Sullivan asks if Obama is too timid for times that call for stronger leadership?
The question buzzing around Washington’s chattering classes is the following: is the actual historical moment that Obama inherited — unforeseen in its scope and danger this time last year — the right moment for these instincts? Are his caution and delegation a liability in a period of a dysfunctional Congress, a near-psychotic Republican party and a potentially lethal global depression?
After a period in which the American executive claimed vast powers and institutionalised torture and abuse of suspected terrorists, is it enough simply to forget and forgive the past and try to glue onto the existing system more checks and balances and decency? Is the conservatism we sought, in other words, adequate to the radicalism that may now be required?
And is the president being too deferential to Congress in seizing the reins?
This critique is echoed on both left and right. The right, in its dominant neoconservative vein, is frustrated with his disdain for classic American moralising and sabre-rattling at a moment such as Iran’s stymied green revolution. The left wishes he had been more radical in taking on Wall Street, insisting on a single-payer healthcare reform and a full-bore carbon tax. Harper’s Magazine has even labelled him Barack Hoover Obama: personally brilliant, humane and pragmatic but simply not daring enough for the moment he is facing.
via Barack Obama keeps his cool in hothead Washington – Times Online.
I’ve always seen Obama as a careful centrist and wonder why people are startled that he governs like one. The stimulus debate left little question he’d sacrifice effectiveness for political cover and “bipartisanship” whatever that is. Seems like the GOP defines bipartisan as capitulation to their goals.
