Legal Commentary

The Irrelevant President?

By Big Tent Democrat

After the Democrats were trounced in the 1994 congressional elections, the Media spun a meme declaring President Clinton irrelevant. President Clinton fought to make that meme false:

President Clinton last night declared his relevance to the political debate in Washington and called on Republicans to work with him in remarks at a news conference that offered a stark reminder of how much power has shifted from the White House to Congress.

President Clinton stood up to Newt Gingrich and his zany band of Republicans intent on gutting Medicare and other government programs and in fact regained the initiative. Which brings us to today, where supporters of President Obama, on the heels of his smashing triumph in 2008 and the most Democratic Congress since LBJ, now declare Obama irrelevant:

Obviously one answer could be that some Democrats prefer to see health reform defeated, but owing to their partisan allegiance don’t want to come right out and say that.

As I’ve said from the beginning of this process, the most important known unknown in health reform is nothing to do with the Obama administration’s tactics and everything to do with the actual subjective premises of the handful of moderate Democrats who control the balance of power in the Senate.

As apologias for Obama go, this is one of the more amazing ones. But suppose it is true - is Matt Yglesias really saying that President Obama does not matter? Really? Then why should we care much if he is reelected? Shouldn't we then just focus all our attention of the Congress?

Of course Yglesias' apologia is absurd. President Obama remains the most powerful player in the world and in the nation. If he is unwilling to use his political power, well that says something about him, not the power he has.

I always return to the George W. Bush example in 2001, where Bush LOST the popular vote, faced a 50-50 Senate and still got his agenda through the Congress. That the agenda was disastrous is not the point. The point is what people like Yglesias are saying is that in terms of dealing with Congress, George W. Bush was much more effective that Barack Obama can possibly be.And that is just sad.

At this point, excusing Obama's possible failures on health care reform seems the most important goal for many. If that is the new focus of progressive blogging, that speaks volumes about Obama . . . and progressive bloggers.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 24, 2009 (boomark / email).