The Empty Bully Pulpit

While most of the fault for the debt limit debacle lies with the insane elements of the Republican Party, Barack Obama is not without his share of fault. Time and time again, Obama has rolled over and given away half the store before even beginning negotiations with the GOP - and in the process has encouraged even more extremism from Republicans. Worse yet, he has failed to use the pulpit of the presidency to take his case to the public. The address he made last week was mediocre and failed to lay out in harsh terms the damage being done by the far right of the Republican Party. It drives me crazy. And I am not alone. Robert Reich has a piece at Huffington Post that laments Obama's ongoing failure to use his bully pulpit. Here are some highlights:
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How did we get into this mess? I thought I'd seen Washington at its worst. I was there just after Watergate. I was there when Jimmy Carter imploded. I was there during the government shut-down of 1995. But I hadn't seen the worst. This is the worst.
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How can it be that with over 9 percent unemployment, essentially no job growth, widening inequality, falling real wages, and an economy that's almost dead in the water -- we're locked in a battle over how to cut the budget deficit?
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Part of the answer is a Republican Party that's the most irresponsible and rigidly ideological I've ever witnessed. Part of the answer is the continuing gravitational pull of the Great Recession. But another part of the answer lies with the president -- and his inability or unwillingness to use the bully pulpit to tell Americans the truth, and mobilize them for what must be done.
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We were excited by the prospect of a leader who could educate -- an "educator in chief" who would use the bully pulpit to explain what has happened to the United States in recent decades, where we must go, and why. But the man who has occupied the Oval Office since January, 2009 is someone entirely different -- a man seemingly without a compass, a tactician who veers rightward one day and leftward the next, an inside-the Beltway dealmaker who doesn't explain his compromises in light of larger goals.
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He is well aware that the Great Recession wiped out $7.8 trillion of home values, crushing the nest eggs and eliminating the collateral that had allowed the middle class to keep spending despite declining real wages -- a decrease in consumption that's directly responsible for the anemic recovery. But instead of explaining this to the American people, he joins the GOP in making a fetish of reducing the budget deficit, and enters into a hair-raising game of chicken with House Republicans over whether the debt ceiling will be raised.
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Never once does he tell the public why reducing the deficit has become his number one economic priority. Americans can only conclude that the Republicans must be correct -- that diminishing the deficit will somehow revive economic growth and restore jobs.
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Why is Obama not using the bully pulpit? Perhaps he's too embroiled in the tactical maneuvers that pass for policy making in Washington, or too intent on preserving political capital for the next skirmish, or cynical about how the media will relay or distort his message. He may also disdain the repetition necessary to break through the noise and drive home the larger purpose of his presidency. I have known (and worked for) presidents who succumbed to all these, at least for a time.
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A more disturbing explanation is that he simply lacks the courage to tell the truth. He wants most of all to be seen as a responsible adult rather than a fighter. As such, he allows himself to be trapped by situations -- the debt-ceiling imbroglio most recently -- within which he tries to offer reasonable responses, rather than be the leader who shapes the circumstances from the start.
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Obama cannot mobilize America around the truth, in other words, because he is continuously adapting to the prevailing view. This is not leadership.