Common ground and the high ground
In the October 22 issue of the London Review of Books, David Bromwich argues that President Obama’s irenic postpartisanship betrays a hobbling misconception about politics: the president seems to imagine that no divisions are so deep that they cannot be overcome with gestures of goodwill and a rhetoric of patient rationality.
Rationality and patience are both necessary of course, now more than ever, but if the president expects any kind of consensus on financial regulation or health-care reform, he is wasting his time — and ours. There are limits to even his powers of persuasion, and unanimity often costs more than it’s worth. Bromwich writes:
Delays in the passage, first, of Obama’s ‘stimulus package’ to strengthen the economy after last September’s financial collapse, and, second, of his healthcare bill, have been due in large part to his public pauses to wait for Republicans to lend these measures a bipartisan glow. A few came along, at a high price, to vote for the economic stimulus. None has taken up the offer on healthcare. The Republicans stand in place, and give no sign, and watch as the president’s stature dwindles. His reason for waiting doubtless has something to do with fear. Obama receives four times as many death threats as George W. Bush did. Yet he is also encumbered by the natural wish of the moderate to hold himself close to all the establishments at once: military, financial, legislative, commercial. Ideally, he would like to inspire everyone and to offend no one. But the conceit of accommodating one’s enemies inch by inch to attain bipartisan consensus seems with Obama almost a delusion in the literal sense: a fixed false belief. How did it come to possess so clever a man? [...] Any act that achieves something concrete will leave small multitudes of the disappointed keening but unheard. There are hurt feelings in politics, which only time can cure if anything can. This is a truth now staring at Barack Obama, on several different fronts, but he does not accept it easily. His way of thinking is close to the spirit of that Enlightenment reasonableness which supposes a right course of action can never be described so as to be understood and not assented to.
Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic agrees, though for Wieseltier it is much more important that the president get tough with our enemies abroad (e.g., the government of Iran) than with his political opponents at home:
His “engagement” with the illegitimate theo-fascist rulers in Iran, even as their show trials proceed, represents a decision to scant ostentatious differences in favor of dubious similarities. (The demotion of human rights by the common ground presidency is absolutely incomprehensible. The common ground is not always the high ground.) When it is without end, moreover, the search for common ground is bad for bargaining. It informs the other side that what you most desire is the deal — that you will never acknowledge the finality of difference, and never be satisfied with the integrity of opposition. There is a reason that “uncompromising” is a term of approbation. As for the “decent respect to the opinions of mankind” in the Declaration of Independence, it is a call for courtesy, not a call for agreement. Where there is no common ground, the common ground man is useless. It is just him and his halo. (“Common Ground,” from the November 4 issue of TNR)
That rhetorical tautology at the end is good journalism but not very useful political theory: “Where there is no common ground, the common ground man is useless.” All the trouble, for the president as for his critics, is in figuring out where the common ground is and isn’t. As Bromwich and Wieseltier both argue, Obama can’t afford to assume it’s everywhere. But only a fool supposes he always knows where it is in advance.
What do they want? a return of the “imperial presidency?”
Let’s see: decision today to cut all senior executive pay/compensation by 90% for the 7 largest companies that got more than $300 billion in loans…..guess that was a mixed decision;
looks like Iran may submit to uranium processing outside of Iran – more than 8 years of Bush accomplished;
let’s see how healthcare and Afghanistan turn out.
And look at the campaign against Fox News which the presiden will boycott and is now urging everyone to boycott. As Obama seeks to involve the Republicans he is in a win win situation. They will definitely have to answer to the forty million Americans who have no insurance. The man is nobody’s fool it appears. All those tea parties are for those who have their heads in the sand. Going nowhere.
“Imperial Presidency” is what I was thinking after reading these quotes, even before reading Bill D’s comment. Obama has earned my respect by allowing democratic process to shape health care, rather than impose his own solution from the beginning. This is the attitude that can win the war on terror, by allowing people to express with their votes and their voices the fears that fester into violence.
I have never understood the talking heads who call for a “strong hand” when a pope or president allows freer expression and interchange of ideas. Don;t they know they could be the first victims of that strong hand?
I hope that it’s useful for me, even at the risk of being pedantic, to recall here the key distinction between being n opponent and being an enemy.
From the Christian point of view, each of us, as an individual, may rightly have opponents, but no enemies. We may seek to defeat our opponents, but not to inflict harm on them. We aspire to prevail only insofar as it is consonant with the common good of both them and us.
Self-defense against aggression puts a strain upon this distinction but does not cancel it. As sensible legal codes reflect, appeals to self-defense are legitimate only within well circumscribed bounds.
There are analogous considerations that are relevant to our conduct as members of a political community, whether as rulers or as ruled. We may rightly compete with those who oppose our policies and political conduct, but not aim wholly to subjugate them. Again, we aspire to prevail only insofar as it is consonant with the common good of all of us.
Similarly, police action or military action against aggressors puts a strain upon this distinction but does not render it otiose. Only just wars, wars fought within well circumscribed bounds, are morally defensible.
Admittedly, these distinctions are often hard to apply with precision, but they are always morally relevant. Even if some “common ground” is, in fact, not “high ground,” holedrs of genuine “high ground” always work to make it “common ground.”
In the health care debate, the Republicans (except for Olympia Snowe) have adopted a position-based rather than interest-based approach. They have offered no viable alternatives to assuring access to adequate health care for people in need. The Republicans, as Bromwich notes, continue to “stand in place.”
Genuine bargaining presumes that the parties are willing to negotiate in good faith to reconcile competing interests. If we do, in fact, get something approaching universal health care, the record will show that the President reached out in good faith — took the high moral and political ground — to give the opposition a “say” in this legislative process — and that they failed.
If historians someday point out that the Republicans wanted to privatize Social Security and fought expansion of health care to folks without it, I suspect we’ll see a growing divide between the “haves” and the “have nots.”
Bernard:
The British parliamentary system refers to the opposition parties in parliament as the LOYAL opposition. Loyalty means loyalty to the Crown. The Crown, does not, in fact exercise any political power but serves as a unifying symbol. I don’t think that there has ever been such a thing as common ground. Some tribe, monarcy, or empire has claimed the ground as its own. Common is defined by those with power. The genius of democracy is the scope it permits for dissent.
Opposition parties should oppose and I disagree with Joseph that the Republicans have not forwarded any ideas – they have and they have been rejected. Naturally – there was an election and the Democrats won. With sizable majorities in congress if Obama cannot enact the kind of legislation that presumably Democrats wanted that points to a deficit in leadership. Fox News is such a red herring. Unbelievable. Social Control 101 “Distraction is your friend”.
Whether Fox news in the case of Democrats or MSNBC and CNN in the case of Republicans vigorously oppose is irrelevant. Following the British model again, papers and news outlets openly declare their preferences.
Unity is not uniformity.
I don’t know about “imperial presidency” – a little too semantic for me, but the thread sounds close to the Cheney propaganda attack of Obama “dithering.”
I think Joe J. is right on health care.
In foreign policy, we might be making some headway on Iranian nuclear. Kharzai has agreed to election 2 and is now pressured to power share, and even Gates is saber rattling on north Korea.
If we can get past semantic oversimplications in discussions on these, we migh treally bne able to move ahead.
I guess I feel the talking heads are still controlling the conversation too much – which leads me to note two fine pieces in the new America by Frs. Christiansen and Massaro on being informed and how we get our news.
George D, perhaps we’re not that far apart. Would you agree that the British loyal opposition, just like the party in power, is supposed to be loyal not just to the monarch as symbol but also to the British people as a whole, regardless of party considerations.
I realize that all too often people do fail to live up to this responsibility. But ingredient in the very idea of democratic politics is the principle that all political power ought to be exercised in the overall interest of the entire populace. Their “overall interest” is the presumed interest that they share in living together in peace and well-being.
If “personnel is policy”, and a cogent argument can be made that this is true, then what does it say about Obama when it turns out that one of his “Czars” is a staunch admirer of Mao (Anita Dunn), one (the now departed Van Jones) a self-proclaimed “revolutionary communist”, one approvingly quotes Mao Tse Tung (Ron Bloom – see Youtube), http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/2009/10/another-one-of-obamas-czars-caught-on-tape-praising-mao-tsetung.html White House Communications Director Anita Dunn …
and one (John Holdren) has approvingly talked about forced abortion?
If one is going to assert that Obama didn’t know about all this, what does that say about his vetters? If he did know, see above and explain, please…
Sun glasses anyone?
We in the southwest know how important it is to diminish the glare of the bright light(s) we fill our days with.
It’s easy enought to deveolop “floaters” that cloud our vision though they’re regularly in sight.
When we look (in the miror) in the cool light of day, we see that we’ve met the enemy and he is us.
Bob Nunz:
Uh……what?
I believe that the town hall uprisings in August killed any possibility of bipartisanship.
And “The great Unifier” Barack Obama has declared war on his own CIA, and on Fox News. Way, Bark…
Correction:
Way to go, Barack.
Bernard:
I am trying to cultivate a holy apatheia about politics while not being indifferent. I think the logical response to charges of resistance or partisanship is met with a tu quoque from the other side.
As such I think the severity or intensity depends a great deal on which side of the divide you are on. I think congresspeople have a responsibility to act responsibly. However, they also have a responsibility to the constituents, the people, the funding that brought them to office in the first place.
Generally, i don’t see much evidence of working together for a common solution as being rewarded in US politics. At the end of the day, politics is about the seizing of raw power.
I would love for there to be statespeople that emerge but alas that is not the state of politics today.
At any rate, it is a matter of indifference to the governing party as they have the control to enact agendas. And they will be evaluated at the end of 4 years on that.
The two sides are clearly far apart on health care reform, but common ground could be found. The obvious starting point is tort reform.
The Repubs are determined not to let Obama have any victories or successes on their watch. This is not about the merits of any proposal but about obstructionism, pure and simple. An honest appraisal of the stimulus matters, the health care proposals, the financial regulations all would yield much fertile ground to till together. The Repubs are under a death sentence by their part chiefs to toe the line or suffer defeat at the next primary election.