When Reality Becomes Real

In his latest article "The President's Reality Problem," Rich Lowry offers an astute analysis of the Obama Administration. His basic argument is that the root cause of the President's failure is a lack of reality. Pres. Obama, since the beginning of his campaign, has propagated dozens of unrealistic promises and policies, and we are now witnessing the harsh effects of reality.

One of Lowry's better examples is his analysis of the "post-partisanship" that Obama espoused on the campaign. Pres. Obama, throughout his campaign, was able to inspire and excite millions of American's with his stated commitment to post-partisanship. However, when he entered the White House, he was quickly forced to make a choice: become post-partisan and allow the Republicans to take part in policy-making, or remain partisan and fight for his liberal objectives.

In other words, during the campaign Pres. Obama preached an imaginary reality: that he could be both post-partisan and completely liberal. The history of the Obama Administration in 2009 is simply the tale of an Administration trying to deny reality. He tried to pass liberal health care reform, and bemoaned the lack of bipartisan support. He proposed a deficit of 1 trillion dollars, and was seemingly surprised by the right-wing's opposition. It is only within the past several months that Obama has finally been forced to make his choice. When faced with the prospect of seeing all of his largest policies fail, he chose to become a Democratic partisan. Reality forced him to give up his campaign imaginations.

Pres. Obama is not the only American who is going to have to face reality over the next few months. In 2008, a large percentage of the 70 million Americans that voted for him refused to acknowledge his left-wing record and clung to his promises of "post-partisanship." Perhaps Pres. Obama's recent astronomical drop in the polls is due to these voters realizing the fact that Pres. Obama is not a moderate, but a liberal. Reality had the last laugh.

I would definitely recommend that everyone read the entirety of Lowry's article. Lowry gives several other interesting examples of Pres. Obama's denial of reality. It sheds light on the fundamental dichotomy of Obama's presidency.

The Unreality of the Liberal Reality

Drew Westen, a liberal professor at Emory University, published an article for CNN in which he argues that the Obama Administration is plagued by a lack of clear, strong messages. Westen contends that the unpopularity of Pres. Obama's policies is due to this ineffective communication. I find his analysis fascinating because it reveals the alternate reality that liberal academia have created in their minds.

In that sense, there's something deeply ironic about Republicans attacking the vacationing Obama for failing to prevent a Nigerian from blowing up his underpants in mid-air.

This is clearly a straw man. Republicans are not attacking Pres. Obama for his vacationing tendencies, but for the lackadaisical way in which his Administration has approached terrorism (Demint, Cheney, Gingrich). To dismiss criticism of the President based on this unfair characterization is brutally fallacious.

 Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano initially suggested, in a tone intended to reassure, that the failed terrorist attack proved the system works. A few days later, when that comment could no longer even pass through airport screening machines, the president reversed course, calling the event a systemic failure of catastrophic proportions.

Napolitano's gaffe (which, to be fair, she later sought to correct) was not an isolated incident. It is emblematic of a seat-of-the-pants approach to speaking with the American people about issues that really matter to them that is increasingly undermining the administration's credibility (and with it, its poll numbers).

First off, this Administration has clearly shown that it does not speak from the "seat-of-the-pants", but rather is very scripted and methodical in its rhetoric. Pres. Obama's use of a teleprompter has been well-documented. The President has controlled the exact wording used by many high-ranking officials in his Administration (apparently Napolitano wants us to call "terrorism" "man-caused nuances").


In addition, however, I would contend that it is belittling the American public to contend that they are more influenced by rhetoric than by policies. Americans were disturbed by Napolitano's gaffe because it confirmed a long-standing suspicion that they have about the Democratic Party – that Democrats don't take the threat of terrorism seriously. Napolitano's comment was not disastrous because it failed to "stay on message"; it was disastrous because it portrayed the Administration as weak on terrorism.


For example, polls have indicated that the American public, including a significant majority of unaffiliated voters, oppose the health care plan offered by congressional Democrats.  The media has spent hours upon hours broadcasting the details of the plan, the pros and cons of the plan, and the rhetoric of the Administration – and yet they still overwhelmingly oppose the plan. The lack of support for the President's health care plan is not a mythical miscommunication; rather, the cause of the fierce opposition is the very substance of the plan. Quite simply, American's oppose a government intrusion into health care, regardless of what the President and his Administration says. 

It is difficult to find an issue on which the White House has offered a coherent, compelling message. Consider the administration's stance on deficits, which will constrain every piece of legislation the president attempts to pass.

President Obama never made a concerted effort to explain to the American people, in plain language, the most basic lessons of modern economics as to why deficit spending is essential to breaking a downward spiral in which major banks fail, the stock market collapses, businesses lay off employees, people who've lost their jobs can't buy or pay their mortgages, more businesses collapse as consumer confidence and spending plummet, banks stop lending, and home foreclosures skyrocket, leading to further layoffs and decreased demand. 

When no one has the money to spend or invest, the only one left to do it is the federal government. Breaking that spiral (and beginning to reinvest in America) was the primary purpose of the "stimulus package"-- something the president should have repeated dozens of times. 

Instead, the administration has been mixing messages -- often in the same sentence -- about the need for government spending and the importance of deficit reduction and making any new spending "deficit neutral." To the average American, it's difficult to see how those messages fit together, and with good reason: They don't.

Westen is both correct and incorrect in his analysis. He is correct in his argument that the argument of "making any new spending 'deficit neutral'" is inherently contradictory. There has never been a period in American history where the government has dramatically increased spending and yet been able to contain the deficit. Westen is correct when he points out that the average American can see this contradiction in the rhetoric of the Obama Administration.


However, Westen is incorrect when he assumes that if Obama had made a classical Keynesian argument "dozens of times" then he would have gained the support of the American people for his policies. I have previously contended that the American electorate no longer supports Keynesian economics. Further, I would argue that public opinion is firmly against the rising government debt. In the end, Pres. Obama's continual use of anti-deficit rhetoric is evidence that even the members of his Administration agree that the public will not support increases in the deficit.

What would that story have offered? A description of the problem in terms everyone can relate to, an explanation of how it came about that people have seen with their own eyes, a clear plan for solving it that passes the "common sense" test, and an appeal to core American values like security, hard work, competition and fairness. I happen to know that message would have garnered 2 to 1 support for health care reform because I polled various versions of it during the election and have done so recently.

Again, Westen's argument is filled with glaring assumptions that contradict reality. The American public doesn't support the Administration's health care plan because of the substance of the plan. American's simply do not want a government-run health care system. Many polls have indicated that the American public, including a significant majority of unaffiliated voters, oppose the health care plan offered by congressional Democrats.  The media has spent hour upon hour broadcasting the details of the plan, the pros and cons of the plan, and the rhetoric of the Administration – and yet the people still overwhelmingly oppose the plan. Quite simply, American's oppose a government intrusion into health care, regardless of what the President and his Administration says. 


The polls that Westen took during the election are no longer valid. First, the public often changes its opinion on a policy issue. Further, big government plans have historically seen dramatic decreases in support once that have actually been proposed in Congress. Finally, there is no way that we can logically side with the results of polls taken over a year ago, when they contradict the conclusions of polls taken just weeks or months ago.

As the president moves into his second year, it is time for a course correction. As one of the most effective communicators in modern American history, he should heed the wise counsel of the president he most admires, Abraham Lincoln: "...public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible."

It is time this president makes statutes and decisions possible, not by compromising at the outset with the people who dug the holes in which we find ourselves or staying "above the fray" as legislators and lobbyists work out the details, but by articulating clearly what he believes in and putting the power and prestige of his office and his presence behind it.

In this final point, Westen exposes the fundamental flaw in his analysis: he believes in an alternate reality. To Westen, the American public is politically liberal, much like the Europeans, and supports liberal dogma of government solutions. Why else would Westen argue that the public sentiment in America would flock to the banner of big government? He truly believes that the American public will rally in support of Pres. Obama if he becomes a spokesperson for big government. 


This is fundamentally wrong. Any person who takes a fair-minded view of the political environment of the United States could see a clear picture of an electorate who does not support big government liberalism. The people of the United States (unlike many of the students/professors/staff in the universities where Westen works) are not confused about Pres. Obama's plan; in fact, they understand it clearly and oppose it.


This alternate reality that Westen calls the U.S. is not the reality that I, and my fellow 300 million citizens, know as the United States of America.

The Public's Changing Opinion on 'Change'

How much stock ought we to put in the grand campaign slogans concocted by the Obama Administration? Certainly, during the campaign words such as 'Change' or 'Audacity' were golden when it came to projecting a favorable image to the electorate. But can these slogans sustain Pres. Obama's popularity through the rough-and-tumble of his Presidency? Will slogans like, "Yes, We Can" maintain their credence in the face of a $787 billion stimulus package or a $2.5 trillion health care bill? 

The 2008 election seemed the indicate that the historically center-right American public had become more receptive to an expanding government bureaucracy. Had the housing bubble and the ensuing financial crisis pushed the American electorate to embrace big government?

While I don't usually read TIME Magazine (they have no credibility in my mind), Nina Easton published an article in the magazine which is well worth reading. In the article, she compellingly argues that the electorate, despite the election of Pres. Obama, is still opposed to big government.

When Obama took office, conventional wisdom held that the American people, jarred by a financial crisis they were routinely told was "the worst since the Great Depression," would race into the protective arms of Washington. After all, the Federal Government had given us the New Deal in the worst of times and a patchwork of economic safety nets since. The idea is that we instinctively turn to its beneficent hand to ease the pain of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes--and recessions.

Yet in today's hard economic times, something startling began showing up in public-opinion polls: fewer people than in the past wanted Washington to step in. In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, only 23% of respondents said they trust the government "always or most of the time"--the smallest proportion in 12 years. The percentage of voters who think government should "do more to solve problems and meet the needs of people" has dropped 5 points since Obama's first weeks in office, while that of those who think government should leave more things "to businesses" rose 8 points. The shift is especially noticeable among independent voters, a small plurality of whom wanted government to "do more" after Obama took office; now--by a margin of 17--they think government does "too much."

The American public has been considered by most political observers to be a center-right crowd. Generally, they like a small government to stay out of the free market. Even the New Deal, which certainly endorsed a bigger government, was to the right of the quasi-socialist systems set up in Western Europe following WWII. While there are a number of explanatory reasons for this phenomenon (foremost was the Cold War), American's have never been captivated by the socialist/big government agenda. Even the more liberal Presidents, such as Johnson and Carter, would be considered moderates in European politics.

With the economic crisis, fear and anxiety about the future of the U.S. economic future pervaded the Presidential elections of 2008. It would be irrational to separate Obama's victory from the sense of economic doom. The voters dissatisfied and fearing the worst, abandoned their decades-long preference for small government and voted for 'change' -- and big government.

The electorate, however, has realized what 'change' is. The 'change' that Obama offered is not a new strategy, it is not a ground-breaking new approach to problems. Obama's change has been around since the post-WWII rise of socialized democracies in Europe. 'Change' was the decades-old strategy: replace market economics with government bureaucracy.

It is clear now that the voters have changed their minds about 'change.' The initial popularity of big-government is over; the honeymoon with bureaucracy has ended. In November 2008, the people might have voted for big government, but in November of 2009, they realized that the 'change' was really more of the same.

It's not hard to find a national consensus that government should lead on matters like national defense, natural disasters, food safety and support for the elderly and poor. But any bold reach beyond the basics becomes problematic when swing voters start to confront costly realities and the soaring sweep of campaign promises gets lost in programmatic details. Since last spring, there has been a sizable drop in the portion of voters who think Washington should guarantee health insurance, with Gallup now recording--for the first time since it began asking the question--more people saying it is not the government's responsibility (50%) than saying it is (47%).

This is the reason for the dramatic change in opinion on Obama's policies. During the first year of the Obama Administration, the electorate realized the actual costs of his bureaucratic policies. During the campaign, it was easy to hide the realities of what expanding Federal power meant: more costs, less efficiency, more taxes. But now, when those policies are put to the test in the arena of national politics, the costly reality of big-government has been exposed. And unlike their European counterparts, the American electorate cannot stomach this reality.

What I am suggesting is that the voters did not know what they were voting for. Most voters did not have the time to understand what 'change' was; they knew it was different and that was good enough for their vote. When 'change' manifested itself as big-government, they realized what 'change' was and they rejected it. 

'Change' is a great campaign slogan -- especially when the country is in the midst of crises in both the domestic and international arenas. 'Change' is generic, positive, optimistic. It epitomizes the Obama campaign.

However, big-government is not a generic policy. It is costly, inefficient, and unappetizing to the American public. 

It was when 'change' turned from generic to specific that the electorate changed its opinion on change.

Where the Rubber hits the Sand

So far in his first term, President Obama has focused on domestic policy and been a little light on the international. This certainly was a major critique of Pres. Obama when he entered office. It seems that his trip through Europe mid-campaign hasn't made him the foreign policy enthusiast that the Office of President requires.

Certainly, the War in Afghanistan is one of the foremost issues in American foreign policy. Over the past year, the American public has been told time-after-time about how the Afghanistan War is getting out of hand, with ominous allusions to the 04-06 Iraqi quagmire. While Iraq has become a more stable country in the months following the ingenious General Petraeus and "The Surge", it seems that Afghanistan has gone the opposite direction -- more casualties and less stability.

In the recent weeks, the Obama Administration has been forced to focus on defining it's policy on the War in Afghanistan. Here is the article I will examine, from Nov. 17 ,which outlines the goals of the Administration. For information on the speech the President will give tomorrow night, check out this article from earlier today.

Top Obama administration officials took pains to lower the bar for success in Afghanistan Sunday, stressing that the administration is seeking an exit strategy and holds "no illusions" that it will transform the country into a functional modern democracy. 

Lowering the bars for success, I would suggest, is a horrible strategy. This idea that you cannot establish a "functional" democracy in Afghanistan is ludicrous. In the Middle East, we have already established a functioning democracy in Iraq, which not only holds regular elections, but also has seen civilian deaths fall to record lows this month. For goodness sake, the Iraqi government has its own YouTube channel to promote its propaganda.  Why is Afghanistan so much different? Perhaps, I would argue, the problem is not that this region is inherently unable to have functioning democracies, but that our strategy is flawed. Just as experts who said democracy was "unattainable" in Iraq were wrong, I would contend a similar statement about Afghanistan will be proven wrong. President Obama, don't change the end goal, change the strategy.

"We have been there for eight years. It is a long, long time. And we have to keep focused on what our purpose was in the first place. Our purpose was to disrupt and dismantle and destroy Al Qaeda," he told CNN's "State of the Union." But obviously we cannot make an open-ended commitment. And we want to do this in a way that maximizes our efforts against Al Qaeda, but within the framework of bringing our troops home at some point. ... There has to be a framework to this decision." 

Defining the "end strategy" is exactly what we need to avoid. An end strategy gives no benefits whatsoever. An end strategy has no purpose aside from being a ceremonial "shame on you" to the Afghani government. All it does is point out how frustrated we are with the progress in the country, and show our impatience to the entire world. When we rebuilt Japan after WWII, we did not constantly whine and complain about the lack of progress. We did not constantly remind the people and government of Japan that we were dissatisfied with their efforts and wanted to wash our hands of the operation as soon a possible. An exit strategy goes against the image that we need to project to the people of these new democracies -- that we are confident in democracy and want to establish long-term alliances with the new countries. 

Clinton would not comment directly on concerns expressed by the U.S. ambassador to the country, Karl Eikenberry, who relayed to the White House his reservations about whether problems with the Afghan government could undermine the effectiveness of any troop increase. 

This is what President Obama needs to address in his speech tomorrow. The Afghani government was given the golden opportunity after the post-9/11 toppling of the Taliban to establish a democracy. Is corruption the reason why they failed? What measures will he recommend be taken to root out corruption in the government? We need the President to take the initiative, take leadership, and come up with a strategy to confront corruption in the Afghani state. I don't want to hear, "I will recommend the Afghani leaders address this problem", or "the government in Afghanistan needs to address this dire situation"; no, I want President Obama, or his foreign policy experts, to design a actual policy to solve this problem. That is what leaders do: find problems, find solutions.

President Obama, Afghanistan can be made into a stable democratic ally. Drop the rhetoric about how democracy is impossible in Afghanistan, or about the need for an exit strategy. Then, spend time actually solving the huge problems facing the Afghani government. 

It is time for the rubber to hit the sand.