Legal Commentary

What?s next for the Obama Administration?

By Jim Lindgren

At Pajamas Media, Victor Davis Hanson observes:

There won?t be any more soaring rhetoric from Obama about purple-state America, ?reaching across the aisle,? or healing our wounds. That was so 2008. Instead, we are in the most partisan age since Vietnam, ushered into it by the self-acclaimed ?non-partisan.? But how could it be anything else?

Partisanship all the time, everywhere

No, Obama has thrown down the gauntlet, and is trying to reify the sloganeering of the 1960s. He apparently reasons along the following lines: that centrist talk was campaign fluff; the voters fell for it, and now it?s his turn to remake America with 51% of the House and 44% of the people. Think Sweden, or, better, Greece as our model at home, and something like America as Brazil in matters of foreign policy. . . .

I don?t see why the ram-it-through, health care formula won?t be followed by similar strategies for blanket amnesty, cap and trade, and expansions of the state takeover of cars, banks, student loans, and energy.

I expect President Obama to move on carbon restrictions next.

Hanson is right that Obama takes the long view. In the national service act passed about 10 months ago, Obama planted the seeds for requiring public schools to hire ACORN-style service learning coordinators and for remaking high schools and middle schools to teach community service across the curricula. So far I haven?t seen much action on this. It wouldn?t surprise me if he is waiting for his second term.

Whether Obama wins a second term turns on the quality of the Republican challenger. Obama is beatable, but not by just anyone. Republicans who view Obama as a political corpse-man are just whistling past the graveyard.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on March 22, 2010 (boomark / email).