Obama's Brilliant First YearBy January, he will have accomplished more than any first-year president since Franklin Roosevelt.
Posted Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009, at 8:13 AM ET
About one thing, left and right seem to agree these days: Obama hasn't done anything yet. Maureen Dowd and Dick Cheney have found common ground in scoffing at the president's "dithering." Newsweek recently ran a sympathetic cover story titled, "Yes He Can (But He Sure Hasn't Yet)." The sarcasm brigade thinks it's finally found an Achilles' heel in his lack of accomplishments. "When you look at my record, it's very clear what I've done so far and that is nothing. Nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it," Obama stand-in Fred Armisen recently riffed on Saturday Night Live. "It's chow time," Jon Stewart asserts, for a president who hasn't followed through on his promises.
This conventional wisdom about Obama's first year isn't just premature—it's sure to be flipped on its head by the anniversary of his inauguration on Jan. 20. If, as seems increasingly likely, Obama wins passage of a health care reform a bill by that date, he will deliver his first State of the Union address having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency. This isn't an ideological point or one that depends on agreement with his policies. It's a neutral assessment of his emerging record—how many big, transformational things Obama is likely to have made happen in his first 12 months in office.
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StumbleUponThe case for Obama's successful freshman year rests above all on the health care legislation now awaiting action in the Senate. Democrats have been trying to pass national health insurance for 60 years. Past presidents who tried to make it happen and failed include Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Through the summer, Obama caught flak for letting Congress lead the process, as opposed to setting out his own proposal. Now his political strategy is being vindicated. The bill he signs may be flawed in any number of ways—weak on cost control, too tied to the employer-based system, and inadequate in terms of consumer choice. But given the vastness of the enterprise and the political obstacles, passing an imperfect behemoth and improving it later is probably the only way to succeed where his predecessors failed.
We are so submerged in the details of this debate—whether the bill will include a "public option," limit coverage for abortion, or tax Botox—that it's easy to lose sight of the magnitude of the impending change. For the federal government to take responsibility for health coverage will be a transformation of the American social contract and the single biggest change in government's role since the New Deal. If Obama governs for four or eight years and accomplishes nothing else, he may be judged the most consequential domestic president since LBJ. He will also undermine the view that Ronald Reagan permanently reversed a 50-year tide of American liberalism.
Obama's claim to a fertile first year doesn't rest on health care alone. There's mounting evidence that the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed in February—combined with the bank bailout package—prevented an economic depression. Should the stimulus have been larger? Should it have been more weighted to short-term spending, as opposed to long-term tax cuts? Would a second round be a good idea? Pundits and policymakers will argue these questions for years to come. But few mainstream economists seriously dispute that Obama's decisive action prevented a much deeper downturn and restored economic growth in the third quarter. The New York Times recently quoted Mark Zandi, who was one of candidate John McCain's economic advisers, on this point: "The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do—it is contributing to ending the recession," he said. "In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent."
When it comes to foreign policy, Obama's accomplishment has been less tangible but hardly less significant: He has put America on a new footing with the rest of the world. In a series of foreign trips and speeches, which critics deride as trips and speeches, he replaced George W. Bush's unilateral, moralistic militarism with an approach that is multilateral, pragmatic, and conciliatory. Obama has already significantly reoriented policy toward Iran, China, Russia, Iraq, Israel, and the Islamic world. Next week, after a much-disparaged period of review, he will announce a new strategy in Afghanistan. No, the results do not yet merit his Nobel Peace Prize. But not since Reagan has a new president so swiftly and determinedly remodeled America's global role.
Obama has wisely deferred some smaller, politically hazardous battles over issues such as closing Guantanamo, ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and fighting the expansion of Israel's West Bank settlements. Instead, he has saved his fire for his most urgent priorities—preventing a depression, remaking America's global image, and winning universal health insurance. Chow time indeed, if you ask me.
A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of Newsweek.
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Your case for congratulating Obama on a "Brilliant First Year" rests on three points, hotly contested by liberals.
1. Healthcare Reform: if and when it is passed it will be a significant achievement for Obama, whether it is a significant achievement for America will largely depend on the contents of legislation. I have reservations as to whether legislation will actually benefit most Americans by controlling costs or improving access.
2. While we can agree on the benefits of fiscal stimulus, the execution seems, at best partisan or amateurish. Few of the objective have been met (stemming foreclosures, facilitating access to capital, or reducing unemployment). Instead a whole host of new problems have emerged.
3. Foreign Policy: talk is cheap. Aside from talk, Obama has done very little to remake America's global image, his swift success can largely be attributed to not being George Bush. Since being elected, he has squandered most opportunities he has been presented (Treaty on Landmines, ICC, Secret Prisons - one apparently still exists in Afghanistan - Guantanamo, Israel, etc). Instead he continues to align US foreign policy with China, Russia, Myanmar, etc.
Obama is significant in what his election represents for America and will certainly be remembered for this.
If he will be remembered for his ability to enact change we can believe in, is still uncertain, his abilities as a President still seem to be firmly anchored in the "C" range; which seems positively providential given George Bush's "F", but is still no reason for attributing Obama with the "brilliant" epithet.
I believe Jacob (like the committee awarding the Nobel Peace Prize) is premature in his judgment.
-- Finnian
(To reply, click here)
I've been saying something similar for months.
Don't misunderstand me, what I agree with is the prediction of what the assessment of Obama's Presidency will be come January 20, or certainly into the rest of next year. I'm not claiming that he's done everything I wanted, or that I agree with his choices.
I have a lot of problems with some of his more conservative stances that continue the policies of George W Bush, prop up Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, and so on.
However I'm saying that since a health care reform bill will almost certainly pass, a true Depression was likely avoided and the economy will grow, if weakly, for the next year rather than plunge into a serious and long-term decline, and even unemployment will eventually steady and then finally decline a little, that come January the yap dog talking head media -- the Cokies and the Georges and the Fluffies, will suddenly be saying "Oh my gosh, how did this happen? We were all so sure he was a failure because, despite whatever we claim, we're all completely vulnerable to whatever talking points are circulated by others, often whatever right wing radio and TV is saying."
The "mainstream" brainless pundits swing their opinions to match the prevailing common wisdom at the drop of a hat, however, and come January 20, I agree with this article about what they'll be saying then.
-- timezoned
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I'm happy with the first year and I didn't even vote for him. Seriously, I think too many people conveniently forget what a huge pile Bush left us with.
Obama has gotten things done, all the pissing and moaning I see here is about the content of what he did, not that he did something at all, and that's all that Weisberg is arguing; that he has accomplished stuff, whether you agree with it politically or not.
I voted for Clinton in the primary and McCain in the general, and I've found myself defending Obama against his disenchanted supporters on the left more than I do his natural enemies on the right. But then I never thought he walked on water, and I took everything he said in the context of his being a politician from Chicago. I figured how much of what he was saying he would or could actually do, and so far I've been about right.
I think it's intellectually lazy, if not dishonest, to blame Obama for failing to reach unreachable expectations that people put on him before he took office. The people failed there, not Obama.
-- opus512
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There are very real criticisms from the left. On health care, for example, if he had shown true leadership and put his weight behind a strong public option, it would have been a done deal. On civil rights and constitutional issues, he has maintained and even furthered many of the Bush administration's policies that I find abhorrent. On the stimulus package, he tried too hard from the beginning to be bipartisan and centrist, resulting in a bill that was too weak and too heavily geared towards tax cuts which are not as effective as direct government spending at stimulating the economy.
I will agree that he's worlds better than Bush. And a Mccain/Palin presidency.
-- todji
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Weisberg unwittingly reveals the fundamental problem with leftists: They take as a given the notion that good governance is about
doing-- that success is about making things happen, the more "big and transformational," the better.
He even describes this as a neutral, non-ideological perspective.
It's not. It's a leftist perspective. The rest of us want America to be what it was supposed to be: an experiment in government staying out of our way. We want presidents to "accomplish" leaving us alone. We want them to be citizens who go sit in the White House for four years at a time, ensuring that individuals' rights are protected and the nation's sovereignty defended, and that's it. We shouldn't even have to be talking about them that much.
It's fine if Weisberg et al. want to argue that a U.S. president's role should be to conduct grand projects, that success should be defined by enacting "big, transformational things." But they don't get to skip right past first base, take it as a given, and describe it as a "neutral assessment." That's either ignorant or intellectually dishonest.
-- TolliverT
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As an observer of American politics for 45 of my 60 years, I have never before been so profoundly disappointed in a president's first year. We were promised a change-"No more red states, no more blue states, only the United States!", but we are more divided by partisan politics and polices than ever. Health care debate was to be open and transparent-"on C-Span," but was instead conducted in secret in closed committee and conferences without bipartisan participation. Americans are far more concerned about their jobs and the economy than they are about health care and our image abroad, but Mr. Obama seems more concerned about his priorities than theirs.
-- pwvh2
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