State of the Obama Union: Asymmetrical
President Obama, always a good speaker, didn’t disappoint on rhetoric. The tone was upbeat and optimistic on continuing change. Inspiring words and ideas abounded. He spoke of strong values, of unity and the American character. However, in the area of policy, the speech came up short. As a general rule, Obama maintained his MO of emphasizing big ideas and high-level principles against which no one can reasonably argue (jobs, security, bipartisanship, etc), while serving up little in the way of substantive, original policy initiatives. Herein lies the asymmetry. On the one hand, Obama speaks of change, an overhaul of the status quo in government and new beginnings (even now, after a whole year in power). But on the other hand his policies, as I have argued before, are well ensconced within the established Washington common sense and economic and foreign policy convention wisdom.
He called for a freeze in spending outside of entitlement programs and defense—in other words, precisely the areas least in need of freezing. His other economic proposals were safely contained within the box of the establishment and orthodox economic paradigms. On foreign policy, no big surprises: a little less Iraq here, a little more Afghanistan there, and a net change of zero on the global American empire as well as America’s role in world affairs.
After a year in office, it would seem that we can characterize Barack Obama thusly: he is a man who is bright, well-spoken, personable, hard working and good-hearted. But when it comes to leadership, he is neither an iconoclast nor a revolutionary. He is a well-within-the-box policy maker who, although very left-wing as Presidents go, has the stuff of which compromise and incremental change is made—in ideological, intellectual as well as strategic terms. He would seem to have far too much respect and deference for established institutions and conventional wisdom. That’s not going to deliver “real” change in Washington D.C.
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