PUNDIT PONTIFICATING PREJUDGING PRESUMING

PRESSURING

The Columnist
By Carlos Alvarez Aranyos

Is Obama a lame duck?

He has not even been inaugurated, and yet some of his biggest policy proposals – from the stimulus package to universal health care – are buckling under congressional pressure. He felt incapable of appointing the best men for Treasury and CIA fearing confirmation fights, and instead put them both in the White House, out of the reach of Congress. He is ambivalent about Guantanamo, and not too excited about investigating the Bush Administration. The New York Times is floating the idea that this may be a one-term presidency.

I hate to ask, but is Barack Obama already a lame duck?

The benefit of the presidential honeymoon is that it allows presidents to get their legs under them by providing them with victories on a few major policy initiatives. For Bush, the No Child Left Behind Act and his tax cuts allowed him to set his presidency into motion, and to answer the most important campaign promises he had made. Even eight years later, and despite the massive errors in Katrina and Iraq, conservatives can still claim those legislative victories as a hugely positive element of the Bush presidency.

The fact that Bush accomplished it with a Congress that was not as friendly and with an economy that was booming is a testament to the strength of popularity. Incoming presidents fly on the wings of the dreams of the American people. Congress rarely tries to shoot down that bird.

And yet, despite massive approval ratings, two wars, and a state of emergency on the economy – all elements that usually empower the executive – Obama finds himself mystified by the forces arrayed against him.

His stimulus package has just been massively overhauled out of congressional concern. He is pushing off the closing of Guantanamo because it is “complicated.” The effort on health care will not be dealt with this year and the Bush tax cuts will not be repealed. Even the withdrawal from Iraq – Obama’s most prolific promise during the campaign – is likely to get pushed back in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement just signed by the Iraqis.

If we were hoping for FDR – if we were hoping for massive change in the first hundred days that reenergizes the nation – this is not it.

It is hard to imagine that – in those first hundred days -- Roosevelt managed to overhaul the entire national banking system, get rid of the gold standard, create the FDIC, provide major agricultural assistance to farmers everywhere, create work and emergency relief programs, begin the largest public works campaign in history, and repeal prohibition.

Keep in mind that this was just the beginning of the New Deal – these efforts were only aimed at short-term recovery. The larger recovery effort would come later, and would expand on these initiatives.

Given the current crisis, and the dire absence of leadership in America, it falls on Obama to lead us forward. He needs to do what Roosevelt did – something massive and immediate that tackles the problem from every possible angle and sets the stage for even greater reforms down the road.

Instead we have a popular president who is already deferring to an unpopular Congress.

In every area of his administration, Obama is acting like the new kid who’s afraid of getting bullied. He doesn’t want to damage his image because he wants to preserve his political capital. What he fails to see is that by rolling over in the face of a fight he is betraying his mandate to lead. The American people will respond by taking away their support, and he will lose his capital anyway.

He might as well invest it in a massive recovery program he bullies through Congress, showing the people of this country that he is ready to fight for them and deliver on his promise. If he does so, the return on investment on his political capital will mirror the nation’s economic growth. That could prove a very worthwhile investment come re-election time.

On the other hand, if he ignores the call for leadership that Americans made in the election and fails to take some chances, he faces a very grim future: He won’t be re-elected, making him the earliest lame duck in American history.

And that’s a bird that Congress will shoot for sport all season long.

Responses to the column are encouraged. Please send them to: response@thecolumnist.org