Michiko Kakutani reviews Woodward's 'Obama's War' in the Times this morning. Obama, as described, sounds better than i've heard him described in a while, on left or right, facing difficulties throughout, being realistic about them while being buffeted by the demands of various people and constituencies within and without the military:
Mr. Woodward describes Mr. Obama as engaged in a methodical decision process that is nearly the polar opposite of the gut calls and out-of-channels policy making of the Bush administration, which Mr. Woodward mapped in four earlier books. Mr. Obama is seen repeatedly questioning his aides and the military about the actual United States mission in Afghanistan and underlying assumptions about the war...
An administration review of the Afghanistan war is scheduled for this December. “I’m not signing on to a failure,” President Obama is quoted saying near the end of this book. “If what I proposed is not working, I’m not going to be like these other presidents and stick to it based upon my ego or my politics — my political security.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/books/23book.html?ref=books
He also, predictably, consulted Colin Powell, who, equally predictably, advocated centrist positions that conserved authority and political capital as much as asserted them.
I'm yet again, as I am so often with Obama, torn between demanding that he move leftward in discourse and action, and wondering if he's doing the best he can in the realm of the politically possible while dealing with the steaming pile of shit Bush and Cheney left him, and the borderline types in the Pentagon. Every day brings new evidence of Republican capitulation to the insane far right, and their embrace of total obstruction as sole political tactic. I remain convinced that he should fight more, and more in public, trying to move the goalposts defining legitimate discourse leftward. Nobody else can do it. And his more cerebral, less confrontational default manner demonstrably doesn't work politically against an opposition that demands frank condemnation rather than vain attempts at accommodation. But, too, I wonder if he, or anyone, can succeed in implementing a more progressive agenda in a country increasingly embracing not just conservatism but madness.
4 comments:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68K0AU20100921
This is how Obama motivates the base of the party to get out and vote? By telling the people who busted their asses to put him in office to STFU? At this point in time, if the GOP can find someone who can walk and chew gum at the same time, Obama's a one-termer.
That's a political question, and, again, I agree with you. I wonder, though, about the different requirements of electoral success and governance. I mostly think that if he was more forthright, more an attacker than an accommodationist, both ends would be served. But i'm not as sure as I'd like to be.
Believe me Prof, I'm all too aware that politics is the art of the possible. I'm also aware that Obama was swept into office with a mandate for change. He should at least act accordingly once in a while rather than doing everything he can to demoralize his base.
Agreed. And, if he couldn't, in fact, enact all the change he was elected to do, he should have gone down fighting for it rather than tried to get the crazies on board. In the end, wouldn't have changed much, but might have kept the base mobilized and spirited. And, again, I'd like to be more sure of myself as I say so. But i do say so.
Post a Comment