What Abraham And John Could Teach Barack
This coming Monday, Barack Obama will take the Oath of
Office for the second time, and give his second Inaugural Address.
His ascent from obscurity to being the most powerful person in
the world was so improbable that, when I went into the voting booth in 2008, I
carried with me my immigrant maternal grandfather’s pocket-watch, and wore my
late father’s over-sized leather jacket.
Both of them (and my mother) were patriots in the best sense of the
word. They were not uncritical of
America’s flaws, but believed deeply in its promise and its goodness. I thought they should be there.
Four years later, it seems we have all been hurtling through
a tunnel with kaleidoscope sides. Mr.
Obama has presided over the end of one war, the winding down of a second, the
death of Osama Bin Laden, and the gradual easing of the worst financial crisis
since the Great Depression. Despite the worst words of the worst of his
critics, he has done a lot of good. But,
along with those accomplishment come the largest deficits in our history, the
highly controversial Obamacare legislation, and a relationship with Congress
that is strained at best, and often characterized by what can best be described
as profound mutual contempt.
Mr. Obama is not the first President who is deeply
polarizing, in fact, the end of his first term marks twenty years of intense
partisanship--an entire generation of ugliness. If you were born the year
Richard Nixon resigned, you have never had the opportunity to vote for anyone
who wasn’t deeply and personally disliked by at least a third of the
electorate.
Mr. Obama’s election was a historic one. But, there comes a point where milestones and
promise must be followed by even more tangible results across a broad spectrum
of issues, lest the milestones and the promise become nothing more than last
year’s entry in Trivial Pursuit. What
matters is what he does now and for the next four years, where he intends to
lead the country, what his goals are, and whether he can get consensus. He can start on Monday.
This doesn’t mean a great and soaring Inaugural. The eminent political historian Larry Sabato
wrote this past week that Inaugural Addresses tended to be prosaic
affairs. Sabato felt that there had been
only two great ones; Lincoln’s majestic Second, which we wrote about last July recast the meaning of the
Civil War in moral terms and looked outward to a compassionate and inclusive
post-war reconciliation, and Kennedy’s.
Sabato spoke of the excitement of being a schoolboy in a Catholic
school, assembling with classmates and the nuns around a black and white television to watch the first Catholic President inspire and uplift, and of
going home that day to grab the evening paper and commit the text to memory. He was proud of himself that, fifty years
later, he could recall so many of Kennedy’s words, and proud that Kennedy could
show a hesitant nation that a young Catholic could, in fact, speak both to assuage their
fears and for their aspirations.
We are no longer in such innocent days. Obama could give the Sermon on the Mount, and
many on the Right would call it class warfare or complain all that turning of
the cheek was yet another example of a weak foreign policy.
Is this fair? Fair
isn’t relevant, and Obama should ignore them, and search for a broader spectrum
of people who simply want government to work.
More relevant is the criticism from mainstream commentators, and even
present and former supporters, for failing to lead. They are, in part, correct. Obama, on certain key issues, hasn’t
led. We absolutely have to tackle the
enormous gap between the expanding entitlement obligations to an increasingly
aging society, and the need for economic growth and innovation. In short, we have to find a way to honor our
commitments to both young and old.
This isn’t simple, and, unfortunately, the gist of the advice
of many of the well meaning is that Obama should articulate his compromise
positions, assuming that the GOP will be reasonable. To lead, in their minds,
is to tell the country where we should end up by identifying what you would
accept. They are wrong, of course, at
least in that analysis. The hard-liners in the GOP are not
going to be reasonable, and an Obama offer of any part, much less all, of what
he is ultimately willing to give will simply be rejected, and taken as a new
starting point in negotiations.
The post election Obama, more assertive, more vocally
unyielding, is a reflection of his grasp of this. After getting rolled in 2011 on the first
debt-ceiling crisis, he knows he has to be tougher. But it may also be a tacit acknowledgment of
another Obama weakness; that when he first came into office, he believed his
own rhetoric as a historic bridge-builder.
What his Presidency has shown so far is that he is a complex man with
great strengths and significant shortcomings.
One of those shortcomings is that he is a poor negotiator. It is not for
lack of intelligence, or grasp of the intricacies of the deal, but more a
deficit in in a particular type of interpersonal skill. In the give and take of negotiation with
others who possess some bargaining chips, Obama is neither a bridge-builder nor a back-slapper. He simply isn’t that good at getting to yes.
This is not a fatal flaw, even in a President. He doesn’t have to be Lyndon Johnson. He is the President. He can hire people to do it for him. That is, in effect, what Secretary of State
Seward did for Lincoln in “procuring” votes for the 13th
Amendment. And it is also what Joe Biden
did in the last round of the Fiscal Cliff negotiations. Presidents are rich in power and in
resources. Obama should use them.
So, what is Obama’s job on Monday and beyond? He could start by recalling Kennedy’s words
to the nation’s enemies abroad. “So let us begin anew -- remembering on both
sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject
to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to
negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us
instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.”
He should remember Lincoln’s
vision, to “do all which may achieve and
cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
And, finally, in the
privacy of his own time and his own place, he can ruminate on the
following; “All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will
it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this
Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us
begin.”
MM
