Lee doesn't understand why the national debt is consuming so much of our political leaders' time and energy. I think that a lot of it has to do with the President's leadership style. He's something of a political Daoist. He doesn't seize the bully pulpit and drum up support for a cause he thinks is just. He goes with the flow. Obama will always sail downstream; never paddle upstream, but he will try to steer the ship of state toward what he sees is the more pleasant shoreline.
So when he came into office with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, he steered toward health care reform, even though in his campaign it appeared as though climate change legislation was his bigger priority. The only people who care about global warming are kids who love polar bears and egg-headed liberals like me. But health care reform would be the capstone of the modern welfare state. It's something New Dealers and labor activists have dreamed of, and in their minds it was long overdue. So he did health care reform.
Then the GOP took back the House. They had plenty of energy for austerity. And the Democrats were exhausted. So Obama decided to capitalize on the GOP appetite for austerity. If there was to be austerity, then he would try to get as favorable an austerity package as he could get, one that wouldn't gut the welfare state, but would address its undeniable funding problems.
Turns out the Republicans were bluffing. And it looks like they may capitulate entirely--giving the President the authority to raise the debt ceiling without requiring a penny in spending cuts. The only condition is that they'll have to vote on it during next year's presidential race. Which is no real penalty. Nobody cares about the debt ceiling. What they care about is getting a Jay-Oh-Bee.
What I call political Daoism is what some have called "leading from behind," either derisively in the case of Charles Krauthammer, or as a compliment in the case of Andrew Sullivan. It's Obama's modus operandi. It drives liberals crazy. They're forever fearing that the President is going to sell them out and perpetually disappointed with his results.
On some counts they have a right to be disappointed. Decapitating Al Qaida doesn't vindicate a surge strategy in Afghanistan that's gotten a lot of people killed and has little to show for it. The Libya War is illegal, although only technically. The Congress's refusal to approve of the war or to defund it basically renders Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution a dead letter. If Congress won't declare war, somebody in government will.
But otherwise, this President is getting stuff done. Stimulus? Check. Health care reform? Check. Saving GM and Chrysler? Check. A new arms control treaty? Check. Raising fuel economy standards? Check. Stiff-arming Republican attempts to slash the budget in a jobless recovery? Check.
He's gotten more done in 2.5 years than Clinton did in 8. Props to the man.
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