He is more often embraced, but even when he is abhorred it is a two-sided exchange - our power of all with his power of one. The opportunity of the exchange itself is different from past presidents who either gave of themselves too much and were left with little early on, or who stubbornly paced themselves for the finish line, even as we desperately needed the sprint - much to our loss.
Every American has seen themselves in President Obama, if only for a moment, no matter how uncomfortable that connection. Even as there is something to like, there is something to dislike, but not so much that he would reflect our weaknesses, insecurities, and glances with despair. Rather we are assured of our collective strengths when he speaks with clarity, when his gait promises not to miss, and when he rolls up his sleeves to work - because it is our work, and it needs more than clean clothes that fit and every crease in its place. Our work needs concentration, commitment, priority, and the assurance that distraction will not be the greatest enemy of all.
He is more like us than any past president has ever been or cared to be, and it is with this most dubious of yardsticks — the one in which every American makes up a tick — that he is most accurately defined.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
Love the cardboard cutout!
2 - Mark Schannon
So where are all the attacks? Maybe the new format (which so far looks great...congrats) has scared them off?
Although I was and a a strong supporter of ol' Jug Ears, this article seemed a wee too much like Chris Matthews' "shudder up the leg."
My primary concern with Obama is whether he's strong enough to handle the myriad of issues facing him. The current Atlantic Monthly has a number of doom & gloom articles about the economy and make one wonder why he hasn't started knocking some mega-banker heads around.
The same banks & hedge funds that are feeding at the public teat have been playing hardball with GM & Chrysler. Excuse me?
We've now made it possible for banks to cook the books, yet again, by inflating the value of their toxic assets.
Maybe it's time to simply state that no corporation should be allowed to be "too big to fail" and act to break up some of these mega banks.
Also, the call for a nuke-free world, as lovely as that would be, reminded me of the movie "Dave," where what's his name calls for full employment--certainly something to be desired but naive.
To be fair, there is probably no more mind-bending, head twisting, body wrenching experience than becoming president. It doesn't matter how much or little experience one has, the reality of the job has to be simply beyond comprehension. And, for Obama, it's been made worse by the countless crises--there's not one arena in which he doesn't have to do battle. So maybe it's just giving him time to grow into the job.
In Jameson Veritas
3 - Eric Olsen
all good points Mark - I imagine since the series is about the cultural aspects of the Obama phenomenon, the political commenters have stayed away. I certainly would like to see more response to the cultural issues
4 - Heloise
Hey Eric, good series. Heloise's got some pop culture for your, satire actually:
GOP Announces Layoffs
Heloise
5 - Aaron Whitehead
A.C. -- When Obama is responsible for the death of millions, then you can make the Hitler comparisons. Returning the country to the centrist policies of Bill Clinton isn't quite Hitlerian. As it is, you've violated Godwin's Law.
6 - jon_e_7
New kid in town; thot yor Obamarama #4 top shelf, gonna go to other 3 soon. Yor mention of Karl Rove remnided me of Steve Coll's book Ghost Wars in which he relates how Bush invited Rove and wife to church and then gave him the ol' Adios right in front of God and everybody.
7 - Mark Schannon
Eric, I think the political writers don't check out the cultural section as much as they/we used to.
Arch, give it a rest, will you? Do you honestly believe this Obama the fascist stuff? I'm a liberal & he ain't no where near as left as I am.
The conservatives can't have it both ways: He's a socialist & a fascist. They're too different systems of government.
What would you have him do, allow banks to fail & crash the economy completely? I hate the idea of giving money to those bastards that created this mess, but there isn't going to be a Main St. resolution until we fix the Wall St. mess.
And that's the truth.
In Jameson Veritas
8 - Clavos
What would you have him do, allow banks to fail & crash the economy completely?
Actually, yes, I would. Whether or not the economy would "crash completely" is certainly not a given; the banks which would have failed, although the largest in the country, are barely a half dozen in number, and in any case, are not helping to revive the economy with the funds they were given. They are not acting like banks, they aren't making loans to much of a degree, and in general have not done their part to help out, despite being helped out themselves.
On the other hand, small banks are thriving, despite our economic woes, and IMO probably would be thriving even more had Obama allowed the big guys to go under.
Now, we have the President strengthening his power grab into the auto industry, unlawfully shafting the secured creditors and giving the UAW, arguably the source of most of the auto firms' financial troubles, stock control, and turning management control of Chrysler over to a foreign firm (Fiat) for a paltry 20% stake.
In all probability, he will do something similar with Government Motors (GM) as well.
Not only is all of this poor economic policy unlikely to help US out of the recession, it seems obvious to me that recovery from the recession is not Obama's primary goal; from his actions so far, extending his control over the entire culture in order to remake it in accordance with his vision appears to be far more important to him.
9 - roger nowosielski
You may be right there, Clavos. A part of a blueprint in the making. It's actually obscene to see how much money is being poured into these banks, and they're still not doing their job. So it may well be that the object is to gain control of the financial sector.
I'm still not very clear as to the most likely consequences if this becomes a reality.
10 - Mark Schannon
Clavos, old bean, I don't think you realize the extraordinary global ripple effect (or Tsunami) that would occur if the major bags, hedge funds, insurance companies, etc. failed.
People talked about AIG being "too big to fail," and, from what I could learn, it was true. But as I said, above, I think that's a real problem that Obama is not addressing...perhaps because the solution would have the conservatives screaming that he's trying to nationalize the backs and turn us into a socialist state.
Obama is not unlawfully shafting Chrysler's investors--hey, you can't have it both ways. These are the big banks & hedge funds sucking at the public teat who wouldn't compromise. So, Chrysler went into bankruptcy--which means a judge gets to decide who gets what.
You need to strengthen your argument that Obama's trying to dominate the country & remake it in his own image. If it makes you feel any better, he's not liberal enough for me, LOL.
I think he's struggling to figure out how to fix a mess that was decades in the making, ignored by Clinton & Bush. The people closest to him or who have known him over the years almost all describe him as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue.
Could it be that conservatives know that they can't demonize a pragmatist & therefore have to create an image of this power-hungry extremist out to destroy America?
In Jameson Veritas
11 - Clavos
Clavos, old bean, I don't think you realize the extraordinary global ripple effect (or Tsunami) that would occur if the major bags, hedge funds, insurance companies, etc. failed.
Mark, I know what's being promulgated (mostly by the Administration and its supporters) as the probable effect of letting them fail, but I don't necessarily buy into it.
Obama is not unlawfully shafting Chrysler's investors--hey, you can't have it both ways. These are the big banks & hedge funds sucking at the public teat who wouldn't compromise.
That's actually not true. In fact, the big creditors, who have already been recipients of TARP funds, were trying to convince the holdouts to go along with the deal. The holdouts are all smaller creditors who did NOT receive any TARP funds, and who loaned Chrysler money in exchange for preferential status in the event of bankruptcy. Obama IS shafting them, and he's doing so to repay the UAW's support of him and of the Democratic party, in my and a lot of other people's opinion.
If you haven't already seen it, I wrote an article recently about this.
12 - Aaron Whitehead
It seems infuriating to me that the public discourse on the banks has been so polarized; our choices are $700 billion or nothing. No wonder people are upset when those are portrayed as your only choices!
I can see both sides of the argument. Banks should be allowed to fail, or at THE VERY LEAST be held responsible for fraudulent or unethical activities. Propping up the banks offers no insurance that they won't do the exact same thing again, especially if we (and not they) are suffering the consequences. There has to be SOME incentive for banks to act in the long-term public interest, and regulation may be the only way to bring that about.
But it's also true that we can't risk an economic meltdown (the extent of which is admittedly debatable). What I feel should happen is that we need to have congressional hearings to find out as best we can WHAT went wrong and who acted illegally or unethically. Then (gasp) we could learn from our mistakes and take steps to prevent a recurrence. This isn't to say that I have faith in the nobility of Congress, but it really seems like our best bet.
As far as the automakers, it seems tougher for me to swallow those bailouts as anything but a chorus of "a spoonful of sugar helps the protectionism go down." But I hate that the UAW is taking the rap. There was a great article recently (I wish I could remember where) stating that the Big Three had brought this on themselves by offering buyout packages and early retirement incentives that gave them a short-term boost in profits while also saddling them with this catastrophic debt burden in the long term. It's frustrating to see a lot of commentators speak about the "sanctity of contracts" one minute and then start union-busting the next.
And not to get off topic, but a single-payer health care system not based on employment would sure have helped the auto industry a great deal -- not to mention uninsurable Americans like me, with diabetes, depression and a family history of cancer.
13 - Clavos
Mark,
No less a highly regarded source than the UK's The Economist thinks that the Administration is shafting the bondholders in the Chrysler bankruptcy.
Their editorial says, in part:
Bankruptcies involve dividing a shrunken pie. But not all claims are equal: some lenders provide cheaper funds to firms in return for a more secure claim over the assets should things go wrong. They rank above other stakeholders, including shareholders and employees. This principle is now being trashed. On April 30th, after the failure of negotiations, Chrysler entered Chapter 11. Under the proposed scheme, secured creditors owed some $7 billion will recover 28 cents per dollar. Yet an employee health-care trust, operated at arm’s length by the United Auto Workers union, which ranks lower down the capital structure, will receive 43 cents on its $11 billion-odd of claims, as well as a majority stake in the restructured firm...
...In effect Chrysler and the government have overridden the legal pecking order to put workers’ health-care benefits above more senior creditors’ claims, and then successfully argued in court that the alternative would be so much worse for creditors that it cannot be seriously considered.
14 - Bliffle
Clavos:
This simply isn't true.
As I pointed out in the other article you published, BoDs regularly float new Bond and Preferred issues that supersede old obligations, and the terms are set by the BoD. And the new promises supercede the old promises.
There may be some MORAL point that one would advocate, but it is not acompanied by any LEGAL requirement.
The BoD may re-arrange financing and priorities as it pleases. Presumably, when the company is in distress wide latitude may be required to save it.
Yes, previous investors get screwed. That's just life in the big city. Usually, they are content to receive 10 cents (or whatever) on the dollar rather than nothing.
I know it sounds cruel and even immoral, but sometimes execs (and the BoD they control) intentionally endanger the company and produce a crisis that will then allow them to go back to the old investors for more money, and when they fold, allow them to go to the NEW investors they have in the hole. This gets rid of troublesome old investors and ends their big payouts. This is an everyday operation, sometimes called "shaking off the fleas" or other names.
Cries of 'injustice' and 'unfairness' are impotent against the power of the Board.
15 - Mark Schannon
Hey Clav, what Bliffle said.
And Aaron, polarization is what keeps pundits and wannabes in business. If people acted rationally, we'd have no need for any oversight. (In other words, I share your lament.)
16 - Clavos
As I pointed out in the other article you published, BoDs regularly float new Bond and Preferred issues that supersede old obligations, and the terms are set by the BoD. And the new promises supercede the old promises.
And, as I pointed in the other thread, these are NOT "old lenders," they are in fact, among the most recent bondholders, who were given preferential status in return for the very good interest rates they proffered to Chrysler.
sometimes execs (and the BoD they control) intentionally endanger the company and produce a crisis that will then allow them to go back to the old investors for more money, and when they fold, allow them to go to the NEW investors they have in the hole.
Thanks for the business lesson, bliffle. See above; these are the most recent investors, and they are being screwed in favor of a much older entity, the UAW, which not coincidentally, has given more than $25 million to the Democratic party in the past two decades. They are not being screwed by the BoD, but by the President!
Obama is illegally AND immorally paying the UAW off.
Cries of 'injustice' and 'unfairness' are impotent against the power of the Board.
Once more, it isn't Chrysler's Board screwing the creditors, it's the White House.
As Declan McCullough writes, in this CBS News editorial, titled "Chrysler Bankruptcy Exposes Dirty Politics":
"A normal bankruptcy filing would be straightforward. Senior creditors get paid 100 cents on the dollar. Everyone else gets in line.
But President Obama and his allies don't want that to happen. So they interfered on behalf of unions (the junior creditors) and publicly upbraided the senior creditors who were asserting their contractual rights and threatening to head to bankruptcy court.
Last week Mr. Obama lambasted them as "a small group of speculators" who "endanger Chrysler's future by refusing to sacrifice like everyone else...
...If those politicians thought about this a bit more, they'd probably realize their mistake. Creditors didn't force Chrysler's management to head to the capital markets and beg for funds: It was poor management, uncompetitive wages, and a union that opposed pay cuts.
Without those greedy "vultures" and "rogues" injecting sorely-needed cash into a business they knew was risky, Chrysler might have been forced to declare bankruptcy much earlier. (And now that lenders know they may be demonized by the president, will they be as likely to help out next time?)" (Emphasis added)
17 - Clavos
Hey Clav, what Bliffle said.
Though I'm sure bliff is glad for your support, Mark, reaffirming his erroneous comments doesn't make them any less wrong.
18 - Mark Schannon
Clav,
Sigh...it's beyond the capacity of my cotton-candy brain. I hope you're wrong, only because I'm so tired of corrupt pols, conspiracies, and the end of the world as we know it.
Still...
In Jameson Veritas
19 - Clavos
I'll drink to that, Mark. :>)
20 - Aaron Whitehead
Whatever your opinion of the bankruptcy, this crisis is the result of a series of blunders that can't be blamed on Obama (although how he reacts to the blunders is).
Is the union getting preferential treatment from the White House? Possibly -- even probably. Maybe it will make up for the government's role in propping up failing banks and business in exchange for kickbacks and political favors. Or for their conscious and heartless destruction of the rights of the working class. The truth is that despite the Democrats' fealty to the unions, the actual WORKERS have taken it in the shorts, as a look at real wages and benefits will attest. That may not justify favoritism towards the union, but considering the free ride given to American businesses to pillage at will (by Republicans and Democrats) -- especially since the S&L scandal -- I'm not going to shed any tears over one more instance of back-scratching.
And yes, the Economist is respectable and reliable. But their attitude toward unions (of all stripes) could best be described as "chilly."
21 - Clavos
The only problem with your point, Aaron, is that favoring the union (as in this instance) will probably not translate into any good for the worker members, just for the union leadership, who will gain power, but the workers' retirement health fund will lose value and gain nothing, especially after Chrysler finally closes altogether, as it inevitably will under the government's aegis.
It's been a very long time since unions actually benefited their membership to any significant degree.
22 - Bliffle
This is just wrong:
As Declan McCullough writes, in this CBS News editorial, titled "Chrysler Bankruptcy Exposes Dirty Politics":
"A normal bankruptcy filing would be straightforward. Senior creditors get paid 100 cents on the dollar. Everyone else gets in line.
The court can't allocate 100 cents on the dollar if insufficient assets exist. therefore, nobody can promise anyone 100 cents on the dollar when they solicit investment.
In the Startup business one soon learns the maxim "financing is a continuous process". As soon as a round of financing is finished you start the next round. You don't wait for a crisis or for financial results to roll in. It's a financing treadmill.
Everyone knows this. And everyone knows that newer investors supercede older investors. Sometimes the BoD uses that fact to shake out weak old investors: "shaking off the fleas".
Canny Venture Capitalists know this and very often their initial investment is merely to position themselves to be in good position for future financing rounds.
'Morality' and 'immorality' have no real place in these affairs, except as rhetorical flourishes by argumentative interested parties. Any position whatsoever can be claimed to be in the best interests of the corp, which is amoral.
23 - Clavos
The court can't allocate 100 cents on the dollar if insufficient assets exist. therefore, nobody can promise anyone 100 cents on the dollar when they solicit investment.
And they aren't asking for 100 cents on the dollar; they've said they would settle for 50.
everyone knows that newer investors supercede older investors.
Yup. And these investors are the newer investors.
Did you actually read the article, or just jump (for at least the second time on these threads) to your same tired (and mistaken) preconceptions?
24 - Jeannie Danna
It is good to know that there is room for a Flaming liberal at BC! I think I'll stick around....OBAMA! sorry I've been silent for the last eight years ..:)
25 - roger nowosielski
Jeannie,
We need reinforcement in the Politics section. You haven't given up?