Let's make Obama Philosopher-King

I'm ready to turn over control of our county to Barack Obama. For a while. Not permanently.

It just seems like we need a really wise Philosopher-King right now, one dude who's in charge of things and doesn't have to deal with fools in Congress.

In time of war we have a Commander in Chief. This economic crisis deserves a similar temporary turning over of leadership control to a single individual who does whatever is needed to preserve and protect the United States.

Now, I realize this is a fantasy.

Minor details like the Constitution prevent the President from ignoring Congress and issuing Philosopher-King edicts. But I wish such could happen.

Yesterday it was inspiring to watch Obama handle his first presidential press conference with confidence, dexterity, eloquence, and aplomb. Paul Begala, CNN analyst, summed up the difference between Obama and Bush:

It was a very serious press conference about serious issues.  And I give him very high marks.  Yeah, he talked a little long, but you know what a relief after George W. Bush.  Watching Bush complete a sentence is like watching a fat, drunk guy cross an icy road…you just knew he wasn’t going to make it.  And this guy has at least some command over the issues.

Well, much more than "some command." Obama had an in-depth grasp of what needs to be done to get us out of our current economic malaise.

I've got a lot of confidence that Obama, backed up by his all-star administration team, could lead the United States into a dramatic recovery within a few years. But right now he's having to move in a direction set by people with minds much less savvy than his.

Namely, members of Congress.

Being one of the millions who contributed to Obama's campaign, I just got a message from Organizing for America, which has taken over his vast email list. It began with:

Last night, President Obama gave his first-ever prime time press conference to call for immediate action on his economic recovery plan. Today, the Senate voted to pass the President's plan.

Wrong possessives.

It's not the President's plan. It sprouted from the semi-competent psyches of the House Democratic leadership, then was pruned and twisted out of shape by even more clueless Senators.

Obama could have done much better. And should have. Apparently his vision of collegial bipartisanship stopped him from saying at the start, "This is the way the stimulus bill has to be."

Wish he had.

Who suspected on election night last November, when Democrats surged to victory, that three Senate Republicans would be calling the shots on an economic stimulus plan in February 2009?

I don't want Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter deciding how to get the United States economy back on track. Yet there they are, warning that if they don't get their moderate Republican way, they won't vote for the stimulus bill and supply the sixty votes needed to get it past a filibuster.

On the front page of the Portland Oregonian today I saw a headline that said, "Compromise in D.C. cuts money Oregon officials desperately want."

The story talks about how $400 million for school construction, teacher salaries, and such won't be coming to Oregon if the three Republicans aren't overruled. Hopefully they will be.

A New York Times editorial gets it right.

When members of the House and Senate sit down this week to craft a final version of their differing bills, they must include the most-effective provisions — those that provide powerful stimulus and help those Americans who are most in need.

There is a decent deal to be had in negotiations. Whether Congress and the administration get there will depend a lot on Mr. Obama’s leadership and his insistence on a better bill.

As does Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who called the moderate Senate Republicans "the destructive center."

What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?

A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished.

Right on. Obama should do the Philosopher-King thing and say that he'll veto any stimulus bill that doesn't do X, Y, and Z.

Let the Republicans take the responsibility for pushing the economy off a cliff (or rather, off a steeper one). I suspect their filibuster threat would evaporate. If not, so be it.

As the Times editorial said:

For rather than acknowledge the failure of his political strategy and the damage to his economic strategy, the president tried to put a postpartisan happy face on the whole thing. “Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands,” he declared on Saturday, and “the scale and scope of this plan is right.”

No, they didn’t, and no, it isn’t.

Comments

[Dave Porter]

Nice. Agree. Oregon should not have to lay off teachers so others can get tax cuts to buy houses and cars.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Brian,

Interesting fantasy of what you want. I believe Bush and Cheney had a similar one - about themselves.

Robert Paul Howard

[Brian]

Robert, the difference -- and it's a big one -- is that Bush and Cheney were incompetent, and Obama knows what he is doing.

Following a leader out of danger isn't a bad thing. Democracy can be paralyzing and ineffective in times of danger.

Having a crowd of confused people mill around arguing about the best course of action, as Congress is doing, is a bad approach when a decisive "We need to go here, now!" is the path to safety.

So I don't agree that Obama = Bush/Cheney. Leadership doesn't equal dictatorship.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Brian,

Goodness! Please point out to me where I made that correlation of equivalence. I don't see where my words indicated it.

Robert Paul Howard

[tucson]

I just don't understand this unsubstantiated belief in Obama's capabilites. True, he is intelligent and an articulate speaker that inspires confidence in people. His bearing is presidential, but this ridiculous stimulous package that he has rammed down our throats is a travesty. 1100 pages that I doubt one congressman had time to read before voting on it. INsane.

[tucson]

I hit the post button before completing my comment above.

This stimulus package is likely to:

-Hurt economic recovery by elbowing aside private borrowers and consumers as the government goes to the front of the line to borrow adequate funds to cover its deficit.

-Invite massive inflation in the future as consumers and businesspeople sit on most of the money until times improve. Then, when confidence begins to return — no thanks to the stimulus package — they will deluge the economy with money, triggering massive inflation.

-Expand government and spend borrowed money on projects that may have some long-term merit but are scarcely our top priority right now.

Fasten your seatbelts.

[Idler]

Brian,

Having clicked on the Wikipedia link I was interested to see the "criticism" section's reference to Karl Popper.

I would have added Cambridge don Michael Oakeshott's "Rationalism in Politics" to the "References" list. Have you ever read that essay? I'd be interested in your reaction.

[Brian]

Idler, I'm not familiar with "Rationalism in Politics." I read a few summaries of the guy's essay, including this one:
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1539036

In my opinion, we need more rationalism in politics, not less. Married of course with practicality and political realism. One review I read said that Oakeshott feels that liberals live in a theoretical world disconnected from reality.

Well, it sure seems like the same criticism could be directed at conservative thought. Notions of free market capitalism haven't been working very well in the real economic world lately.

And every time I hear Republicans mindlessly repeat "tax cuts, tax cuts" as the answer to every problem, it seems obvious that they are simply parroting an abstraction, not a reasoned response to our actual economic problems.