Drew Westen's nonsense (or why the "bully pulipt is everything" folks are totally wrong)

[BzaDem]

This is in response to the New York Times op-ed, "What happened to Obama?"

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/93323/drew-westens-nonsense

--snip--

"Westen is a figure, like George Lakoff, who arose during the darkest moments of the Bush years to sell liberals on an irresistible delusion. The delusion rests on the assumption that the timidity of their leaders is the only thing preventing their side from enjoying total victory. Conservatives, obviously, believe this as much or more than liberals. But the liberal fantasy has its own specific character. It is unusually fixated on the power of words. Before Westen and Lakoff, Aaron Sorkin has indulged the fantasy of a Democratic president who would simply advocate for unvarnished liberalism (defend the rights of flag burners, confiscate all the guns) and sweep along the public with the force of his conviction.

Westen's op-ed rests upon a model of American politics in which the president in the not only the most important figure, but his most powerful weapon is rhetoric. The argument appears calculated to infuriate anybody with a passing familiarity with the basics of political science. In Westen's telling, every known impediment to legislative progress -- special interest lobbying, the filibuster, macroeconomic conditions, not to mention certain settled beliefs of public opinion -- are but tiny stick huts trembling in the face of the atomic bomb of the presidential speech. The impediment to an era of total an uncompromising liberal success is Obama's failure to properly deploy this awesome weapon.

Westen locates Obama's inexplicable failure to properly use his storytelling power in some deep-rooted aversion to conflict. He fails to explain why every president of the postwar era has compromised, reversed, or endured the total failure of his domestic agenda. Yes, even George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan infuriated their supporters by routinely watering down their agenda or supporting legislation utterly betraying them, and making rhetorical concessions to the opposition. (Ronald Reagan boasted of increasing agriculture subsidies and called for making the rich pay "their fair share" as part of a tax reform that did in fact increase the tax burden on the rich; Bill Clinton said "the era of big government is over" and ended welfare as an entitlement; etc., etc.)

--snip--

The most inexcusable factual errors in Westen's essay have been documented by Andrew Sprung, who points out some of the occasions Obama has used exactly the kind of rhetoric Westen accuses him of refusing to deploy. Westen is apparently unaware, to take one example, that Obama repeatedly and passionately argued for universal coverage. The fact of his unawareness is the most devastating rejoinder to his entire rhetoric-centered worldview. If even a professional follower of political rhetoric like Westen never realized basic, repeated themes of Obama's speeches and remarks, how could presidential rhetoric -- sorry, "storytelling" -- be anywhere near as important as he claims? The clear reality is that Americans pay hardly any attention to what presidents say, and what little they take in, they forget almost immediately. Even Drew Westen."

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I stopped reading the NYT article after the first page

It seemed to be saying that rhetoric rules everything in politics, and even society, without much evidence.

[Armstead]

13. How the hell do you think Obama got elected?

He won on his early rhetoric.

Too bad he abandoned that message,

[BzaDem]

17. No one's saying rhetoric doesn't help in the election context.

They are saying it doesn't help get bills passed.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

21. Like *ALL* presidents (and politicians, in general) before him, people listen intently

during election season, then like the lights, they tune out afterwards.

The President *has* made use of the so-called "bully pulpit," it's just that either you weren't listening and/or the Corporate Media has refused to air most of his speeches, town halls, meetings, etc.

Even the Weekly Addresses don't receive airtime, at all. The only reason I get them is because I have C-Span radio and I podcast White House briefings. I also have a White House app for my iPhone.

The information is out there. The president is, and *ALWAYS* was, talking and making use of the bully pulpit.

But the pully pulpit doesn't get legislation passed. This is NOT a dictatorship, my friend, wherein the president is all powerful, powerful enough to get legislation through. He can shape legislation, then ask Democrats in the House and/or Senate to craft the legislation to his liking, but that is no guarantee of passage.

You should know this by now.

[Armstead]

49. Sorry but I have listened to him directly...And it makes my skin crawl

"tired ideologies" like liberalsm......"rigid ideologues in both parties" like those who believes we should not have sacrificed the budgetary ability to inject stimulus into the economy...."the urgency of dealing with deficit crisis" rather than "the urgency of getting the economy moving again, and dealing with the deficit responsibly as we get back on our feet"...etc.


"Bipartisan compromise" with a political opponent who has adopted an all-or-nothing rigidity.

To be perfectly honestly, I often have listened to his latest pronouncements hoping that he will say something -- anything -- that will re-inspire (or at least reassure) me -- and actually does something about it. Instead I feel more discouraged and demoralized every time I hear him these days.

[merbex]

51. Kicked and rec'd for grest comment n/t

[SusanaMontana41]

58. Yup. Right there with you, Armstead. n/t

[Blue_In_AK]

62. Ditto. n/t

[saras]

63. You said it - what he says is evil and stupid, but we are supposed to believe better of him...

[muriel_volestrangler]

47. By being a more intelligent, trustworthy candidate than McCain

Yes, rhetoric can help at times, and he can be good at it (eg his speech on race during the primaries), but it's not the magic weapon the article claimed.

[Armstead]

50. Nobody is calling it the magic weapon

But it is an important tool that has been squandered.

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. I think Westen was saying that

From his 1st paragraph:
It was that there was a story the American people were waiting to hear — and needed to hear — but he didn’t tell it. And in the ensuing months he continued not to tell it, no matter how outrageous the slings and arrows his opponents threw at him.

2nd:
The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred.

3rd:
as research in cognitive science has shown, lawyers whose closing arguments tell a story win jury trials against their legal adversaries who just lay out “the facts of the case.”

4th:
When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters.

5th:
In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety.

6th:
A story isn’t a policy. But that simple narrative — and the policies that would naturally have flowed from it — would have inoculated against much of what was to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands.

7th:
it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative of the right

8th (in full):
But there was no story — and there has been none since.

The whole 1st third of the article is proposing that stories are vital to humans, and that they need them from leaders. He's saying his fundamental problem with Obama is that he didn't tell an inspiring story at the start of his presidency. He thinks policies would have flowed from it. His 'killer sentence' - the one that gets a whole paragraph to itself - is his complaint about a lack of a story. He goes on to say FDR and MLK gave inspiring speeches. He does seem, to me, to be saying that Obama's shortcomings could be overcome by using better rhetoric.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Here's the first sentence

"There are some strong criticisms to be made of the Obama administration from the left, especially concerning Obama's passive response to the debt ceiling hostage crisis, and his frightening willingness to give away the store to John Boehner."

[whathehell]

3. This is Chaitt's "nonsense".

He draws a narrow critique of Western's analysis,

but fails to offer any of his own.:shrug:

[BzaDem]

9. If you actually read the piece, you would see page after page of analysis. n/t

[Recursion]

4. Chait's last quote is killer

"If even a professional follower of political rhetoric like Westen never realized basic, repeated themes of Obama's speeches and remarks, how could presidential rhetoric -- sorry, "storytelling" -- be anywhere near as important as he claims?"

I'd ask the same of DU: if the "bully pulpit" is so effective, why do DUers seem to have such amnesia about what Obama has actually said?

[Armstead]

15. I remembert what Obama has said that has been brillinant and inspiring

And I also remember how he consistently undercuts and contradicts his own message with defeatist and conservative crap that is the opposite of what he has said at different times.

[Recursion]

16. No, the claim is the bully pulpit is what he needs to use, and it will rally the public behind him

so that he can then make the changes we want.

If that's true, why hasn't it worked? Why doesn't even DU remember that he has repeatedly said the rich need to pay more in taxes?

[Armstead]

45. ....Before his actions said they don't

He browbeat Democrats into supporting extensions of Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich, instead of browbeating Republicans to do the widely accepted and logical thing of extending them for the middle class and expiring them on the wealthy. As for Unemployment Extensions, he should have browbeat them to do the decent (and economically smart) thing of extending it.

He did not have to let the GOP put our backs to the wall on that.

[Newsjock]

5. We're gonna have to buy a bigger bus

So we can fit more people underneath it. "Obama repeatedly and passionately argued for universal coverage"?!

You can tell how seriously the establishment Democrats are taking Westen's essay -- and how scared they are -- by the level and volume of their vitriolic responses.

[BzaDem]

7. See? You prove his point.

You act as if Obama didn't repeatedly and passionately argue for universal coverage. You remind me of those who claimed Obama didn't argue repeatedly and passionately for a public option. When I returned with excerpts from speech after speech showing Obama did precisely that, they just disappeared. People would rather live in an imaginary world that conforms to their mistaken beliefs than in the real world which does not.

[Armstead]

18. I paid real close attention to the HCR debate since the election

The problem is that Obama has advocated in sweeping inspiring terms for Universal Health Care. But then when it got down to brass tacks, he weakened his message, detached from it and ultimately reversed course and totally distorted and undermined his own rhetoric.

If you don't understand that many people are frustrated and angry by the CONSISTENT INCONSISTENCY coming from Obama, then you lack a fundamental understanding, no matter how many quotes from him you care to trot out.

[BzaDem]

20. Yes. When it got down to brass tacks, and he realized his rhetoric (just like every other

President's rhetoric) was not going to fundamentally change what was politically possible prior to the rhetoric, decided to focus on what could actually pass. (Good for him.)

Yet you use his recognition-of-reality against him. You say that moving from attempted persuasion to attempted bill passage is a bad thing, because it is inconsistent. Well, there's certainly one way to make it consistent. He could have ignored the first phase entirely, and just focused on passing the bill. But then you would blame him even MORE for a lack of inspiring rhetoric.

Or, he could have held fast, stayed with the inspiring rhetoric about universal coverage etc etc, and failed to get any bill at all. But then you would blame him for his rhetorical technique or something, since apparently the only thing stopping Obama from getting whatever he wanted was rhetoric.

Some people are not going to be pleased regardless of what their politicians do, for their entire lives. This is nothing new, and is a fact of life in every democracy.

[Armstead]

25. One word -- Defeatism.

That is what fuckewd up Health Care reform.

And, to broaden that out a bit --- absolute political stupidity.

And its the same pattern that keeps undermining us and empowering the GOP.

I could tell you what I believe they could have done tactically, but I'm sure it would fall on deaf ears.

So just keep saying rhetoric doesn't matter, and watch the GOP kick our asses next year and the years to come.

Denial is not....etc.

[BzaDem]

26. Some people would claim that it is defeatist to assume gravity won't become a repulsive force. n/t

[Armstead]

46. A phony comparison

Gravity is a natural force.

Politics is not.

[blogslut]

6. What I found so ironic about the piece:

Westin writes an entire book stating that most people vote based on their emotions and then he authors this opinion that is premised entirely upon the emotional ideal of a president.

[JoePhilly]

8. The "bully pulpit" attacks on Obama are self-fufilling.

It works like this ...

Any time Obama doesn't get 100% of what we want, by definition, he didn't use the bully pulpit enough. The end.

It doesn't matter what he actually said, when he said it, or how often ... if he didn't get everything we want, that's the proof he didn't use the bully pulpit enough.

If you post things he said ... they say ... yea, but it wasn't enough.

Meanwhile, the liberal media focuses not on amplifying what Obama says, but complaining about him.

So his message doesn't get out there, and the liberal media blames him for not getting it out there.

Here is recent example.

Obama went to new plant that added about 1500 jobs making green energy materials. He does a town hall. He talks JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.

So then later the same day, on Ed Shultz, Ed mentions the Obama town hall. Plays no video, shows no quote. Ed spends 30 seconds on it. Then, Ed spends 15 minutes on Anthony Wiener's dick. After which, he spends 15 minutes screaming about how Obama doesn't talk about jobs enough ... again, showing none of the video from the same day.

[BzaDem]

10. +1000.

[Armstead]

22. I agree with you about the media -- But disagree that it is out of our control

This is not rocket science.

Yes the media is going to focus on whatever shallow shiny shallow soundbite and non-issue will goose the ratings -- Anthony Wiener's Dick is much more entertaining than the details of how yje GOP is gutting the foundations of average people's lives.

But the media also latches on to clear-cut superficial political soap opera and "team sports" drama.

Obama and the Democrats could and should a lot better job of recognizing that, and using it. Instead Obama and too many Democrats send out muddy and often contradictory messages and rhetoric that gives the media the fodder to portray them as ineffectual, bumbling boobs.

Meanwhile the GOP knboiws how to use that reality and knows how to sends out messages that they are strong and powerful and effective and have clear policies that are "better for the American people."

In those terms, the GOP are perceived as "winners" while the Democrats are the "hapless losers."

It will continue to be that way as long as Obama and the Democratic Party Establishment refuses to embrace and push its role as the real fighting opponent of GOP Teabaggerism and Corporate Fascism.

[JoePhilly]

23. So let's discuss why the GOP stays on message, and we don't.

The right gets behind ONE MESSAGE. They fall in line. They get behind their leadership.

The left doesn't do that. In fact, the left CONDEMNS that idea.

Right here on DU, that's the position, not that we all focus ... no, no, we HAVE to complain about Obama.

Which by definition means we can't get behind one message.

And that's why we on the left are, as you correctly state, "hapless losers".

[Armstead]

43. We should do the same on the issues that matter

This all gets too complicated for individual posts on DU, but I will respond as simply as I can.

The right isn't really unified on everything. There are moderate corporate conservatives as well as grass-roots Teabagger extremists. There are hands-off-everything libertarians as well as the Christian Fundamentalists who want to butt into everyone's bedrooms and personal lives. Etc. They too squabble among themselves to an extent.

But the difference is that they generally have formed a consensus on the core issues related to Wealth and Power. That is a consistent set of principles and economic/social values they have at their common core. (Misguided and illusory as that ideology may actually be.) They have also packaged a common enemy -- Liberal democrats. So they are able to have a unified message despite their own internal bickering and divisions.

For them differences on those core issues are simply a matter of pace and degree because they are all unified on the basic goals....Although many GOP leaders didn;t like the Teabag hostage taking, you will notice that they did not publicly dismiss them as one of the "extremists in both parties" as Obama characterized liberals. The GOP bit their tongues, did everything possible to accommodate them.


The problem with Democrats is that institutionally over the last 30 years, it jettisoned corresponding liberal core values and ideology on those issues of Wealth and Power. It is not a matter of differences in degree. It is a matter of basic direction. This, IMO, is the result of a combination of cowardice and corruption (ideological as well as financial) at the institutional level of the Democratic Party.

IMO the divisions are not between "moderates" and "the far left" in terms of degree. I believe that if "moderate centrist" were actually based in the core principles andf goals of traditional liberalism and progressive populism on core issues of Wealth and Power, there is less friction with those who are further left and more impatient.

But the current divisions are of basic ideology and principles. The conservaDem centrists are more aligned with corporate conservatism than they are with liberalism. That is what frustrates and angers clear liberals and progressives (including many principled moderate liberals). because they (including me) believe that the Democratic Party institutionally has beclome as much of an obstacle as the GOP.

I could give you many specific examples of this over the years and now, both in terms of policy and "messaging rhetoric" But I won't get too bogged down in the weeds.

THE SOLUTION IS ULTIMATELY STRAIGHTFORWARD....NOT simple but straightforward. The Democratic Party has to once again stand for liberalism and progressive populism (very mainstream) and they have to actually mean it and follow it up with action. (This is not "anti-business" because real liberalism is better for truly free-enterprise capitalism.)

[JoePhilly]

61. And here's where I disagree ....

I would argue that this is not about core issues, and ALL about pace and degree.

It is about what can actually be accomplished, and in what time frame, given the realities of the American political system.

So for instance ...

Obama tries to get 1 Trillion in stimulus, he gets 800B. I applaud him for getting that much given the opposition he faces. Does that make me a conservaDem?

He gets more done on HCCR than any President in decades. I applaud him for that. Does that make me a conservaDem?

He gets more done on financial reform than any President in Decades. I applaud him for that. Does that make me a conservaDEM?

I don't think so ... but around here, it does.

You seem to be pretty comfortable defining who are the "clear liberals" while calling out the pragmatists (my word) for not having the same "core principles".

To be straight, I find that insulting. I don't question the core principles of anyone on the left. I think we share the same core principles.

What I do question is the level of impatience and the level of hostility demonstrated daily towards our President from Democrats.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

64. Thank you!!! +1,000,000!! n/t

[Armstead]

11. The same TNR that pushed for Bush's Iraq debacle and bashed opponents?

As for that ridiculous reply, the writer is simply using the Presidency is Politically Impotent So We Should Support Obama.

If the Presidency is of such little consequence as he and other rationalizing "defenders" seem to claim, then it really doesn't matter whether Obama or Romney or Rick Perry win next year.


More Centrist "Realist" nonsense from TNR.

As Roosevelt said in another context -- As a liberal I welcome their contempt.

[BzaDem]

14. After a few more decades of you failing to get what you want, will you continue to claim that it is

all due to a lack of properly focused rhetoric? What about a few more decades after that?

What will it take for you to finally step back, realize that the Presidency is a far less powerful office on domestic policy as you would like to believe, stop citing FDR as if the situations are even slightly comparable (or read Chait's piece to find out why they are not), and develop a more reality-based view of our political system?

[Armstead]

24. Democratic Defeatism is the problem

Rhetoric is not the only answer. But is one crucial step among others that are necessary.

Rhetoric is what sets the framework for all of the subsequent specifics of policy, legislation and politicking.

Do you actually think the GOP keeps winning because average people benefit from Corporate Conservative Supply-Side Corporatism? You think Americans are happy with what is happening to them?

Look at the teabaggers, if you want to underestimate the importance of rhetoric. Rhetoric is all they have. Their policies are empty and lamebrained, even by the standards of legitimate conservatism.

But they and the GOP know how to use rhetoric, and they have succeeded in transforming a totally defeated and discredited ideology and party in 2008 into the political force that now drives the agenda and is likely to kick our lame muddled asses next year.

[deutsey]

57. Thomas Paine's rhetoric in Common Sense helped to ignite a revolution

From what I've read (and I did a paper for a master's level rhetoric class on the topic), his pamphlet is credited with rallying "common people" to the revolutionary cause, before which there wasn't a lot of strong support among the hoi polloi.

[FredStembottom]

59. Beautifully stated!

The OP doesn't even consider the god-awful negotiating tactics of this Admin.
Or the Admins. use of rhetoric against it's own supporters.
Or the Right-wings ability to get what they want no matter they're being in the minority - based solely on their rhetorical framing skills..

Seems rhetoric is some wickedly strong stuff!

[deutsey]

56. +1

:applause:

[jtown1123]

12. My complaints are not bully pupit related...just that he doesn't share my values n/t

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

19. I'm sure that the ODSers will be in full force, unrecommending this thread, but I proudly

Kick and Recommend!!

This is a brilliant piece!!

[Tatiana]

27. Clearly, Drew Western struck a chord with a wide swath of people.

More and more citizens (not only Democrats, but independents as well) have reached the point where they want to air the dirty laundry of our frayed "relationship" with this President. This movement is only gaining steam. The more the President's supporters counter with arrogance, conceit, and taunts of "where else you gonna go... want President Bachmann?!" the more citizens are just going to say "f*ck it!"

We haven't even achieved economic status quo under this President. Fundamentally, the majority of Americans are poorer since he's been in office. A record number of Americans actually receive FOOD STAMPS. That is a national disgrace and it's all happened under the administration of Barack Obama.

Yes, he inhereted a mess, but he has not been up to the task of getting us out of this mess. There has never been a true recovery that has improved the condition of the average American.

My grandmother can no longer afford to pay for her own groceries some weeks due to no SS COLA. I have to help her.

Since health insurance reform arrived, my premium has increased FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS per month to cover my family.

We cannot afford the Bush tax cuts. The President should have vetoed any bill containing them. These tax cuts, now the Bush/Obama Tax Cuts, have contributed to downgrading our nation's credit rating, put our social safety net programs "on the table" and ensure that the sacrifice in this country is only shared by the bottom 96% of Americans.

Gore, Kerry, Clinton (either one) would have at least given us a bone. We get nothing from this administration. Nothing at all.

[BzaDem]

29. It certainly struck a chord with the 15%ers (those liberal Democrats that don't approve of Obama).

Not sure why you think that just because you disapprove of the President, that a non-negligible portion of the Democratic electorate agrees with you. Last I checked, the President's approval among Democrats is higher than the approval of every previous Democratic President in the last 50 years.

Perhaps they don't share your critique because it is pretty straightforward why so many are on food stamps after the greatest recession since the great depression. (I doubt you would want food stamps withdrawn from the people who need them.) Perhaps they don't share your criqitue because they know that Obama has no control over the COLA adjustments (which are based on the CPI), or because they know that HCR doesn't even take effect until 2014 (and therefore couldn't be responsible for your premium increase even theoretically). Perhaps they don't share your critique for other reasons.

In any case, I think fear is quite effective, and that no taunts are necessary when Bachmann et al will be on TV all year. They'll come home in the end even without "taunts." Reality has a tendency to do that. People don't want to end food stamps, end Medicare, privatize Social Security, deregulate health insurance companies, etc. They'll vote for the Democrat once they see the alternative, and might even campaign for him (despite protestations to the contrary right now). But even if you disagree, it doesn't really matter, since it appears that the vast majority of Democrats approve of Obama even before the campaign has begun, and before they have seen the alternative. Obama will be going into the reelection campaign with the strongest base approval of any Democrat in the last 50 years.

[Tatiana]

32. I think a good portion of the electorate can both disapprove of the President AND vote for him

because the alternative is much worse.

This President has not done a good job. Period. He may be re-elected (and I certainly will vote for him if he is the Democratic nominee), but that does not speak to the fact that he has failed to do the job his country needed him to do.

You cannot counter the utter economic devastation beyond Bush's term that has happened under this President's watch. At a certain point, he has to be held accountable for his economic policy and team and incorrect prognostications regarding a future recovery.

[BzaDem]

34. Well sure, of course I can't argue that the economy hasn't gotten worse after Bush's term.

That doesn't mean Obama could have done anything to change that, that he didn't already do. Bush left office immediately after a financial crisis. Financial crisis recoveries are always the slowest recoveries from any recession (both to start and to finish). When Obama took office, we were losing 800 thousand jobs per month. We now know our economy was contracting at an annualized rate of 9% in the month immediately preceding his inauguration.

Sure, if Obama could have gotten a 2 trillion dollar stimulus passed but chose not to, he would be to blame. But there is no evidence that Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins would have voted for any such package. And that is about the only thing that could have been done to meaningfully change the economic track. You seem to be criticizing him because he can't violate the laws of economics and the rules of the legislative process.

[Mimosa]

38. You really don't get it, sadly

You keep saying the sun is shining no matter if it isn't. Polls at this point are meaningless. You attack good Democrats all the time because you don't want to hear that things are rotten for many people. :(

Do you want people to say things are fine and dandy when they're NOT? It wouldn't be helpful. I wish you'd spend some time taking your fight to the republicans instead of always trying to make DUers feel bad!

[Armstead]

48. You mean the 15 percent that could make the difference between winning and losing in 12?

[Mimosa]

36. ^ ^ If I could K&R a message it would be Tatiana's ^ ^

You said it best.

President Obama has gone down several wrong paths. He is not connecting. If people see their personal circumstances getting worse, not better, he won't be reelected. Ultimately it doesn't matter what we say about the President.

He has to do the right things and people have to feel it.

[BzaDem]

37. It is unclear at best whether anything Obama could do at this point or at any previous point that

would make people feel their circumstances are getting better on election day. We now know the economy was contracting at a 9% annualized rate before he was inaugurated, and recovering from such a collapse was always going to take years. The best he could have done would have been to pass the biggest stimulus possible, and most people think there is no way Snowe/Collins would have agreed to more than what was passed.

Maybe that means Obama is a sure re-election loser. I don't think this is necessarily true, but I don't discount the possibility that he will lose. But even if that is so, it does not follow that there is something Obama could have done to change this. If FDR was elected in 1929 instead of 1932 (at the bottom), it would have been next to impossible to have been re-elected in 1933 no matter what he did.

[Mimosa]

41. Bza, you may be a strategist

I respect that. I don't want Obama to lose. I know what Rethugs are all about.

But Obama and his team haven't fought them hard enough.

[Chimichurri]

39. That's how many people are feeling. Perfectly said.

[zalinda]

42. It's not and never has been all or nothing.

It's the direction, and the tone. First of all, Obama sounds exactly like the adults in a Peanuts cartoon, I cannot understand what he says. Maybe it's because I have ADD, but when he speaks, I can't focus at all on what he says. It seems that he thinks he has to use $50 words, when 50 cent words would do just as well. This has the effect of some people thinking that he is talking down to them, or lecturing them. And, he seems devoid of emotion, he could learn a lot from taking lessons from Bill Clinton.

When he started putting together his Presidential team, we started to get worried, it was a repub love fest, or blue dog or dino, what ever you want to call it. This did not get the left on his side. He took the wrong steps, from the very beginning. And, of course, not every one on his team had to be from the left, but hell, just even a couple would have been nice. The Professional Left got him the Presidency, and he couldn't even throw them a bone. He has taken every opportunity to tell them that they don't matter, knowing that they have no where to go.

And, as far as the Bush tax cuts go, he should have let them expire. I know, I know, what about those 99er's that needed to be saved. Really, how many people were in that situation? Did the situation suddenly correct itself when they kept getting the unemployment checks, or are they still out of a job? If the tax cuts had expired, would we have had this debt ceiling 'crisis'? I don't know, but it seems that either the White House can't get in front of the repubs, or they don't want to.

zalinda

[Larkspur]

28. Chait and TNR are corporate whores

I expect this b.s. from him.

[Chimichurri]

30. (defend the rights of flag burners, cconfiscate all the guns); Hyperbole much?

Ronald Reagan boasted of increasing agriculture subsidies and called for making the rich pay "their fair share" as part of a tax reform that did in fact increase the tax burden on the rich; Bill Clinton said "the era of big government is over" and ended welfare as an entitlement; etc.,

see, they did it too! What a disappointing argument he makes here. I thought Obama was supposed to change all of this or at least be different.

"I’m in this race not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation."
- February 10, 2007 Presidential announcement.

"Change doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington."
- Speech in Denver, Aug. 28, 2008
Where's that guy?



I was hoping to read an illuminating rebuttal to Drew Westen's piece because I'm trying very hard to understand Obama better, but there's nothing here to counter his very discouraging record.

[Recursion]

40. Where's that guy? He's trying to find places of consensus (and occasionally succeeding)...

...and refusing to lay down hyper-partisan rhetoric. You know, just like he said he would.

[sudopod]

31. They great thing about arguing with strawmen

is that they are already stuffed before the fight begins.

"The argument appears calculated to infuriate anybody with a passing familiarity with the basics of political science. In Westen's telling, every known impediment to legislative progress -- special interest lobbying, the filibuster, macroeconomic conditions, not to mention certain settled beliefs of public opinion -- are but tiny stick huts trembling in the face of the atomic bomb of the presidential speech. "

As far as I am aware, no one said this, merely that the "bully pulpit" is a powerful tool that costs virtually nothing to use, and that it's marked absence is an inexplicable strategic blunder.

[Armstead]

44. I agree -- but I am not sure it is "inexplicable"

I think a potential explanation is that some Democrats buy into the same worldview as conservative Republicans.

[GliderGuider]

33. It reads like RW polemic and propaganda to me.

I found myself mostly nodding as I read Westen's piece, but mostly shaking my head as I read Chait's riposte. Maybe it's just me, but I think there is some serious under-achieving going on in Washington Democratic circles, including and especially from Mr. Obama.

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. Words mean things. In the case of the president, they signal intentions.

You can't make anyone do what they refuse to do. Then again, no one can make you do something you refuse to do.

"I don't negotiate with terrorists. If you're using the full faith and credit of the US as a hostage, you're a terrorist. I will only sign a clean debt ceiling bill. Absent that, I'll order the treasury to issue the debt that your budget directs me to via executive order."

You're suggesting something worse would have happened if he had done this?

[grahamhgreen]

52. The bully pulpit has to be used to change the Republican narrative. Instead, Obama works inside

their framing (ie tax cuts stimulate jobs), and thus fosters the R's message, which is a lie that is perpetrated to create more wealth for the upper class by transferring it from the people that actually produce it - the working class.

[MadHound]

53. Poor, pitiful, powerless president

He can hardly do anything, his power and influence are limited, while facing ginormous foes.

It is amazing how many excuses people will come up with to divert blame from this President. Hell, listening to all these excuses over the past couple of years, one would think that the President is nothing but a figurehead, instead of the single most powerful man in the world.

[BzaDem]

60. If a lot of the rhetoric-is-everything folks took a course in Political Science on Congress

or the Presidency, my guess is that many of them would have a different position.

It is very easy to jump to the admittedly intuitive and shallow notion that, well, the "President" sounds like such a fancy, commanding title, therefore that implies huge power over domestic policy. But the easy/intuitive/shallow conclusion is not always correct, and is often not correct upon further examination.

[ljm2002]

55. The bully pulpit isn't everything...

...that is certainly true. However, it is something. It is a powerful position from which to make a point. And the President is the only one who has it.

Presidents have wielded the bully pulpit to great effect. Whether the people listen to the President, is only one aspect of it. First, if there is a position the President wants to put forward, then to be effective he must repeat the position often, at every opportunity. Second, once the President states a position, then presumably the members of his own party and people of like mind will repeat the position. In other words, he acts as an opinion leader and the force of his opinion is magnified by those who are working with him.

In President Obama's case, instead of having specific positions that are differentiated from those of the Republicans, we have a wishy-washy message that "both sides have to compromise". Then he ends up compromising with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party, elements that are far past what used to be considered the fringe right. And he slaps down the liberal wing of his own party. The inevitable result is a severe rightward tilt in our policies.

I don't hate President Obama and I don't delude myself that I could even begin to do that job. However I've watched politics and Presidents for a good many years now. President Obama is a conciliator, he thinks people should be able to work together. He also clearly buys into the Chicago School of Economics theories. His Presidency will be transformative, but not in the way he presented it. Whether he was being honest, who knows. One day I think he was just an ambitious person who was willing to lie to get into office. Another day I think he was sincere but was quickly disabused of any notions he may have had of being an independent agent. Other times I believe he sold out, and still other times I think he is simply well-intentioned but inept. One thing is very clear, though: he is not a fighter for the middle class and the poor. He simply does not put the screws to the other side. And in the current situation, that is a disastrous lack, IMO.