Why the arguments of Obama's defenders leave many cold. [View all]

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First there is the inconsistent degree of agency that is attributed to the presidency, which is done by both critics and defenders. On the defender side any agreeable action is seen to be accomplished out of the president's free will, and absent his involvement is seen to be impossible. Take the ending of DADT or Lily Ledbetter as examples. This view isn't far wrong in those cases. Any disagreeable action, however, is seen as a systemic inevitability, far outside the president's ability to resist or even publicly disapprove.

Bad arguments from critics and defenders alike see the influence of the presidency at work only insofar as an action is disagreeable or agreeable, respectively.

Much that is wrong and evil has taken place over Obama's term, however, and defenders have the thankless task of proving again and again that in such cases the most powerful man in the world holds a powerless office. They must argue that the president had no choice but to place Social Security and Medicare at risk completely of his own volition, as in the Deficit Commission; that he had no choice but to offer them up for cruel contraction in the debt ceiling debate. It is likewise difficult to justify appointing Immelt, Geithner, Summers and Daley to positions of any influence, or to believe we are opening a vast market for US goods in India and South Korea given the explosion of our resulting trade deficit with China after a similar trade deal.

The flavor of the defense in those cases always centers on placing the presidency in a place of impotence, in a place of utter weakness not only in terms of action but rhetoric. This is deeply unsatisfying. It is not only that the president holds something akin in many cases to a magic wand in the veto pen that must be ignored. We must also ignore that nothing can force the advancement of people unfriendly to workers and the New Deal; nothing can force the advancement of those friendly to finance and private replacements for education and the safety net. We must ignore a free embrace of the opposition's terms of debate - compromise and outreach are trumpeted in this presidency with regard to right wing figures. Critics see this as laudable - magnanimity in disagreement - even while left wing figures are scolded, ignored and marginalized.

The bar for strong resistance is ridiculously high on the critic side even as it is ridiculously low on the side of defenders, but in this case and in these times one must admit it is easier to argue the presidency has great power and responsibility to act than to argue it is a mostly useless office and powerless to influence the political debate when times are difficult.

Defenders will never lack for obstacles to right action by the president to hold responsible for inaction. They are everywhere. But in unforced errors and unilateral actions to undermine our party's liberal legacy, the obstacles are less apparent than the president's free will to do as he does and say what he says.

At this point defenders (of party leadership as well as the president) resemble family members of an addict who are in denial. They look at an empty pantry, a clean space where the microwave used to be, and invent justifications, however implausible, for the theft and sale of necessities. Where the road to rehabilitation for the addict is clear and feasible, they make of minor obstacles tremendous and insurmountable barriers to justify a lack of action, and freely cling to the sort of lazy perfectionism that dogs any addict's plans for improvement, treatment, and health. The addict's plans are always fraught with prerequisites and strict time-based conditions - should any step fail or see its opportunity lapse, however minor the step, it is seized upon as a perfectly sane excuse to entirely abandon the attempt at kicking the habit.

The habit, as should be clear, is endemic to the leadership of both parties - it is the influence of money and the lure of the highest social class's company and esteem. The addict's excuse in the traditional sense is a socially desperate and miserable situation. There is no such excuse in our nation's highest offices.

Short version: Obama's defenders are unassailable as regards what should be done in the next election. They are morally bankrupt and contemptible regarding the direction of the country over the long term. We must vote for the better candidate in this election, but if we continue as we have the better candidate will resemble Huntsman or Romney before too many elections have gone by.