Friday, April 8, 2011
Was President Obama's Role in Budget Negotiations Undercutting his Role in Presiding?
0 comments Posted by Find Insurance Online at 10:51 AM
However, even as the president was referring to the two sides sorting the budget out as “they,” he himself was on one of the sides. That is, even though he “sought to position himself above the nitty-gritty haggling going on in Congress, which . . . limited his influence on the process” yet distanced him from any blame, his taking a side in the dispute subtly worked against his attempt to preside to hold the process as a whole together. (3)
Michael Shear of The New York Times claims that Obama had "assumed the role of mediator in chief" in part to avoid a government shutdown. (4) Attempting to distance himself from both sides, the president told reporters after a negotiation session on April 7th, “What I’ve said to the speaker and what I’ve said to Harry Reid is, because the machinery of the shutdown is necessarily starting to move, I expect an answer in the morning.” (5) Shear maintains that Obama's language here "suggests that he sees himself more as a bridge between the warring political parties than an active participant in the high-stakes discussions." (6) Crucially, the president's motivation may have enabled him to unwittingly compromise his own credibility, and therefore his situs from which to preside.
Shear suggests that Obama was taking on the mediator-in-chief role not only as a means to avoid a shutdown, but also, and perhaps more saliently, "to try to show that a government shutdown, if it happens, would be the result of a disagreement between the two sets of lawmakers — not a failure of his own. But there is a long-term goal as well: to convey to a restless public, and especially to moderate voters, that Mr. Obama is above the petty Washington bickering that many Americans say turns them off. That will be especially important for Mr. Obama as his re-election campaign tries to woo back independents who had become disillusioned with him." (7) Jeff Zeleny reports that at times the president even referred "to Democrats in the third person, as though he is not the leader of the party. . . . 'Republicans and Democrats both start making a lot of speeches,' Mr. Obama said. 'Usually the Democrats blame the Republicans, the Republicans blame the Democrats.'" (8) "It remains an open question," Zeleny observes, "whether the distance he seeks to place between himself and Democrats on Capitol Hill — his own version of triangulation — will attract independent voters or antagonize members of his party." (9) Were the president's motivation more oriented all along to presiding so negotiations would have a buffer or safeguard of last resort, Obama would not have staked out a position in line with Harry Reid.
Aside from trying to distance himself from blame, a president alone can hold “the process” itself from falling off the ship of state by speaking to the encompassing interests of the country, thereby having credibility to both sides in holding them to the table. I contend that being a party to a dispute works against this presiding role that only a president can fulfill. In other words, a partisan president is an oxymoron even if the forced combination has become the bromidic default in practice. All too often, presidents have tried to have it both ways. In so doing, they have undercut their own presidencies and deprived the country of the function that only the president is in a position to accomplish. President Obama was not immune from the temptation.
Even though The New York Times reports that "Obama sought to present himself . . . as the man of reason and compromise, a disappointed father figure having to mediate a dispute between two squabbling siblings,"
The presider having become the one of the combatants, he could not exactly turn around and save the process. To accomplish that, he would have needed to have been in a position of credibility to both sides. When the partisans get to "what do we do now?" partisanship trumps the public good. Lest the partisans be left to stare at each other, twiddle their thumbs, and finally leave the room, this is precisely the point at which the presider is of such value--meaning that role alone. Wading into a pool only to step out should the water get too hot in order to rescue both sides simply doesn't work; the combatants whom the "presider" had confronted will be hesitant to take the outstreached hand even as the water begins to burn. Neutrality and the resultant credibility is absolutely essential to presiding at times when the partisans have reached a dead end and the greater good is threatened because of the paralysis. A partisan president trying to have it both ways doesn't cut it.
At one point during the days of negotiations on the stop-gap budget during the second week of April, the president took sides even as he was trying to come off as presiding in the interest of the union itself. While evincing political skill, the feat tacitly undercut his presiding credibility. Specifically, the president took a swipe at the Tea Party influence on the House Speaker keeping him from compromising. “The only question is whether politics or ideology are going to get in the way of preventing a government shutdown.” (12) Of course, this line could be interpreted as presidential, or presiding, because politics or ideology could apply to either party. However, given Reid’s charges two days later in the U.S. Senate chamber that the Tea Party’s ideology was keeping Speaker Boehner from compromising, the president had probably been maintaining a partisan script. That is, he had most likely been trying to have it both ways: seeming to preside while actually trying to further one of the sides.
As the "what do we do now?" question proffered after the president had said "nope, zero" to the speaker demonstrates, a great opportunity cost is entailed in a presider taking sides on every quotidian matter that crosses his or her desk. A president doesn't have to take this bait. Many players are available to dive into a dispute, but only the presider stands for the whole and is therefore in a position to hold the ship itself together when the partisans lose control of the process. Neither fusing partisanship and presiding nor playing mediator-in-chief simply to distance oneself from blame generates credibility sufficient to meet what is necessary for presiding in a crisis. Without a presider credible to both sides, the ship of state in such a case is bound to hit the rocks. Therefore, a truly great presidency resists the temptation to win the day; instead, a true president speaks to the nation as a nation so as to be able to keep it from the abyss when the partisans have tied each other in knots. Lest a president throw an arm or leg into the knot, who is left to untie the self-inflicted ropes? I’m afraid we all have forgotten what a presidential role was designed to do, and this has put the United States at great risk. Sadly, we don't even see it.
Click to listen to the author's podcast commentary on this essay.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
WASHINGTON - Republican leaders expressed renewed skepticism Tuesday about President Barack Obama’s call for a bipartisan forum on health care, raising questions about how much can be achieved at the televised event later this month. “This is a clever tactic by the president to try to put the Republicans on the defensive,” said John Feehery, a GOP consultant and former congressional aide. With the two sides at such odds, some Republican activists privately worry that their party’s leaders might be walking into a trap on Feb. 25 designed to portray their health care proposals as thin. The House’s top two Republican leaders openly questioned Obama’s sincerity and hinted they might skip the meeting if he uses the Democratic bills as the starting point for discussions.
Analysis:
The problem may well be that President Obama is trying to have his cake and eat it too—meaning that he is trying to draw on the credibility of a head of state (i.e., a neutral party who is presiding) while at the same time being the captain of one of the partisan teams. This is a structural conflict of interest that is centered in having the head of state also be the head of one of the contending political parties. Even in how he characterizes what is not bipartisanship, his bias is palpable. “Being bipartisan cannot mean that Democrats give up everything they believe in, find the handful of things that Republicans have been advocating for, and we do those things, and then we have bipartisanship.” To make such a statement literally from the presidential podium undercuts the presiding nature of the office. To consistently side with one side in a house over which one is presiding undercuts one’s credibility to preside. In presiding, one is looking out for the good of the whole, and coming down on one side or the other can legitimately only be done when the whole is in jeopardy. Hence, Andrew Jackson came down against Congressional encroachment on the states in vetoing a Congressional appropriation for a road completely within Missouri’s borders; he feared the precedent would ruin the system of federalism (which must be balanced to be viable). Shortly thereafter, he sent the US Army down to South Carolina after it passed the Nullification Acts by which the South Carolina government claimed it could nullify any federal law that was not in the state’s interest. Jackson’s involvement in taking sides was both for the states and the federal government because his only criterion was the long term viability of the Union. To take sides on lesser matters tends to reduce one to an ideology, hence to one of the partisan groups. This undercuts the credibility of the presiding officer for people in the other parties. To “spend” that credibility for expedient purposes (an ideological agenda)—trying to get the most out of the power of the office—is to lose the kind of power that the office of the US Presidency was designed to have. No wonder most occupants of the office have failed. Barak Obama on health care is only the latest. Had Barak pushed the need for health-care reform without taking sides as the legislators debate possible plans, he would be treated as much more credible in hosting a meeting. In other words, the seriousness of the conflict of interest can be gaged by the trepidation of the Republican leaders. A partisan evoking the credibility of a figure head is inherently duplicitous and bound to lead to failure.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35313584/ns/politics-health_care_reform/
Secondary Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/us/politics/10obama.html?hpw
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