civil liberties but more on that another day.
Mr. Obama, on the other hand, faces a political landscape deeply partisan and littered with the bruised careers of angry incumbent holdovers from the previous administration. The Republicans, having received a beating they are sure to avenge in the 2008 election, now know that, backed into a corner, their only fighting chance is obstructionism. Filibusters, traditionally a procedural tool, are now being threatened much more frequently than usual as a standard defense against measures that they simply disagree with. They need not feel that Democratic legislation threaten the country in some grave way, they need only disagree with the intentions of the bill, regardless of the beliefs of their own constituents one way or the other.
It is easy to see that, in the face of this, it would be difficult to coerce the same overwhelming support made possible by mass fear in the face of ambiguity.
In short, the post-partisan America standard that some pundits had set for Mr. Obama was only a mirage to those who created it. It is certainly not a mirage to educated voters who never expected such a ridiculous transformation of government. All this considered, acknowledging the “mirage” of post-partisanship in practice need not lead one to blame Mr. Obama himself while incumbent conservative holdovers from an era of economic, foreign policy, and political disaster tie up progressive legislation through bullying and inciting public fear.
Therefore, forgive Mr. Obama for being a Democrat, apparently he never got the memo.
No comments:
Post a Comment