Going the Distance--On and off the road with Barack Obama (David Remnick/New Yorker) [View all]

[KoKo]

Last edited Sun Jan 19, 2014, 05:59 PM - Edit history (1)

(This is a retrospective piece on PBO's accomplishments in first term and what he hopes to accomplish in his second. Remnick travels with and interviews PBO and others in an 18 Page article leading up to the Inaugural Address. I thought it an interesting read describing Obama's careful and thoughtful decision making reflecting his pragmatic view of the world and the role of the US President in it. The article doesn't really question the policies that have resulted in none of the Wall Street Criminals doing any jail time. Nor the Bankers who got off with Golden Parachutes. But, it has a comforting view of his foreign policy which is far different from Bush/Cheney.

But, I'm posting the snips from the article/interview mentioning Democrats on the "Progressive Left" which seem to verify why some of us on the Left have been so impatient with him.) I think many DU'ers would enjoy reading the whole article although there are not many new revelations, it's a little more insight into his philosophy of governance.)

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Going the Distance
On and off the road with Barack Obama.
by David Remnick January 27, 2014


Johnson’s Great Society will be fifty years old in 2014, but no Republican wants a repeat of that scale of government ambition. Obama acknowledges this, saying, “The appetite for tax-and-transfer strategies, even among Democrats, much less among independents or Republicans, is probably somewhat limited, because people are seeing their incomes haven’t gone up, their wages haven’t gone up. It’s natural for them to think any new taxes may be going to somebody else, I’m not confident in terms of how it’s going to be spent, I’d much rather hang on to what I’ve got.” He will try to do things like set up partnerships with selected cities and citizens’ groups, sign some executive orders, but a “Marshall Plan for the inner city is not going to get through Congress anytime soon.”

Indeed, Obama is quick to show a measure of sympathy with the Reagan-era conservative analysis of government. “This is where sometimes progressives get frustrated with me,” he said, “because I actually think there was a legitimate critique of the welfare state getting bloated, and relying too much on command and control, top-down government programs to address it back in the seventies. It’s also why it’s ironic when I’m accused of being this raging socialist who wants to amass more and more power for their own government. . . . But I do think that some of the anti-government rhetoric, anti-tax rhetoric, anti-spending rhetoric that began before Reagan but fully flowered with the Reagan Presidency accelerated trends that were already existing, or at least robbed us of some tools to deal with the downsides of globalization and technology, and that with just some modest modification we could grow this economy faster and benefit more people and provide more opportunity.

“After we did all that, there would still be poverty and there would still be some inequality and there would still be a lot of work to do for the forty-fifth through fiftieth Presidents,” he went on, “but I’d like to give voice to an impression I think a lot of Americans have, which is it’s harder to make it now if you are just the average citizen who’s willing to work hard and has good values, and wasn’t born with huge advantages or having enjoyed extraordinary luck—that the ground is less secure under your feet.”

In the White House, advisers are resigned by now to the idea that some liberal voters, dismayed by a range of issues—drones, the N.S.A., the half measures of health care and financial reform—have turned away from Obama and to newer figures like Elizabeth Warren or Bill de Blasio. “Well, look, we live in a very fast-moving culture,” Obama said. “And, by definition, the President of the United States is overexposed, and it is natural, after six, seven years of me being on the national stage, that people start wanting to see . . .”

“Other flavors?”

“Yes,” he said. “ ‘Is there somebody else out there who can give me that spark of inspiration or excitement?’ I don’t spend too much time worrying about that. I think the things that are exciting people are the same things that excite me and excited me back then. I might have given fresh voice to them, but the values are essentially the same.”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all