By Clark S. Judge
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. In his last press conference before the inauguration President
Obama spoke in a tone remarkable actually unprecedented in the post World War II era perhaps in the history of the nation. He presented himself
as the leader not of the country but of a faction.
Again and again the president wasnt simply confrontational toward the opposition in Congress but contemptuous. In place of the normal ritual at the beginning of second terms speaking of going forward together muting the more divisive rhetoric of the campaign talking of finding common ground for common purpose with leaders in both houses of Congress (one of which is firmly in the hands of the opposition party) the president took exactly the opposite course.
Several times he repeated a list of those who in his telling would suffer if government spending were cut or we went through a shutdown children the elderly our troops the list went on. After a point I wondered if he was going to accuse Republicans of drowning puppies next. He offered no acknowledgement none
that the GOP leadership has put one offer after another one the table compromising on key principals of taxes and economic growth to come to the most recent deal.
Instead when pressed on his own failure to reach out to socialize to take on the simple wooing of legislators that is an essential element of presidential leadership he offered the gratuitous and to my knowledge incorrect observations that many Congressional Republicans are such political cowards that they wont come to White House cookouts for fear of a backlash at home.
There is a great deal of talk in the media at the moment about American government being broken. I dont share that view. We are confronting a major turning point and as it has historically in all such moments our political system feels as though it cant decide to go one way or the other.
In a National Review Online column
yesterday Michael Barone addressed national turning points asking Is the Entitlement State Winding Down?" He suggested that our history runs in as he put it the American-sounding interval of 76 years just a few
more than the Biblical lifespan of three score and 10." Washingtons first inaugural to Lincolns second was 76 years as was that moment to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Now are just four years away from the 76 anniversary of the entry into World War II.
Barone suggests that the mark of the present turning point is that the welfare-state arrangements that once seemed solid are on the path to unsustainability." If so many hard negotiations lie ahead. Among the roles of presidents at such moment is seek national unity even as they seek to advance their agenda.
We hear a great deal about Ronald Reagan and Tip ONeill. Nothing the current president has faced in terms of opposition attacks compares to what Reagan faced during Iran-Contra. It was clear that the Democrats in Congress wanted to close down the Reagan presidency.
During this period Ted Kennedy and his allies in the Senate who included the current vice president
launched the first and to date one of two most extreme and personal attacks in American history on a presidential nominee to the Supreme Court (the other being against Clarence Thomas of course).
Yet it was also in this period the
Reagan and ONeill launched a major move in support of the Afghan resistance against the Soviets. Mr. Reagan saw his third pick for the Court confirmed. Indeed in the last months of his administration President Reagan was even able to shame a full set of budget bills out of Congress.
The reason wasnt that Congressional Democrats then were cooperative in a way that the Congressional Republicans are not now. Instead they set new standards for venom and partisanship that no fair-minded person could say have been exceeded in our time. Rather it was that the president worked at transcending divisions.
Reagan exemplified all the qualities of charm and courtesy that Mr. Obama seemed to disparage in his press conference. His humor made him a pleasure for even adversaries to be around. And while it is true as the current president suggested yesterday that the ultimate sources of our divisions are substantive much more can be achieved and have traditionally been achieved -- when the presidents have worked the room.
The sad fact is that President Obama appears incapable of reaching in any serious way beyond his faction. It is going to be a long four years in Washington.
Whatever the posturing of Democrats like Howard Dean or the president without a spending solution no deal is a real deal. Just look at the arithmetic.
Clark S. Judge is managing director of White House Writers Group and chairman of Pacific Research Institute.
