Bold, energetic, progressive—Republican Teddy Roosevelt believed it was best to “speak softly and carry a big stick,” especially when negotiating with others around the world—and it worked for him. He was the force behind the development of the Panama Canal and negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War. He busted Big Business monopolies with a passion. He said and did what he meant.
The Barack Obama corollary to T.R. is “first, emphatically to declare what you’re willing and not willing to do, then cave in, sometimes even before anyone challenges you—and pretend what you originally said didn’t matter.” Chronically, the president suffers from Spineless Democrat Syndrome (SDS), which appears to be incurable.
Surely, you remember the (eventually scuttled) “public option,” the originally touted sine qua non of Obama’s health insurance reform. It would have been offered by the federal government for anyone who couldn’t afford, or who had been rejected by, private insurance. Does the president think we wouldn’t be outraged that he walked away from one of the best and most attractive features of his plan because of what had to have been a backroom deal?
Surely, you remember that, for months while he was campaigning, the president said he would absolutely, positively, never sign a bill that would keep us from going over the “fiscal cliff” unless it raised taxes on families making $250,000 or more—but then he caved in to Republicans and some members of his own party, and set the bar at $450,000. Does the president think he can continue to bait and switch with impunity?
In addition to the White House, there is a recent, virulent case of SDS in the U.S. Senate. Much has been made of Harry Reid’s having been an amateur boxer. But I hope he scored better punches in the ring than he has in politics in recent days. For months, he huffed and puffed and said he would blow the overused-by-Republicans filibuster in the Senate down. But, in the end, he turned out to be a bag of hot air.
Reid and Senate Democrats should have made sweeping changes in the way legislation is debated, passed, or obstructed. They should have passed the so-called “talking filibuster,” making senators who want to torpedo legislation defend their (likely untenable) position live on C-SPAN. They should have ended a single senator’s ability to stop a nomination for office. They should have lowered the 60-vote requirement to stop a filibuster.
Instead, they passed an embarrassing bunch of procedural tweaks that still let the tea party/GOP hijack the Senate and obstruct Obama’s second term agenda. But, if the tea party/GOP were in the majority, its members would never have behaved so weakly. Democrats are wusses; Republicans are wolves.
I understand Democrats’ short-sighted, self-serving reasoning: If and when they are again in the minority, they want to be able to do to Republicans what Republicans have done to them. In addition, reforming the filibuster would be a hollow gesture: The tea party/GOP-dominated House will block almost everything passed in the Senate. Obama will have to mobilize the public to put pressure on members of Congress and govern by executive order if he wants to get anything done.
But, by looking out only for themselves and thinking only about legislation, Democrats have put the future of the nation at risk for generations. Presidents come and go in four to eight years, but justices may affect history for decades. Arch-conservative Antonin Scalia has dominated the Court since 1986. From one to three Supreme Court justices may retire during Obama’s second term. But, without filibuster reform, the president’s (likely liberal) nomination(s) will be bitterly fought, almost certainly stopped. Crafting legislation requires compromise. No one gets everything (s)he wants. But lifetime appointments to the highest court in the land need to be fought tooth and nail. Because the president suffers from SDS, he is likely to sell out on Supreme Court nominees—with disastrous consequences.
Obama 2.0 needs to channel Teddy Roosevelt with a twist: speak loudly, carry a big stick—and use it. But I am not optimistic that he and Democrats will recover from SDS anytime soon. So, why did we elect them?#
