In his diary Tuesday, "White House orders 5% spending cuts on top of discretionary spending freeze" Chris wrote:
I am not going to pretend that I live inside the head of President Obama and his advisors, and thus understand their rationale for this move. Maybe they are doing it because they think it will help Democratic electoral chances. Maybe they actually think it is good policy. Maybe it is some combination of both.
The rationale, however, does not matter. We are not engaged in a debate about what goes on inside the minds of the leading figures in the administration, including Obama himself. What does matter is that this move will cost jobs in the middle of an ongoing employment crisis. Not only will this add to widespread hardship in this country, but it will have negative effects on the Democratic electoral position exceeding whatever minimal media optics the Obama administration will receive from this move.
On one level this is perfectly correct. What really matters is not what politicians think or say, but what they do, and the results their actions produce. But on another level, it matters enormously that we have no idea why Obama says and does the things he does. After all, the basis of democracy is that people deliberate and decide on what they will do collectively in the way of self-government. Proper deliberation depends upon open presentation of all the facts and arguments available. When things are hidden, deliberation is hindered, at the very least, if not corrupted, and ultimately destroyed. Leaders who honestly explain their actions foster democracy, whether one agrees with their positions or not. Leaders hide or deceive their motives and reasoning undermine democracy, even if one agrees with their actions.
This was one of the most central problems with the Bush Administration. One could quibble endlessly, splitting hairs over whether Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq, for example. Did he know for certain that what he said was not true? But all that was beside the point, as Lakoff pointed out in arguing that the basic issue was betrayal of trust, and as former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega pointed out in arguing that Bush should be impeached for perpetrating fraud in taking us to war.
Outright lying is just one of many ways that a government can erode the foundations of democratic legitimacy, and restoring that legitimacy was one of the most powerful motivations there was for ending the Bush regime. It was one of the most fundamental mandates that was bestowed on Barack Obama with his election--and it is a mandate that he has fundamentally ignored. Indeed, it is a mandate that he has betrayed.
To take just one example--albeit a very large, very central, very ugly one--consider Glenn Greenwald's column from the same day, "A growing part of the Obama legacy", in which he wrote:
|
When the history of the Bush era is written, the obvious question will be: what was done about the systematic war crimes, torture regime, chronic lawbreaking, and even human experimentation which that administration perpetrated on the world? And the answer is now just as obvious: nothing, because the subsequent President -- Barack Obama -- decreed that We Must Look Forward, Not Backward, and then engaged in extreme measures to carry out that imperial, Orwellian dictate by shielding those crimes from investigation, review, adjudication and accountability.
All of that would be bad enough if his generous immunity were being applied across the board. But it isn't. Numerous incidents now demonstrate that as high-level Bush lawbreakers are vested with presidential immunity, low-level whistle blowers who exposed serious wrongdoing and allowed citizens some minimal glimpse into what our government does are being persecuted by the Obama administration with a vengeance. Yesterday it was revealed by Wired that the Army intelligence officer analyst who reportedly leaked the Apache helicopter attack video to Wikileaks -- and thus enabled Americans to see what we are really doing in Iraq and other countries which we occupy and attack -- has been arrested....
.... Obama is not only protecting repugnant crimes and the criminals who committed them, but also ensuring that they will occur again. [emphasis added]
The deceptions and betrayals here are multiple and complex. The initial formulation, "I'm a strong believer that it's important to look forward and not backwards" had to rank as one of the dumbest things ever said by an American President. One cannot learn from ones mistakes if one never re-examines them. So that's one obvious level of dumb in Obama's statement. But neither can one build on what one has done right, either. In short, one has no foundation whatseover for future action if one doesn't look back.
Thus, Obama's call was a call to do the impossible, the absurd. One expects this from Versailles, of course. But people expected better from Obama. He was promising "change we can believe in", remember? Because it was impossible and absurd, it was hardly surprising to discover that he didn't really mean it. It was "only" bitterly disappointing to discover that looking backwards to punish would be exclusively reserved for those who sought to rectify past wrongs. Who knew that Obama saw himself, first and foremost, as Bush's enforcer? But that, indeed, is precisely what has come to pass.
This is not simply a matter of refraining from destructive partisan warfare--as if that were even possible. On multiple fronts--the war on terror, climate change, the federal budget and the economy--the Bush Administration took anti-empirical conservative ideology to such an extreme that it put the nation--and possibly the world--in peril. And it did so in ways that severely damaged our capacity to function in a rational, reality-based manner. Such systemic failings have been identified as historical characteristics of empires heading toward collapse. Everyone who studies such things knows that it is very difficult to correct such failings. No one's saying that it's easy. But:
(1) Obama promised "change we can believe in", and warned that it would be hard. He damn well seemed to have some sense of what was needed, and he outright promised greater openness and transparency. No Rorschach excuses here. Now, however, he's telling us it all depends on what your definition of "hard" is:
So I remain hopeful. Remember hope? (Applause.) I know it's been 18 tough months. And I know I've got more gray hair. (Laughter.) I know some folks say, well, you know, he's not as cool as he was. (Laughter.) When they had all the posters around and everything. Now I've got a Hitler mustache on the posters. (Laughter.) That's quite a change. (Laughter.)
You know, my approval ratings kind of start sinking. And some people are just not entirely satisfied. You know what, the health care bill wasn't everything I wanted. It's the biggest deal since Medicare, but, you know -- (laughter) -- it wasn't everything I wanted.
Look, I understand. I understand that, but remember what the campaign was about -- hope, change. People weren't paying attention to me when I said change is hard. People -- a lot of folks, they just missed that part. (Laughter.) They were like, hope, change -- (laughter) -- and they thought, nice swearing-in, you got Bruce Springsteen singing. (Laughter.) Everybody is feeling good. This is going to happen fast. (Laughter.)
Well, no. If it was easy, it would've happened before. If it was easy, we would have put in place mileage standards on cars 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago -- on trucks. We didn't do it, because it's hard.
Compare that with JFK (whom I used to compare Obama to--as oppossed to legislative powerhouses like FDR and LBJ):
But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Here's that comparison of hard stuff again:Obama: modest progress on CAFE standards.
JFK: the Moon.
Obama doesn't even begin to know the meaning of hard. Telling truth to power. Now that's hard. And that's what tens of millions of Americans thought they were supporting when they worked for and voted for him. Honest open government, that would bring past mistakes out into the light of day and fix them. Not take them into a backroom somewhere and "fix" them.
(2) It's impossible if one does not at least try to change such things. Not only is Obama not trying to move us toward a more empirical, more rational way of operating. He is moving us in the opposite direction. That's what prosecuting whistleblowers does. That's what defending and expanding the state secrets doctrine does. No ifs, ands or buts.
This week, at the America's Future Now conference, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero expressed his disgust at the poor performance of the Obama Administration, and elaborated further in an interview with Politico reported here. A few key paragraphs:
While liberals of various stripes have or had gripes with how Obama has conducted himself since taking office, civil libertarians may well be the most disillusioned at this point.
"There was a discussion this morning, and there has been generally in progressive circles, about expectations that have not been met. I made the point that expectations were high because the president set expectations very high," Romero said.
Asked why he's so animated now, Romero said: "It's 18 months and, if not now, when? ... Guantanamo is still not closed. Military commissions are still a mess. The administration still uses state secrets to shield themselves from litigation. There's no prosecution for criminal acts of the Bush administration. Surveillance powers put in place under the Patriot Act have been renewed. If there has been change in the civil liberties context, I frankly don't see it."
Many analysts now regard it as unlikely that Guantanamo, which was supposed to close this past January under Obama's presidential order on the subject, will close this year. Romero agreed that if Sept. 11 trials proceed before military commissions at Guantanamo it's hard to see how the prison will close in the year or two after that.
"The unwillingness of the administration to stick by its guns and prosecute the Sept. 11 defendants in criminal court does not bode well for the broader civil liberties agenda," he said. "The fact they've not announced anything raises the specter of doubt that, in itself, is debilitating to the Justice Department and raises serious questions about the administration's commitment to the rule of law. Their silence speaks volumes."
While much of what Romero focuses on can simply be seen as weakness and lack of leadership, the prosecution of those who have tried to bring Bush-era criminality to light throws a much more sinister light on things. It's understandable why Romero, as head of an organization like the ACLU might not want to go that far. But the fact remains, Obama's civil liberties record is not simply weak, in some ways it represents a worsening of the Bush record, and a hardening of opposition towards dealing with the problems that plague our republic. Prosecuting whistleblowers, and resorting to the state secrets doctrine to deny citizens in their quest for justice are bad enough in themselves. But they are part and parcel of the much broader pattern of Obama's governance style... and substance: hiddeness, compromise and the unquestioned acceptances of all the assumptions underlying the failed policies of the past.
It's not just a disappointment--although it most certainly is that. It's not just that Obama is a "Thief of Hope", as greenwood63 titled a quick hit quoting Eli Zaretsky at Tikkun Daily!, which read, in part:
Imagine a woman who has been in an abusive marriage for so long that she no longer knows that she is in one. Her husband defines the world for her. She is on her knees all the time, anticipating his wishes, giving him what ever she has, telling him what he wants to hear, working overtime to please him. Her world is grey, depressing, anxiety-ridden and dark. She has forgotten the dreams of her childhood, and she doesn't know there is an alternative.
One day she meets someone who offers hope - a minister, a rabbi, a therapist, a friend. Suddenly everything brightens and it seems that she can find a way out. She will leave her husband, or transform the relationship. One way or another she will regain her sense of self. But then it doesn't happen. The person who was expected to help her tells her that there isn't much that can be done, and besides he or she has already done so very much for her. That's the way the world is, she is told. You can't really change things that much....
This then is Obama's great failure. It is not that he has failed to lead the country in a new direction. It is that he has not tried. He awakened hopes that he had no idea how to fulfill, and, even more, no intention of fulfilling. He remains the thief of hope. And like the Gulf of Mexico, the United States will be a long time recovering from the massive oil swill of an administration whose essential message is that very little can actually be done, and besides it will be doing that little: it will be cutting entitlements.
No, it's not just that Obama is a thief of hope, although he is that, too. It's that he's a thief of democracy as well--a suppressor of facts, a suppressor of dark secrets that eat at our nation's soul, and a suppressor of arguments and vigorous debate about how we should act to set our nation right again. All politicians keep some of their thoughts to themselves. Effective strategies and tactics require no less, and we all understand that. But hiding your motives behind layer upon layer of obfuscation--that is not a necessary part of democracy. It is how democracies die. It is the way of Bush, and his pre-determined invasion of Iraq on the pretext of 9/11. It is the way of Reagan, Iran/Contra and the October Surprise. It is the way of Nixon, and his "secret peace plan" to bomb Vietnam--and Cambodia--back into the stone age. It is not the way of JFK, a flawed man, to be sure, who nonetheless lead us to the Moon. |
