This is part of a challenge posed to me by a friend to summarize my thoughts on the Obama presidency in 500 words. I think several other friends will be attempting this project as well so I’ll link to them as they go online.
One of the big themes of the 2012 election is the long game, by which we mean the big picture, long-term vision of a candidate; less the specific policies they pursue and more the sort of world they wish to create. Andrew Sullivan described Obama’s long game in his Newsweek cover story and Ron Paul’s campaign is about nothing but the long game (the long game in his case being “Rand Paul 2020″). In assessing a presidency, the long game may well be the most important point.
The specific facts of an administration will often be fleeting and ephemeral. Even an administration as disastrous as that of George W. Bush doesn’t leave a ton of specific relics behind: We’re out of Iraq, the economy is beginning to rebound, our reputation abroad is being repaired, Machiavellian fiends like Cheney and Rumsfeld no longer hold public office. Additionally, Obama has been a limited success in the two areas where Bush was weakest: foreign affairs and the domestic economy. Like President Clinton, Obama has attempted to reduce the out-of-control military budget and adopt a less jingoistic attitude toward the rest of the world (though it should be noted that both have indulged in the occasional “military assistance” project that represents a milder form of the same tired interventionism). Also like Clinton, he has reduced the annual deficit. Obviously that came at the expense of an enormous increase in the national debt, an unfortunate but unavoidable outcome given the recession he inherited. On these points, I consider the Obama administration a success.
It’s the long game that I find troubling. Obama has a disturbing confidence in his own wisdom and ability to make correct decisions. And that same confidence characterizes his view of how government can promote the common good through taking an active role in community life. This is what most worries me about his presidency and is why I won’t be voting for him in the fall; not the particular actions per se, but his posture as he acts.
In the case of another professorial president, Woodrow Wilson, this self-confidence led to a century of interventionism and strained relations with majority world nations. Like Wilson, Obama’s is a technocratic mind, which can be just as dangerous as the plug-your-ears know nothingism of his predecessor. Bush could dismiss sound scholarship as elitist mumbo-jumbo, but the technocrat can rationalize bad ideas, even in the face of massive opposition because he views himself as an expert. Sometimes it’s the most intelligent amongst us who can behave the most absurdly because of their ability to make insane things seem reasonable. I think Obama’s presidency has had more good than bad thus far, but the technocratic mentality means he’s never far from a major misstep.
[...] myself and some friends to evaluate the Obama presidency in 500 words. See the evaluation by Jake Meador. Share this:ShareEmailPrintLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in [...]
It’s difficult for me to concur that “Obama has been a limited success” in the domestic economy when he has presided over the highest spending and deficits as a share of the economy since Harry Truman. You say that you’re worried by Obama’s “view of how government can promote the common good through taking an active role in community life.” I would go a step further and say that the Obama administration is an enemy of localists because of its persistent ambition to nationalize politics and centralize the government.
Jake, you know I’d disagree with you on your last points. If you believe Obama has done well–even a limited success–then you have no real reason not to vote for him. Not voting for Obama based on something you find troubling about his mind (a mind which, you concede, has made the right decisions by and large thus far) is not a defensible reason. It’s made more indefensible by the other option, at this point Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum, both of which I know you staunchly disagree with on foreign policy if not economic policy. I’d love to sit down and talk about this (as well as catch up) if you’re interested. It’s been too long anyway.
Zach – Let’s still get together, but I wanted to respond here as well to flesh out the way I’m thinking about the difference: At my base, I’m a communitarian and a traditionalist. I have a strong pragmatic bent, which is why I can come off as being much more liberal than I actually am. I tend to dismiss almost any Republican because I think both the GOP and the Dems are technocratic parties with the GOP having the added disadvantage of being a completely incoherent, reactionary technocratic party. If the primary season has demonstrated anything, it’s that the GOP has become completely unhinged from reality. Sullivan has been nailing them on this for months and I think he’s exactly right. So Republicans like Romney, Santorum and Gingrich are ruled out for me from the start.
That leaves Obama and Paul. I won’t vote for either of them, but for different reasons: My disagreement with Paul is issue-based. I like his overall approach of shrinking the government and ending our interventionism. I like that I feel like I can trust him. (A huge difference between him and Romney or Gingrich. With Santorum, I can trust him but I really wish I couldn’t… I’d almost like him more if I thought the insanity were a form of pandering. The fact that he really believes what he says makes him even scarier.) With Obama though, the difference runs much deeper down to the most basic ways we think about the world. And I think the recent religious freedom flap highlights that difference.
Dreher really nailed it, I think: “I would have been satisfied to sit this race out, or to vote third party — or, in an extreme case, vote for Obama to keep someone like Newt Gingrich from the White House. But the religious freedom fight over the HHS rule changed that. I am not against contraception, but I found the position the administration took, and the way it handled the controversy, chilling. It told me that when it got right down to it, the Obama administration would stick a shiv in the back of religious institutions to please the cultural left. Given what I take to be the likelihood that the Supreme Court will mandate same-sex marriage at some point in the next eight years, I am genuinely worried about the impact that will have on the liberties of religious schools, houses of worship, and other institutions that dissent on gay marriage.”
Take away that issue and I probably would vote for Obama. (And it wouldn’t need to be “an extreme case” for me to do so as it would for Dreher.) But the way that issue has been handled frightens me as an historically-orthodox Protestant Christian and as a localist.
So the Administration’s position on contraception (pushed for by the women in his cabinet and advisers, like the Catholic Kathleen Sebelius, and opposed by the men) was initially perceived by many, though not a majority of the country, as an invasion of religious freedom. Okay. Fair enough. The compromise that has insurers pay won praise from the Catholic Hospitals Association and Catholic Charities, and lukewarm words (as opposed to outright condemnation) from the bishops. What this ought to tell you, instead of Dreher’s suggestion that “the Obama administration would stick a shiv in the back of religious institutions to please the cultural left,” is that Obama is responsive and reasonable when faced with well-thought-out criticism. Moreover, the decision to mandate free birth control as part of insurance plans was made because of an overriding concern for women’s health. Ninety-eight percent of Catholic women not trying to have children between the ages of 18-45 have used birth control, for a variety of reasons. They’re already defying the church. And they ought to have a right to get it from their insurance company. If they work for the Diocese of Lincoln, the Diocese can refuse to grant them access–and that’s fine. If they work for St. Luke’s Hospital, the hospital can refuse to pay for it under the compromise–and that’s fine. If they work for a Catholic owner of a Taco Bell, they get it, period, and that’s medically right. Granted, you and Obama will probably always disagree on this. But having one disagreement (and I know you have several) does not mean you don’t vote for the best candidate. Particularly when you rightly recognize a multitude of successes in foreign policy and limited success domestically. Now, you could vote for the Reform Party or the Green Party or the wasted efforts of Americans Elect…but that would be just throwing away your vote.
Zach,
There are so many factual errors in your comment it’s hard to know where to begin.
1. The Obama compromise is a distinction without a difference. The insurers will pass the costs of the so-called free products on to the policy holders. Many religious churches and institutions are self-insured so there is no way to pretend they are free or paid by the insurance company.
2. Catholic Charities has not endorsed it. They stand with the Catholic Bishops and the Bishops do not accept it. CHA is headed by far-left/progressive individual.
3. There is no overriding concern for women’s health care. It’s deceptive to say 98% of Catholic women need this plan if Catholic women do not support the plan and don’t want it. Many Catholic ladies are putting together petitions that refute the nonsense. Women are not stupid and you have no business telling them they should have something they don’t want. Besides it’s free at Planned Parenthood and our tax dollars already fund around 1/2 of their 1 billion $ budget.
You can google to check me. See the Katherine Lopez documentation in her posts at NRO in the Corner section. Watch the religious leaders who testified before the Oversight Committee. If religious freedom is stripped from the constitution, what makes you think more constitutional freedoms won’t be stripped by the HHS as they continue to fill the 1000+ blank checks handed to them that say: The Secretary will determine X and X. She just took a huge chunk out of the constitution and people think it’s about contraceptives.