It Looks Like Obama May Be Taking on What I’ve Called Job 1: Thoughts from Me, Plus a Report from Sam Stein on Obama*s Session Today with the GOP
I wrote here recently that Obama’s main job is to make war upon evil. (For those of you who still do not like my using that E-word, just substitute “the present force or pattern of destructiveness.” I’ll be writing more about that whole issue of what to name it in a future piece.)
In normal times, that would not be the main job. But because of the extraordinary nature of the situation in America today, that is at the heart of everything that’s going on in our realm of power, where our national destiny gets decided.
Working to defeat that evil must be Obama’s Job One because all the other jobs –health care reform, dealing with climate change, whatever– depends on overcoming the force of evil that he confronts. The main manifestation of that evil that he faces is in the nature of the opposition party, which has put making him fail –in order to serve their own ambitions for power– at the cost of the needs of the nation that we meet our great challenges.
Preparatory to the State of the Union Address, I said I was looking for Obama to indicate that he’s learned this lesson. He has to force the opposition either to change its ways, and work for the national good, or to pay a great price. The price would be its being exposed to the American people for what it is. If the American people can be un-deceived about the nature of this evil at work in our political system, that force loses power. It’s that simple. Either way –a constructive opposition party emerges, or a destructive opposition party is drained of its power to destroy– evil loses.
Obama’s SOTU address was not as direct and aggressive in signalling that he’d learned what he needs to do, and was prepared to do it, as the course that I called for. That can be OK. There are many ways this can be done, and it still remains to be seen whether Obama does understand what he needs to understand, and whether he is prepared to do what he needs to do.
There are some hopeful signs. At least hopeful enough that they are consistent with a plausible scenario.
In the SOTU itself, Obama did say some pertinent things. One might say that he delivered that line I proposed for him, but in softer form. I wrote:
“This should not be about partisan politics,” Obama should say tonight, “this should be about how do we –together– work to meet the great challenges that America now faces.”
And Obama said:
“Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.”
Could be a beginning.
And now, on this Friday, Obama had a nationally televised session (of a kind I recommended months ago), entering into public dialogue with the House Republicans. Looks like he cleaned their clocks.
Here’s the optimistic, yet also plausible, reading of what Obama is up to. His “bi-partisan” talk and gesture could be not foolishness and naivete, as it had begun to seem over recent months, but a means of re-newing his own image as the guy who’s ready to do what the American people want, which is to end the bitter partisanship and work together– and to do this as a means of strengthening his leverage to give the Republicans that necessary choice: shape up (be constructive) or get shipped out (exposed for the destructive force they’ve been this past year).
We will see. If he keeps up the pressure, keeps scoring points, keeps making the Republicans pay a price for their alignment with the dark forces of destruction, then the battle will be won. If he takes the pressure off, lets them get away with evil-doing and profit from it at his expense (as has happened over the past nine months), then he will fail at Job One and likely accomplish little at all the other, specific jobs.
I continue to have hopes– hopes about this presidency, hopes for the future of America, hopes that the force of evil –so unprecedently powerful in the U.S. in recent years– will be vanquished.
Here’s the article by Sam Stein, reporting on Obama’s get-together with the House Republicans. (Obama should make it a regular thing –including the national televized aspect– and make the Republicans pay a price if they refuse to continue the dialogue.)
Addendum, 10:45 PM:
I wrote the above this afternoon. This evening I watched a two-hour special on MSNBC with Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, and Chris Matthews, all talking about this event, and showing film clips from it.
They were quite pumped by what they saw this president do today. And what was most interesting and heartening to me was the repeated analysis of Obama’s basic strategy: The president, they said, is trying to box the Republicans in so that either they work with him or are seen walking away; Obama is raising the price on the GOP for their obstructionism.
Their language, in describing Obama’s actions and strategy, was very close to the language I’ve been using in describing what I believe he MUST do to win the fight America needs for him to fight and win.
**********************
Cameras Roll As Obama Schools GOP
by Sam Stein
Huffington Post, January 29, 2010
President Obama traveled to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday and delivered a performance that was at once defiant, substantive and engaging. For roughly an hour and a half, Obama lectured GOP leaders and, in a protracted, nationally-televised question-and-answer session, deflected their policy critiques, corrected their misstatements and scolded them for playing petty politics.
White House officials told the Huffington Post they were absolutely ecstatic. MSNBC’s Luke Russert, who was on the scene in Baltimore, relayed that a Republican official and other GOP aides had confided to him that allowing the “cameras to roll like that,” was a “mistake.”
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
So effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended.
It was the type of performance that Obama’s supporters have long demanded and that his own aides have been eager to deliver. The question-and-answer session at the end wasn’t initially supposed to be broadcast, but the White House pressured GOP leadership to bring the cameras in. They knew the optics it would generate, a source with knowledge of the planning relayed. Hours before the event began, Republican leaders finally relented.
What resulted was what one Democratic strategist described as, “amazing theater” — certainly for cable news. Standing on a stage, looking down at his Republican questioners, Obama assumed the role of responsible adult to the GOP children, or, at the very least, of a college professor teaching and lecturing a room full of students.
He chastised Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) for calling his economic agenda radical and poked fun at the GOP’s own platform. “I am not an ideologue, I’m not,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense if somebody could tell me, ‘You could do this cheaper and get increased results,’ then I would say, ‘Great.’ The problem is, I couldn’t find credible economists who could back up the claims that you just made.”
He rebuked a questioner who insisted that the monthly deficit is higher now than Bush’s annual deficit. “That’s factually just not true,” he said. “And you know it’s not true.” He lampooned Republican lawmakers seated in front of him for portraying his health care legislation as “some Bolshevik plot.” He mocked Republicans for railing against the stimulus package and then showing up at “the ribbon-cuttings for some of these important projects in your communities.” And he did it all while calling for “a tone of civility instead of slash and burn will be helpful.”
Whether it was chutzpah, political savvy, or both, it certainly was refreshing. Reporters were thrilled with the British-parliament-type exchange between president and lawmaker. The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder asked that forums like these be held monthly. The Nation’s Chris Hayes suggested Obama next go before the progressive caucus. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post labeled it “the most compelling political television I’ve seen…maybe ever. NBC’s Chuck Todd added: “The president should hold Congressional ‘town halls’ more often. Public needs to see this if they’ll ever trust Washington again,”
From the narrower vantage point of the White House, the event also made for effective politics, spurring some comparisons to the type of political engagement relished by former President Bill Clinton.
“Most people thinking about this would have thought ‘ooh Obama is going into the lion’s den,” said Dee Dee Myers, Clinton’s former press secretary. “But there was a great opportunity to jujitsu that. On one level it looked brave but on another he was the substitute teacher there, lecturing the audience.
“A lot of us have been waiting for that moment, a little more fight, a little more politics,” she added. “He is in a political business and he has to pay attention to not just the substance but the politics.”
January 29th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
I heard only a little of it on radio(and do not care for some of the policies he seems to represent). What I did like was a statement that I identify with and respect in anyone in a leading position
substantially he was saying, in the end, whether they cooperate or oppose
“I still must fulfill my responsibilities as President”
That’s so !
This is really a time if trial not just for Obama but for America. What are ‘we’ really all about at this time, where are ‘we’ heading, and how do we go.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
“the present force or pattern of destructiveness.”
Nice. Certainly, the word “evil” can become hackneyed, a worn-out, and so meaningless, cliche.
I wonder, Andy, if in one of your future posts regarding “evil,” you would say more about your Ontological Premises concerning the Spirit. By this I do not mean historical forces per say (whether classified in sociological, psychological, geopolitical, etc. terms).
Rather, would you say a bit about the more transcendent or “spiritual” end of the spectrum? It seems clear that you are not a strict “materialist” in the sense of “dialectical materialism,” for example. How then did you come to the conclusion that there is a “Dark Spirit” per say? And what corollaries follow from the notion that our world is composed of more dimensions than those of matter and historical forces?
January 30th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Andy points to the idea of forcing the Republicans to co-operate. Stein writes of the Republicans as children or at least, they are like students … whatever. So, if they are children, we know that we can love our children but we cannot control them. A parol officer monitors his clients but he cannot control them. If Obama follows Andy`s lead, he faces a revolt, but if he can show love for the Republicans and they sense it, will his parol officer admonishments stick? He won`t get anywhere by pushing these representives of the people around; they`ll fight back!
January 30th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Ontologically speaking, regarding the Spirit, I do not make any claims to know, or even have any great suspicion of knowing, what’s true.
What I do feel I see is that there are forces/patterns that behave “As If.” That’s the way I spoke in my “Concept of Evil” piece, and that’s where I am: I’ve SEEN (imaginatively, mind-boggledly, in the patterns of history) the workings of vast forces and patterns that act “as if” they are “spirits” with benovolent or malevolent intention and purpose.
Beyond that, I do not know.
January 30th, 2010 at 11:17 am
THe issue, James, is playing one’s own part in such a way as to limit the options of the opponent. This past year, because Obama played his part wrong, the GOP had the option of doing evil and benefitting from it. It is possible to remove that option, in which they have the choice of doing evil and paying a price or doing something better. It’s not about controlling them, then, it’s about shaping their choices.
January 30th, 2010 at 11:56 am
This is certainly a step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see how this initiative develops. It struck me as ominous that the Republicans now recognise that it was a tactical blunder to let the TV cameras in. It will probably not happen again, and as we all know, what doesn’t appear on TV doesn’t happen.
January 30th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
The opponent will do what is best for them. The members represent the people who, wait for the best to be handed to them from their representantive. The District was told what their vote would buy: they will balk, if Obama restricts their man in the party, from gettng what the people want, not what Obama wants. By limiting the Party`s options, the President is no longer Chief executive, he is the Warden in Chief. But I see your point on limiting evil`s options. The people as assembled, are of both those good and those evil!
January 30th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
I thought one of the most important points he made to the Republicans was how they have so boxed themselves in with their over-the-top rhetoric such that they now cannot afford to cooperate on anything with this administration. By delegitimizing Obama with their many attacks on him as a radical socialist (and worse), and convincing their constituents of this through their many extreme attacks and characterizations of Obama, they now cannot support him on anything without looking like they are betraying their constituents. I don’t think that his performance will lead to anything in the way of more bipartisan cooperation because of this. However, perhaps some of the independents in the country who watched this can take courage in maintaining their support for the hope he represents. This style is very good for Obama, and I hope he utilizes it more, and becomes even tougher on the opposition.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I agree, Jim. I also found this point quite striking. For one thing, I hadn’t really thought of it that way myself. It’s worth emphasizing.
January 30th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Hi Andy, seems that there were several good days for the cause that followed a most devastating month. I did watch the State of the Union address, the RNC response by Bob McDonnell, and Obama’s visit with the house republicans and think that Obama hit on a lot of important points. At times it seemed like Obama was stating the obvious but I guess that needs to be done from time to time so that we can see that he understands the obvious. I am seeing the beginnings of a ground swell of public opinion from passionate folks from all over the political spectrum and I am hopeful that a meaningful dialogue will continue. There are those who really don’t want any kind of dialogue between the far left and the far right for fear of the discovery that there may be more common ground than differences. Why do you think that FOX cut away from the most intriguing TV that we’ve seen in years? I don’t think that it is in their best interest for the Tea Bag folks to see reality. The trouble is if one preface ones position on outrages false statements to sway mass opinion, even though they see some success in the short term, once reality catches up with the garbage they may see a backlash.
While watching the stage production that followed Obama speech that was presented by Bob McDonnell I had to wonder who wrote Bob McDonnell’s speech and if the RNC actually approved it. Near the end of his speech Bob quoted scriptures to say “To whom much is given, much will be required.” This seems at odds with the RNC platform. Perhaps Bob should have said something like “to whom much is given much much more is deserved”. This statement seems a lot more in line with the RNC philosophy. I guess it is hard to find scriptures to quote that align with those RNC basic tenets of greed and self interest.
Andy said “(For those of you who still do not like my using that E-word, just substitute “the present force or pattern of destructiveness.” I’ll be writing more about that whole issue of what to name it in a future piece.)” I would like to comment on this. First perhaps we should loose the word evil, I think that we sometimes mistake evil with human. I think that we human beings generally react to things based on self interest. It seems to be our nature. When we pass laws we try to get a consensus of what our best interest is, but of course that is based on how we are individually impacted by the laws or rules we impose on ourselves. Each of us has a different ability to visualize the larger reality. Some people who have inborn ability to see the big picture are called global thinkers, they have the natural ability as Andy says to “see things whole”. Others in society have a much narrower perspective or view of how things fit together but may be better at seeing details than some of the global thinkers. I think we may all have an important part to play in getting it right with regard on how to govern ourselves. The thing is, the two types of visionaries or thinkers (those who are global and those who are detailed) can rarely trust each other to the point of coming up with an alliance that benefit us all. Every so often there is an unusually gifted individual that is both a global and detailed thinker. One such person may be President Obama. I have to say that I have been frustrated with the progress that the congress has been making getting done what everyone knows needs to be done on health care and economic regulations. I tend to be more of a global thinker but I sometimes get lost in detail, so the monumental political challenges the face those folks that are really trying to make a difference seem to elude me. The obvious example is that if 60 to 70 percent of the population, when questioned on the factual issues, without political rhetoric, and without trying to frame the whole thing as Obama’s Bolshevik Plot, are in favor of single payer health care then why in the world don’t both sides of the isle embrace the concept. I guess the answer is that I really don’t see the detail that some folks are forced to look at. Back to the human nature issue; it seems hard for humans not to be greedy. The capitalist system depends on human greed and really promotes greed as the basic driver. I believe that human moral judgment which or our basic instinct of community has tempered our greed and allowed our capitalistic society to work. I don’t think that corporations have any moral judgment and certainly they don’t have any instincts and particularly not community. Capitalistic corporations know only greed and a point of fact is a corporation must make decisions which are based on profit or loss, (greed). Individuals (real people) who run the corporations make decisions based on how they are individually impacted by the decisions with little or no concern of how those decisions impact the greater society.
So now we have corporations that are defined by the great court as people, and those corporations don’t have any moral compunction whatsoever about the quest to grow wealth no mater what the cost is to society. We have a society that hasn’t grown at all in it’s social awareness of it’s self for centuries, and we have a society and economy of real people who are falling into economic ruin, and finally we have a supreme court who gave unlimited power to the amoral corporations to run our government for the benefit of the corporations.
The Robert’s court seems to have a majority of really gifted detail oriented visionary’s who have no ability so see the bigger picture. They have said that money is speech based on technical law but in reality money is nothing more than power. And as the scriptures that Bob McDonnell felt obligated to quote say “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The huge corporations of today have unlimited money, which is unlimited power which assures absolute corruption. For all time the Robert’s court will be known at the one that destroyed the great US experiment in democracy unless we the people (I mean human people) fix it.
I think that we on the left are going to need the help of our friends in the Tea Party movement to join with us to save our country. I found my pitchfork in the garage but it is all rusty from too long a time of non use. I couldn’t find my torch so I going to have to get another one.
January 31st, 2010 at 9:50 am
Hi Andy, I appreciate your willingness to revisit the use of the word “evil” in describing the behavior of “the Bushites” and other reactionaries. I have long been uncomfortable with it because it so easily becomes a noun rather than an adjective, then it gets capitalized, then it takes on a persona and then it becomes a myth – getting in the way of rationality.
1. We have expended years of ink (keystrokes!) here trying to understand the roots of this “evil” phenomenon. One of my favorite thinkers, Lancelot Law Whyte begins his “The Next Development in Mankind” (recently re-issued after 60+ years!) with the provocative statement “Thought is born of failure.” When I recently began re-reading it after many years, I immediately thought: That is why Andy and the “None So Blind” crew are thinking so hard about the “evil” of the Bushites: a failure to understand it. It is a big mystery – easily “explained” by labeling it, but not understood at its roots.
2. Let us consider the beginning of an “explanation” that looks at individual and cultural development in terms of “stages of development,” each with its own dominant value meme. Look at the behavior of the Republicans: banding together as a tribe, showing intense loyalty, with survival and safety as their primary concerns. They have reverted there from our more usual politics of rationally searching for solutions for the common good, in which fairness is the key value. But when the neo-cons chose Reagan and threw out fairness as a value they were also backing down the values ladder, relying more on obedience, dominance and finally loyalty. The tribal stage is one we have each come through as children and which western culture came through long ago – but the capacity is still within us and we can be induced back to it. [This, by the way, is why our attempted imposition of “democracy” (fairness) upon the tribal peoples of Afghanistan will not work: they are three stages away from it. Even Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) notices this – letter in today’s Washington Post (1/31/10).]
3. My model here is “spiral dynamics,” developed by Chris Cowan, Claire Graves and Don Beck and used extensively by Beck in consulting with – among many others – South Africa to end apartheid there (18 trips there over many years) convincing deKlerc of the wisdom of freeing Mandela. (A review and summary of Beck’s book, by Steve Dinan of Esalen: http://www.spiraldynamics.com/book/SDreview_Dinan.htm)
4. Incidentally, it follows that one way Obama can begin to break up the Republican “tribe” is to challenge them individually to assert their individual separate power (anathema in a tribe) to join with the majority to achieve “power and glory” by sharing in the responsibility for accomplishing big things, thus talking them one step back up the ladder.
5. So now we can move the question to: how did Karl Rove manipulate them (through W) to revert to this earlier stage, setting aside whatever rational enlightenment they might have had? Or were they already there (via Reagan)? Or if 20% of the US population is just fixated at that level (the “base”) then how did they get elected? Now that would be an interesting discussion.
6. Since we are speaking of tribes, and your first major work is “The Parable of the Tribes,” what light can a review of that perspective shed on the discussion?
January 31st, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Doug said: “The obvious example is that if 60 to 70 percent of the population, when questioned on the factual issues, without political rhetoric, and without trying to frame the whole thing as Obama’s Bolshevik Plot, are in favor of single payer health care then why in the world don’t both sides of the isle embrace the concept.”
70 percent of the population IS in favor of single payer health care. Please remind your “friends in the Tea Party movement.”
January 31st, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Obama demonstrated the utmost in person to person respect at the GOP fest, knowledgeable and forceful though he was.
By comparison those asking him the questions came across to me as automatons, two dimensional stage characters reading scripts prepared by their junior high school children.
The contrast was striking!
Those posting here who are refusing to watch the event (it’s avail. on the Internet) should, just once, take a look at how a real President behaves.
January 31st, 2010 at 8:30 pm
I do think the Republicans to not have that many people in their front ranks that come across as very real. THe problem we have though is not altogether with style or manner or theatre; it’s a matter of what and how.
I did hear the State of the Union speech on radio all the way through and the Republican response as well. I looked on NSB for comment on that but none appeared. I talked with a friend that night who watched on T V.
My comment was under the circumstances Deportment B+; Double talk A-; and substance C-.
If you want a ‘Liberal’s’ comment, read Michael Green’s latest:
‘Week From Hell’.
January 31st, 2010 at 8:47 pm
I wouldn’t go all that far as to say every question was junior high school caliber, Jim Z. Obama and staff certainly prepared the hell out of not just a vareity of possible Conservative talking points, but Obama himself was as unabashedly focused as I’ve ever seen.
February 1st, 2010 at 7:39 am
Obama articulated a sufficient response (at whichever point the back and forth on a particular topic ended) for whatever particular issue or topic was raised in this debate. And when the Republicans sought to misdirect, coarsen and sour the conversation by applying their usual tactics, Obama “stayed the course” by simply wearing his Republican examiners out. There was a point about half way in where I could see Obama clearly knew he was way ahead. But he stayed within himself and never stopped sticking and jabbing and smiling until he walked off the stage. It turns out this live event lasted a lot longer than it was slated to be broadcasted for.
Classic Barack Obama – let them have as much rope as they want, eventually someone has to tie themselves up in a mean knot. We’ve ALL suffered more than necessary and I’m by no means convinced this one event makes my rope burns over recent years a whole lot better. Has this engagement kick started the proverbial healing of the Obama agenda? Perhaps. Perhaps not, but it certainly was a monumental improvement and brilliant public appearance by Obama and his administration.
February 1st, 2010 at 8:25 am
“I do think the Republicans to not have that many people in their front ranks that come across as very real. THe problem we have though is not altogether with style or manner or theatre; it’s a matter of what and how.”
No, David, it’s just the “how” that’s the problem. You already identified the “what” when you correctly said Republicans can’t come across as ‘very real.’ What, pre-tell, does “what” mean to you anyways
? Sure, nothing is altogether always about presentation. But often times it is. I think you’ve got a real problem when it comes to style, manner or theatre. In fact, it’s an F and I don’t see your side rasing the grade, in this respect, anytime soon. I would have to say the public perception of Conservative-Republicans being known as disingenuous will be a pretty important part of their “what” problem.