The State of the Union address as a political math test

Barack Obama had once hoped to be a conciliatory president who understood his adversaries, writes columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. It was clear that the Obama who addressed the nation Wednesday also understood that he confronts a Republican Party that sees unflinching opposition as a path to victory.

Syndicated columnist

WASHINGTON — There was an unexpected poignancy to the moment. Barack Obama, who once strode across the political landscape as a master of the persuasive arts, found himself needing to prove that mastery all over again.

In a single speech, his task was to: prevent the result of one special Senate election from calling into question his agenda or his power; respond to the discontent that poured forth from and after Massachusetts; re-establish his popular standing; and, in the process, both ignite the left and win back the center.

So, in his State of the Union address, Obama sought to pass a political math test by solving several simultaneous equations. He distanced himself from Wall Street but also reassured the businesses of Main Street. To independents, he insisted he still seeks a Washington that can work across partisan lines, but he also challenged Republicans to end their obstructive ways.

A speech he once hoped to give in celebration of a victory on health-care reform became instead a passionate plea to save his policy dream from political oblivion.

"By the time I'm finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance," Obama declared. "Millions will lose it this year. Our deficit will grow. Premiums will go up. Patients will be denied the care they need. Small-business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans. And neither should the people in this chamber."

Obama interpreted the popular mood less as a revolt against his party or himself than as a reflection of "deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years." He sought to show that while he had heard the protests, he was not reacting by abruptly changing what he stands for or where he would lead the nation.

His aides insist that there is no new Obama, that his latest populist-sounding economic proposals were foreshadowed by campaign promises. Indeed, his call for both parties "to work through our differences" and to turn away from "the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades" could have come from the Obama of 2004 or 2007.

But yes, aides insisted in briefings before the speech, the president has been tempered by combat. A calm, cerebral man can know when he has to fight.

Obama pledged to spend money to fix the economy now while pushing for longer-term efforts to cut the deficit. He continued to strike a populist tone in calling for tougher rules on banks and for rolling back a Supreme Court decision vastly expanding the influence of corporations in electoral politics. "I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests," he declared, "or worse, by foreign entities."

At the same time, Obama sought to grapple with public unhappiness over the economy, a particularly strong sentiment among working-class voters, who have most felt the lash of hard times. It was clear that if Obama did nothing else, he would identify himself with the word "jobs" and shout his determination to bring them back.

It was also obvious that he realizes his administration lost two critical battles last year: to define his stimulus plan and his health-care proposal. Polls show that Republicans' negative claims have stuck with voters, while the administration's arguments for the merits of both plans have not.

Obama made the case for his ideas again, but he also challenged Republicans to do more than criticize. "We cannot wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about their opponent — a belief that if you lose, I win," Obama said. "Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can." And Obama underscored the Democrats' determination to highlight the GOP's role in creating Washington's sour atmosphere. "Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics," he said, "but it's not leadership."

Barack Obama had once hoped to be a conciliatory president who understood his philosophical adversaries. He is still that man, and much of his speech described ideas, especially in education and energy, that could well win support across ideological lines.

But it was clear that the Obama who addressed the nation on Wednesday also understood that he confronts a Republican Party that sees unflinching opposition as blazing a path to victory. And he offered himself as a president ready to do battle. "We don't quit," he said. "I don't quit."

E.J. Dionne Jr.'s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ejdionne@washpost.com

Source:seattletimes.nwsource.com/

The War in Iraq Ended. Applause

Barack Obama delivered his first State of the Union address January 28. As everyone expected, the US President spoke about the questions connected with the economic crisis and the unemployment in the United States.

He could not but praise himself saying that the actions his administration had taken allowed to create two million jobs.

“The worst of the storm has passed, but the devastation remains,” he said.

Obama also spoke about the presence of US trips in Iraq and Afghanistan. The spending on the anti-terrorist operation in those two countries has become an intolerable burden for the teetering economy of the United States. Obama promised to end the war in Iraq during his pre-election campaign.

“As a candidate, I promised that I would end this war, and that is what I am doing as President. We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August. (Applause.) But make no mistake: This war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home. (Applause.)”

Up to 25,000 US marines have been serving in Iraq since 2003. Most of tem were quartered in Anbar province. Several thousands of marines are staying there still, but they will be sent home during the upcoming several weeks, according to Washington’s new doctrine. Some of them will stay in Iraq though – to defend the US Embassy.

As for the pull out of troops from Afghanistan, Obama was not that eloquent.

“In Afghanistan, we're increasing our troops and training Afghan security forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home. (Applause.) ”

The USA has been waging a war in Afghanistan against Taliban for eight years already. The situation in the region has aggravated a lot recently, and Obama’s administration decided to increase the contingent in this country. The number of US troops deployed in Afghanistan will reach nearly 100,000 people by the summer of 2010.

The current situation in Iraq does not give any serious reason to believe that the war in this country has ended. Three explosions ripped through the streets of Baghdad the day before Obama’s speech: 37 were killed and 104 wounded.

The Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for the terrorist acts. The group, which is believed to be a branch of al-Qaeda, said that the acts were conducted within the scope of the campaign to liberate Iraq from occupation. The previous series of explosions near government buildings in Baghdad in the summer and fall of 2009 took over 400 lives.

Source:english.pravda.ru/

Populism won't be Obama's panacea

BELEAGUERED Barack Obama came out swinging in his State of the Union address this week. The President reverted to his winning campaign gambit of running as an outsider against the bad old ways of Washington, while adding a healthy dose of populism. After the "Massachusetts massacre" loss of the Kennedys' Senate seat, and voters' stunning indictment of his first year in office, Obama had few other options.

The voters' complaints are clear. You bailed out Wall Street and ran up trillions in public debt. You have wasted a year on healthcare reform we don't want. But you let unemployment climb into the double digits, and a quarter of us owe more on our homes than they're worth. Do something!

Obama heard this message loud and clear. With his party's fate in November's congressional elections hinging on employment numbers he can't control, Obama's best hope is using his new change-you-can-believe-in populism to shape perceptions of him and his agenda. But there are three ways it could founder.

First, running for office as an outsider is easy; governing as an outsider is much harder. For much of the country and the world, the President is Washington. Obama admires Ronald Reagan because he was able to pull it off. The great communicator was able to brush off his early stumbles with a winning mixture of folksy charm, down-home bravado and ideological commitment that won over many Democrats. Obama has less time for Bill Clinton because the "comeback kid" came back by tacking squarely to the centre after the carnage of the 1994 congressional elections.

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Today Obama's problem is that he seems to be losing the very voters Reagan won over and Clinton's bowed down to. Centrist Democrats in congress are scared stiff of supporting Obama on issues as diverse as healthcare, finance, and climate change because they fear it may cost them their seats.

Obama's first task is to convince them that supporting his newfound populism will have the opposite effect. But this is Obama's second problem. He just isn't a natural populist. Populism is inherently anti-elitist. Obama's Harvard and Chicago law school pedigree, his aversion to tub thumping, his preference for deliberation, and his faith in the power of reason and knowledge, all conspire against the credibility of his populism. That Obama was able to make his urbane outsiderism a winning formula in 2008 was remarkable. Repeating the feat in office as Middle America's champion is much harder.

But the third and biggest problem with all populism, Obama's included, is that it is much easier to say what you are against than what you are for and how you will get there. Implausible contradictions seem to be the order of the day.

Obama wants to rein in healthcare costs, but he seems willing to accept a reform package that does very little to contain costs. He wants to freeze government spending, but not until he spends a lot more this year to create jobs and build infrastructure.He is committed to winning in Afghanistan, but he will pull out in 2011 come what may.

Governing may be the art of convincing voters that what seem contradictions are, in fact, the path to the promised land. This is his task ahead.

Obama's plan combines what won him office, running against Washington, with what the tenor of the times is calling for, economic populism. Now he must hope that congress buys in, that his jobs agenda works, and that American voters are once again convinced to buy in, too. It has a chance. But no one should bet the farm on it just yet.

Professor Geoffrey Garrett is chief executive of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney

Source:theaustralian.com.au/

State of the Union: Obama's national security rhetoric bogs him down

President Obama faced a tough task in the State of the Union speech, presiding as he does over a still-stagnant economy and domestic political discord. So it is not surprising, and even appropriate, that foreign policy would not be a main theme. But even so, it was noteworthy just how little attention he devoted to national security issues. And the comments he did make -- which felt crammed in towards the end -- focused more on the goals of drawing down our troop deployments than on victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. He introduced the national security section by rhetorically targeting his own critics, with a defensive-sounding plea to "put aside schoolyard taunts about who's tough." Which he followed in the next paragraph by noting the hundreds of al Qaeda members that in the last year "have been captured or killed -- far more than in 2008." The elimination of the threat from hundreds of al Qaeda terrorists and supporters is a laudable achievement; why cheapen it with what sounds like, well, a taunting comparison to his predecessor?

In sum, this State of the Union comes from a president still struggling to reconcile his lofty campaign hopes with the hard realities of governing, and the pressing demands of domestic politics with his inescapable responsibilities as commander in chief.

Source:shadow.foreignpolicy.com/