Obama the Conservative
Since no one here has yet seen fit to honor the momentous, history-changing and completely fatuous journalistic landmark known as “The First 100 Days Milestone” of a presidency, let me dip my toe in the water. Or rather, let me cite some others who beat me to the deep end with insights–rather than mere scorecards–that I thought genuinely illuminate the often elusive nature of Obama’s personality, and thereby, his presidency.
First off, mirabile dictu, is L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican daily that titled its analysis “The 100 days that did not shake the world.” As John Thavis reports for CNS, the Vatican paper says Obama has “not confirmed the Catholic Church’s worst fears about radical policy changes in ethical areas” and says the “the new president has operated with more caution than predicted in most areas, including economics and international relations.”
“On ethical questions, too–which from the time of the electoral campaign have been the subject of strong worries by the Catholic bishops–Obama does not seem to have confirmed the radical innovations that he had discussed,” the paper said.
Closer to home, E.J. Dionne has a very good piece (posted here at TNR) in which he recognizes Obama’s eschewing of labels but argues that he goes beyond and beneath a “whatever works” style of deliberate non-ideology. Dionne invokes Richard Hofstadter’s distinction between intelligence and intellect and argues that Obama combines the two:
Intelligence, Hofstadter argued, is an “unfailingly practical quality” that “works within the framework of limited but clearly stated goals.” Intellect, on the other hand, is the mind’s “creative and contemplative side” that “examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines.”
But the best piece I’ve read is by the New Yorker‘s George Packer, whose commentary a couple weeks back, “Obamaism,” brilliantly captures what for me–and I think much of the public, judging by the polls–is the real appeal of Obama: namely, that despite all the blur of activity and activism, and the infuriating of the left and even more so of the right, Obama is in fact a true conservative:
What underlies so many of Obama’s decisions is an attachment to the institutions that hold up American society, a desire to make them function better rather than remake them altogether. Allowing the auto industry to die would create social havoc in communities around the country, and anything less than de-facto government control seems inadequate. So the President has risked a good deal of his political capital on the largest federal intervention in a sector of the economy since at least 1952, when President Truman seized the steel industry to avert a strike during wartime…Obama may not see a similar need to put the government in charge of the big banks, but he has also shown that he has no taste for such a disruption of the system—even if it were politically possible, and perhaps even if it were the most direct route back to financial health.
In his budget message to Congress, Obama invoked the value of fairness, but his budget proposals don’t create government programs—such as guaranteed-income measures or large numbers of relief jobs—that would establish equality from the top down. Instead, Obama seems to recognize that nothing has shredded the civic fabric in recent years more than the harsh inequalities of finance capitalism and the market ideology of a generation of American politics. This is not the rigid mentality of an engineer of human souls; it’s the attitude of a community organizer.
It’s also a pretty good description of what used to pass for conservatism—a sense that social relations and institutions are fragile things, and that, while government can’t create wealth or impose equality, at moments like this it has to establish a new equilibrium between individuals and huge economic forces, so that society doesn’t crumble.
Packer goes on to critique–ably I’d say–what modern conservatism has become, and also why the Republicans (and I daresay conservative Catholics) are getting no traction with their over-the-top denunciations of Obama. It just doesn’t fit with perceptions or reality. An NYT story the other day about GOP efforts to find a suitable label to denigrate Obama would have been hilarious if not so insidious. Saul Anuzis, who lost a bid to became national party chairman, said the party gained little traction with the “socialist” tag so he is starting to call Obama’s policies ”economic fascism.”
“We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,” Mr. Anuzis said. “Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.”
Maybe so. But they don’t associate that with Obama. No wonder Arlen Specter went to the Democrats, and polls show the number of self-identified Republicans at a low of 21 percent, about half of those who ID as Democrats and independents. The GOP is re-defining what it means to be a minority in America as much as Barack Obama is.
How could L’Osservatore Romano print that? I thought it was now Catholic doctrine that President Obama was “the most pro-abortion President of all time.” Now it seems he is not so extreme? How could that be?
Seriously, I expect we will hear much criticism of this by some of the same old same old soon.
Obviously Mr. Parker is entitled to use any definition of conservatism he sees fit and to his credit, he did indeed define the way he was using the term as “a sense that social relations and institutions are fragile things, and that, while government can’t create wealth or impose equality, at moments like this it has to establish a new equilibrium between individuals and huge economic forces, so that society doesn’t crumble.”
It must be said, however, that that definition bears no resemblance to any definition of conservatism as that term is used by people and institutions which self-identify as conservative, such as Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and his weekly The National Review, Weekly Standard, Wall Street Journal, President Reagan, etc..
Why that matters – to me at least – is all this the President is a “conservative” stuff which is obviously done, as is Mr. Packer’s right, to try to maximize the ruling party’s political power, misses the real point. The real point being that the electorate has made an enormous shift over the last forty years, in particular as a result of changes in the Academy, for which people such as Mr. Packer are really seeing their efforts bear fruit and will so for at least a generation. The electorate has finally put to bed the political philosophy started by the Committee of Five and I think that is the real fascinating historical lesson here.
The Osservatore Romano article sagely concludes: “Non sono stati questi cento giorni a sconvolgere il mondo. Meglio aspettare i prossimi milletrecentosessantuno.”
“These one hundred days have not shaken up the world. Better wait and see what the next one thousand three hundred sixty one bring.”
A “whatever works” pattern of non-ideology most certainly wouldn’t have killed the DC voucher program, which shows every sign of working, not just in increasing test scores, but in increasing parental satisfaction and giving poor people a bit more autonomy in their lives (goals that liberals usually support).
Also, it comes across as somewhat of a hat trick for Packer to characterize as “conservative” what he himself describes as “the largest federal intervention in a sector of the economy since at least 1952.” Perhaps “conservative” here means, “taking radical steps to preserve the status quo.”
The Spirit is at work! Lovely, lovely!
Thanks, Mr. Gibson. You have a way with words – concise but to the point. Especially liked your parallel to “true, old-fashioned conservatism” and community organizer -bottom up; not top down. Also, your common sense statement that folks just aren’t buying the line that Obama is the most liberal or pro-choice president ever.
This brings to mind some of your earlier comments; those of Ms. Steinfels in terms of what or how the bishops are missing the point and sidelining themselves.
It also shows the international views that some have shared – how Europe, the Islamic world, Canada see Obama. Very unlike some of the reactive and orthodox American Catholic press, EWTN, etc.
Obama the ‘wild eyed one’ some bishops want to go to war with.. {Finn in Kansas]
I just heard Obama say on news conf. that FOCA was not a prioity and that abortion has an ethical and moral dimension that ‘some’ pro-choicers ought to acknowledge. Abortion should be reduced and he has a task force of both pro life and pro choice working on common ground…
and he/gov. did not want to run banks and car companies.. CNBC business news please copy..
Obama the Catholic ethics conservative? It’s hard to understand what kind of response people expect from this sort of assertion. Obama has done everything to the fullest extent possible on the issue of killing unborn children, his numerous appointments direct from the killing industry, Hillary’s admission that she is working to legalize abortion around the world, and I could list everything else but we all know the list and it’s undeniable. With a singular exception, of course, that (for now only) he will not expand embryo killing to cloning. And I am glad of that. Can you name one other singular item touching the unborn where he has acted in a way other than totally as anti-life as possible? Just name one. Interesting that the CNS piece cites the Pregnant Women Support Act–since Obama doesn’t support it. But really, this is all like Mordor’s Minion saying that Obama is now proven to be really a pro-lifer because he’s no worse than Clinton. Clinton, who was our prior most extreme abortion president, extremely pro-abortion on every issue. But its very telling that this is the best argument that can be asserted. I guess this is what it means now to be ethically conservative from a Catholic point of view–no more pro-death than Bill Clinton. What a standard.
Watching Obama during his news conference tonight, I could not help but think of how off-the- mark the bishops and the far-right crowd are in demonizing him as some monster whose actions are evil. He centered the discussion relating to abortion on the women themselves, and gave them credit for taking their decision seriously. And he was willing to criticize those on the far left who want to leave the foetus out of any discussion.
Is this not a fundamentally decent man?
And as a Double Domer and proud parent of a son who will be graduating from Our Lady’s University on May 17, I will be exceedingly proud to have my University honor a man such as Barak Obama. And pace our dear bishops, I think Our Lady will too.
Spin.
Commonweal contributor Conor Cruise O’Brien once described a quality of a few political leaders that seems to me to explain why some of President Obama’s supporters are so enchanted with him and at the same time why the more skeptical among us are so disturbed.
“The successful wielder of ambiguity has a certain high imperiousness in his attitude to facts and inclines to a magician-like confidence in the overmastering power of language; this confidence is unfortunately contagious.”
The Cruiser was speaking of Dag Hammarskjold but I believe the observation is more than ever relevant.
Patrick–
Couldn’t the same be said of The Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan? :)
William,
I think both Reagan and Obama are polarizing leaders and thus for both men the same characteristics that attract some repel others. But Reagan’s principles were remarkably clear. With Obama the claim is that he wrestles mightily with moral decisions but to me he is sufficiently articulate that he can reverse positions (or say he will reverse positions) without hesitation and then talk his way out of any seeming inconsistencies.
Here are a couple of candid observations from others that ring true to me though I’m still making up my mind (and I hasten to add I don’t claim that Reagan didn’t have flaws):
1) Cardinal George:
Cardinal George said his conversation with the president was polite but substantive.
“It’s hard to disagree with him because he’ll always tell you he agrees with you,” he said. “Maybe that’s political. I think he sincerely wants to agree with you. You have to say, again and again, ‘No, Mr. President, we don’t agree (on abortion).’”
http://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=10328
Richard Epstein, Obama’s colleague for many years at the University of Chicago Law School:
“The odd point is how his many learned and thoughtful supporters couch their endorsement. Almost without exception, they praise the man, not the program. ..Virtually everyone who knows him recognizes that he plays his cards close to the vest, so that you can make your case to him without knowing whether it has registered.”
http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/20/obama-chicago-election-oped-cx_re_1021epstein.html
Also, it comes across as somewhat of a hat trick for Packer to characterize as “conservative” what he himself describes as “the largest federal intervention in a sector of the economy since at least 1952.” Perhaps “conservative” here means, “taking radical steps to preserve the status quo.”
No, it means intervening to preserve existing institutions, as Paulson, Bush and Bernanke did.
Isn’t that what conservatism is about?
Well, again, it depends on how you’re defining “conservatism.” If you define “conservatism” without regard to the extent of government power, and instead define it as “preserving big business,” then fine. And indeed, that may be the way a lot of so-called “conservatives” act, as you point out. But I don’t know, it’s as if one defined “liberalism” as “stabbing poor people in the back,” based on the Obama administration’s actions as to the DC voucher program.
Liberals often fail to live up to the ideals that they themselves put forth, as do conservatives.
I genuinely think the thrust of my original post has merit, and did not intend it as a provocation, though of course I knew it would rile conservatives, as it has here. But I also think that conservatives can’t react against Obama until they have figured out what they mean by conservatism (and “Republicanism”). The post-election debate over what it means to be a conservative is fascinating to me, though it clearly hasn’t been in political quarters the kind of self-reflection that is required. Andrew Sullivan has posted regularly and broadly on the debate, and points up how incoherent the movement, such as it is, is today.
MAT points to “Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and his weekly The National Review, Weekly Standard, Wall Street Journal, President Reagan, etc…” as exemplars of conservatism, but the philosophies of those people and the ideologies of those outlets are all over the map and directly conflict with each other. Before you can say Obama is not a conservative, you have to explain what conservatism is, and no one seems able to do that today, unfortunately.
A note to Jason Drakes: I find your commentary over-the-top and out-of-bounds, but the juvenile cracks about Morning’s Minion are absolutely not kosher and I would think someone with your high regard for virtue would take that back.
Is there any coherent political movement today? One party is more successful with the electorate right now (just as the other party was more successful just a few short years ago), but that doesn’t mean that anybody has a coherent political movement. Both parties are not much more than a welter of interest groups with sometimes inconsistent agendas (unions vs. poor schoolkids, etc.).
Stuart, you have a point, but I think there is a difference bwteen a coherent political movement (which the Dems have, I believe, in that they are successful politically) and a coherent political philosophy. I don’t think the GOP or conservatives have either at this point. The Dems may have one, maybe a second emerging with “Obamaism.”
If “coherent” just means “held together enough interest groups and persuaded enough voters,” then yes.
I don’t know what “Obama-ism” is or could be. It’s far too early, and his rhetoric often is completely at odds with his actions . . . so who says which is the true “philosophy”? Case in point: Education. Obama put forth a $100 billion education package that consisted almost entirely of giving funds to existing public schools and existing programs, such as Title I; but his speech announcing the education package was full of rhetoric praising charter schools, merit pay, and getting rid of bad teachers . . . all interesting ideas that his education package had done nothing to further.
David Gibson, dont you think it all sounds like Saruman’s speech? I wanted to get the text to show you. Don’t oppose–join. Flatter. It’s not so bad, it’s even admirable. It’s a new power arising, reject our old principled alliances. We might influence. “Deploring evils done by the way,” of course. It would be WISE.
Riiiiight.
Saruman?
Saruman?
Jean Raber can explain all about Saruman.
David G.: I would proffer that what all those people / outlets I mentioned have in common as a unifying political philosophy is the moto of the WSJ, ie “Free Markets and Free People”. While they all may differ in policy and emphasis, that is ultimately what unites them. What is to be “conserved” or “preserved” is not institutions, existing or otherwise, but the political philosophy of the Founders as exemplified by Federalist 62: “A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.”
As Charles Murray pointed out this year as he gave the 2009 Irving Kristol Lecture at AEI’s annual dinner, it is in the interpretation of “happiness” that both unites conservatives and separates them from liberals. The former applying the Classical meaning of the term “happiness”, the later a post-modern interpretation. Everything else, like subsidiarity, providing the common defense, free exercise of religion, and the other policy positions associated with conservatives flows from that.
This idea that Obama is “conservative” is nothing new – it’s just a rehash of what many revisionist historians said about FDR and the New Deal in the 60′s and 70′s. It makes no more sense than the mythical “We had to burn the village to save it” quote from Vietnam.
If the measures taken to “preserve” institutions so change them that they aren’t the same institutions as they were before, how are they preserved?
What is a conservative? Well, what’s a progressive?
Sean Hannaway, I think the pressing question is what is a conservative. Conservatism, and its ostensible politcal arm, the Republican Party, is fractured and splitting and shrinking over the various theories. What is conservatism, in your opinion? Where is it manifested?
MAT, I appreciate the citation, but it seems so vague as to be meaningless, and certainly to bear no relationship to the current reality. E.g., many would say the right to abortion (to touch a favored thrid rail) makes people happy, ergo…
Others would disagree, strongly. And they’d both call themselves conservative.
“Both parties are not much more than a welter of interest groups with sometimes inconsistent agendas (unions vs. poor schoolkids, etc.”
In a democracy that is what tends to happen unless every interest group forms its own party as was the case with France under the Fourth Republic. The great thing about a dictatorship is that there is usually only one party and its members are united in believing in some one glorious project based in the finest most psychoceramic principles.
I know Jean enjoys LOTR even more than I do, so I hope she’ll excuse this preemption. ;)
Saruman: Against the power of Mordor there can be no victory. We must join with him, Gandalf. We must join with Sauron. It would be wise, my friend.
Gandalf: Tell me, “friend”, when did Saruman the Wise abandon reason for madness?
Oh dear Lord.
I’m still trying to resist the Dark Side. Or, rather, I am the Dark Side. Oh no, who am I?
Thanks William–the movie is a summary–I would refer to the full nuance raised in the book.
MAT,
I’m sorry, but the bit about conservatives having a “classical” definition of happiness is pure nonsense — that is, if you’re sticking to your definition of conservatism as a belief in “free markets and free people.” Both the Aristotelian and the Platonic understanding of happiness are radically at odds with the premises of modern capitalism, and neither was interested in an idea of politics that puts individual liberty first. They both began with justice, as did the church fathers and the schoolmen. Jefferson’s wonderfully pithy maxim “That government governs best which governs least” was a product of the Scottish Enlightenment and would have struck most people in the ancient world as very strange. Aristotle and Plato (and Augustine and Aquinas) would have said, less pithily, that the best government is the one that most promotes virtue and discourages vice. WSJ-style “conservatives” believe that virtue (of a certain kind) is something you achieve in spite of government, and often to spite it. There is nothing classical about this view of the individual and his relationship to political authority. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, of course. There are good arguments to be made for modern liberalism (not being a liberal, I’ll leave it to others to make them). I just wish the kind of modern liberal who calls himself a conservative would stop hiding behind tunics and togas.
C’mon, David, keep up with the plot. You’re Saruman, formerly the White, the head of the Media, er, Istari. You’ve lived in the tower of Isengard for the last 500 years or so. Unbeknownst to everyone but you, your tower still had one of the Seven Stones, the Palantiri, which you dared to look into, and thus Barack Sauron, the Dark Lord, ensnared you. You’re secretly plotting to become a power in your own right, and to that end you’re building a new race of half-Men, half-Democrats, out of which you will build a might army that will overrun Rohan and Kansas. You’ve sent your emissaries as far north as Bree in search of the One Ring, which you lust after the way a Mets fan lusts for a manager who knows when to change pitchers.
You’ll need to read the book to find out what happens next.
Matthew: Nowhere did I say modern conservatism reflects the classical “view of the individual and his relationship to political authority,” so I don’t know what exactly you are calling nonsense. I did not say it and really did not even remotely imply it. In fact, I was quite explicit in referring to the “political philosophy of the Founders as exemplified by Federalist 62…” What is classical in the political philosophy of the Founders was their understanding of the term “happiness”. Nowhere did I say their view of the relationship of the governed to the government was classical so I am not sure where you got that from.
As David G. mentioned, probably both liberals and conservatives would agree with the role of government as outlined in F. 62 but it is in the definition of happiness where they disagree. While many liberals view happiness as maximization of pleasure and minimizing discomfort, conservatives view it as it is explained in the Nic. Ethics, ie as the seeking of the virtues – the complete life, Croesus and Solon and all that. Conservatives – including the WSJ conservatives – want to order government to that end of creating the environment to allow individuals the freedom to seek the virtues. To ensure that freedom, conservatives believe one must have subsidiary and Federalism, a government ordered to the minimizing of tyranny from within, preventing physical threats to that freedom from without through the national defense and within through law enforcement, etc. Free-market capitalism also flows from that belief – Irving Kristol, for example, in his 2000 AEI lecture does a much better job of explaining the conservative philosophical basis for free-market capitalism than I can, so you can refer to that. That is the basis binding all those groups / people I mentioned together. They no doubt have policy differences and differ in emphasis but they all want to maximize this individual freedom to pursue the virtues *even if* the cost is increased discomfort.
And who is “the kind of modern liberal who calls himself a conservative would stop hiding behind tunics and togas…”? Are you referring to the WSJ? Me? Although I do have a fondness for tunics, togas do not suit me.
From your discussions I infer that “liberal” and “conservate” are family resblance terms — there is no one characteristic that specifies them all as members of each group. In llact, of that is true it is even possible for some liberals and some conservatives to share an important characteristic in common.
it might be profitable to list those characteristics which are included in the various definitions of those very important words. Yes, Obama might be “conservative” if not “a conservative”, given those opposing definitions
I donned a toga several times in college, mostly in the pursuit of a couple of the types of happiness that MAT probably would ascribe to liberals :-)
Jim – did you have to reveal the “toga” events in your deacon application? Oh well!
Mr. Gibson – one of the most difficult and challenging classes I ever had was in graduate school at DePaul University covering the turn of the 19th-20th century (interesting how many of those questions/issues are the same today).
The professor challenged us to define liberal and conservative in that time period e.g. Teddy Roosevelt, pragmatists, farmers’ movements, 3rd parties. The best book on what a conservative is – “The Promise of American Life” by Herbert Croly.
We later did a like exercise in terms of the famous theologians in Catholic Church History and whether their principles were consistently “conservative”; “liberal”; or changed with the given question at hand. (Different grad school and degree)
Mr. Gibson – here is a link to a site called TED. This is a talk about the foundation of morality and why liberals and conservatives are different. It takes about 15 minutes to listen/see:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
His final points speak to “moral humility” as the center of moral authority – that, in fact, significant moral issues involve both sides in tension and the way out is to accept that no one answer is the only answer.
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