On 11/15/2010 11:27 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> But the original quote was about bipartisan cooperation now and next
> year. What is he thinking, really? The Republicans have no interest in
> cooperating with him at all. He could sign onto their entire agenda
> and it wouldn't be enough - they'd just push for more. They're
> attacking QE2 now, even though the idea comes out of Milton Friedman
> and Bernanke himself is a Republican. They attacked a health care plan
> that was Republican in origin. What does it mean to cooperate with
> people like that?
I agree, it's hard to figure out. I'm running through these arguments not because Obama's stance overwhelms me with its astuteness, but because I instinctively shy away from arguments based on the stupidity or cravenness of some politician -- or, especially, the simultaneous stupidity of dozens of politicians all at the same time.
If Obama's pursuing a bad option, maybe that's because he has no good options. Getting an outstretched hand slapped away is bad. But making a bold push for a tax increase, only for the bill to get bogged down and dragged out in acrimonious intra-party bickering, rejection in polls, a renewed reputation as a tax-and-spend liberal, ending in some humiliating forced compromise between Obama and his own party's Senate conservatives -- all resulting in the 2012 election getting fought out over the issue of "Obama raised taxes" -- that doesn't seem like a very good option either. Maybe that's what Obama's afraid of.
To say it's all his fault because, supposedly, it's so obvious that a fightin' populist barnstorming campaign would make the country see the light -- I do think that's possible, but the risks are huge, and to anyone slightly risk-averse the evidence for its success is deeply uncertain.
I shouldn't need to say this, but obviously, my own personal preference is that Obama do the fightin populism - compared to that, I couldn't care less about his 2012 reelection. But that's probably not how he sees things.
SA