Legal Commentary

Transformation: Obama Goes From "Impotent" To FDR In A Flash

By Big Tent Democrat

I watched with some amusement a rehash of the Impotent President debate of last year during the health bill debate. This time it was the New Beltway (the former JournOListers) repeating their arguments in response to Glenn Greenwald's complaints about President Obama's performance regarding civil liberties. The not so new mantra emanated from Jonathan Bernstein:

The Presidency Is Weak. Really.

[Greenwald's piece [. . .] is ignorant nonsense that betrays a deep lack of understanding of how the government of the United States works. Is the idea of an "Impotent, Helpless President" a joke? No, it's basic American politics.

(Emphasis supplied.) One of Glenn's responses here. I always thought this line of defense would have a short shelf life because, honestly, calling Obama weak and impotent is not a very good political strategy for Democrats, even of the Beltway variety. And lo and behold, not a week later Obama is now FDR. In this recommended dkos diary, Rachel Maddow is toasted for finally seeing the light. And this morning, dkos' DemfromCt favorably links to this Economic Times piece:

Barack Obama is about to affix the tightest handcuffs on Wall Street in decades, adding a finance reform bill to his historic health overhaul, and boosting his claims for a transformative presidency.

Jonathan Bernstein must think Rachel Maddow, DemfromCt and the Economic Times are "betraying a deep lack of understanding of how the United States government works."

Actually, what the New Beltway demonstrated yet again was a lack of good faith in this discussion. As Greenwald pointed out:

As I've acknowledged from the start, the President does have some constraints in the area of domestic policy and will not always be able to move Congress to do what he wants. The complaint has been not that Obama is omnipotent and thus failed to get good progressive bills, but that he did not use his substantial leverage to try (again, just contrast what the White House did on the war supplemental bill). But the claim that he has virtually no leverage to influence what Congress does on domestic policy is silly, and to see how true that is, just look at the central role the White House played in killing the public option and -- according to its own Treasury official -- is now playing by dictating which progressive provisions will be killed from the financial reform bill and which ones will remain.

One thing that has always baffled me is why the New Beltway gets so angry at activists agitating? What precisely would they have them do?

For the most part, this is a stale debate meaning precisely nothing intellectually, politically or in terms of policy. At one point I thought it had some ramifications regarding whether there would be Netroots issue activism and whether the New Beltway would be perceived as the Netroots. In the end it had none. There is no Netroots activism and the New Beltway is just the latest version of Democratic Party media advocates.

Much noise signifying nothing.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 27, 2010 (boomark / email).