The Diminished President

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-diminished-president.html?_r=1&hp

By rights, Barack Obama should be emerging as the big political winner in the debt ceiling debate. For months, he’s positioned himself near the center of public opinion, leaving Republicans to occupy the rightward flank. Poll after poll suggests that Americans prefer the president’s call for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases to the Republican Party’s anti-tax approach. Poll after poll shows that House Republicans, not Obama, would take most of the blame if the debt ceiling weren’t raised.
Yet the president’s approval ratings have been sinking steadily for weeks, hitting a George W. Bush-esque low of 40 percent in a recent Gallup survey. The voters incline toward Obama on the issues, still like him personally and consider the Republican opposition too extreme. But they are increasingly judging his presidency a failure anyway.

The administration would no doubt blame this judgment on the steady stream of miserable economic news. But it should save some of the blame for its own political approach. Ever since the midterms, the White House’s tactics have consistently maximized President Obama’s short-term advantage while diminishing his overall authority. Call it the “too clever by half” presidency: the administration’s maneuvering keeps working out as planned, but Obama’s position keeps eroding.

...

The same pattern has played out in the debt ceiling debate. Instead of drawing clear lines and putting forward detailed proposals, the president has played Mr. Compromise — ceding ground to Republicans here, sermonizing about Tea Party intransigence and Washington gridlock there, and fleshing out his preferred approach reluctantly, if at all.

The White House no doubt figured that this negotiating strategy would either lead to a bipartisan grand bargain or else expose Republican extremism — or better still, do both. And again, the strategy is arguably working. Americans were given a glimpse of right-wing populism’s reckless side last week, and the final deal will probably let the president burnish his centrist credentials just in time for 2012.
But winning a debate on points isn’t a substitute for looking like a leader. It’s one thing to bemoan politics-as-usual when you’re running for the White House. It’s quite another to publicly throw up your hands over our “dysfunctional government” when you’re the man the voters put in charge of it.

In fairness, the president’s passive-aggressive approach is a bipartisan affliction. The ostensible front-runner for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney, took a deliberately hazy position on last week’s crucial House debate, preferring to flunk a test of leadership rather than risk alienating either side. (The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney quipped that “if you took Obama’s plan and Romney’s plan, and just met in the middle, you’d be in the middle of nowhere.”) This leaves Americans to contemplate two possibilities more alarming than debt-ceiling brinkmanship. First, that we’re living through yet another failed presidency. And second, that there’s nobody waiting in the wings who’s up to the task either.

[J. J.]

First, Obama's suggestion several months ago for a "grand solution" and Reid wouldn't go along.  It was good, but Obama did not have the clout to push it.

Second, GWB was higher in the polls at this juncture, by 16 points on Gallup.

[Paul Kemp]

Second, GWB was higher in the polls at this juncture, by 16 points on Gallup.

Sweet fact bro.

[memphis]

First, Obama's suggestion several months ago for a "grand solution" and Reid wouldn't go along.  It was good, but Obama did not have the clout to push it.

Second, GWB was higher in the polls at this juncture, by 16 points on Gallup.

W was higher because he had started a war and people were nervously rallying behind him. It's not at all comparable.

[Lief 🗽]

First, Obama's suggestion several months ago for a "grand solution" and Reid wouldn't go along.  It was good, but Obama did not have the clout to push it.

Second, GWB was higher in the polls at this juncture, by 16 points on Gallup.

Ah, so Bush suffered from a small, roughly five point Bradley Effect on election day then.

[J. J.]

First, Obama's suggestion several months ago for a "grand solution" and Reid wouldn't go along.  It was good, but Obama did not have the clout to push it.

Second, GWB was higher in the polls at this juncture, by 16 points on Gallup.

W was higher because he had started a war and people were nervously rallying behind him. It's not at all comparable.

I'm not the guy who made that comparison; the author of the article did.

[J. J.]

First, Obama's suggestion several months ago for a "grand solution" and Reid wouldn't go along.  It was good, but Obama did not have the clout to push it.

Second, GWB was higher in the polls at this juncture, by 16 points on Gallup.

Ah, so Bush suffered from a small, roughly five point Bradley Effect on election day then.

He did in my neighborhood.

At this point in 2003, GWB was 16 points higher on Gallup.  Now, there were reasons, i.e. he was coming off the Iraq invasion high.  I don't know why the NYT made the comparison.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

FoxNews has released a transcript from an open microphone last Sunday night in the White House, detailing the entire debt compromise as it was being negotiated:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Iosif]

FoxNews has released a transcript from an open microphone last Sunday night in the White House, detailing the entire debt compromise as it was being negotiated:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh, oh be still my aching sides!