UNDERSTANDING OBAMA

Abstract

Obama’s governing style puzzles many people inside and outside the Beltway.

In order to understand the 44th President’s distinct, indeed, at times puzzling behavior, it is useful to go back to his biography. A Constitutional lawyer and professor who spend only one term in the Senate, and whose political experience came mainly from community organizing. The son of a white globe-trotting sociologist and a Kenyan professor, who spent his early years in Indonesia, and was later raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii. An introspective young man trying to find his way in the turbulent 1960s and ending up in Harvard law school, where he became president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. This minimalist biographical sketch contains many hints to help us analyze the way he governs. First and foremost, the president is an intellectual, a Constitutional scholar and a student of US history. He is also an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, arguably the most important yet problematic of US presidents. The first Black president in a country where racism has left an eternal imprint, he is deeply and constantly aware of his own historic role in American politics. Second, because of his particular heritage, he learned to move easily in different social settings but never quite felt he belonged in any of them. Paradoxically, even now, after five years in the highest office, he still seems uncomfortable with the daily give and take of inside-the-Beltway politics and avoids direct talks with the Republican leaders in House and Senate.

This has played out for better or worse in his relations with Congress, his own staff and the public at large. Obama was elected by a broad coalition of white intellectuals, college students, women and ethnic minorities. He mesmerized them with his epic speeches and soaring rhetoric. He promised to undo much of the damage inherited from the Bush administration and was relatively successful, as proved by the fact of his re-election. However, his approach to policy making constantly raises eyebrows in the public as well as in Congress.

The Left wonders why he hasn’t closed the Guantanamo prison, why he allows the seemingly unlimited use of drones in war scenarios, and why he gives a free hand to the National Security Agency’s spying on Americans. The Right accuses him of sins of commission and omission, from abuse of executive power (example: alleged cover-ups in Benghazi and AP scandals, or over-use of prosecutorial discretion and executive orders) to leading from behind in Libya and doing nothing in Syria. And Congress is surprised at his indifference and detachment: he introduces big ideas but does not get involved in the details; he lets legislators fight his battles and find their own way. He is not interested in developing personal ties or working relationships with them (something he also failed to do while he was a Senator).

In his relation with the legislative branch, Obama is neither a salesman like Harry Truman nor an arm twister, like Lyndon B. Johnson. In sum, he does not play the Washington game. His two main venues for policy discussions are with his own expert staff and with large public audiences. The former he uses for in-depth study of the issue and lengthy debate on options; the latter, to get grassroots support for major policies (immigration, health care) and also to rail against Congress, to publicly blame it for its dysfunction and inaction. A case in point is the fundamental issue of gun-control. Obama, together with 90% of the public supported background checks after the Sandyhook and Aurora massacres, but the NRA stronghold on Congress killed the bill, with the President not being able to persuade even some Democrats to vote for it. Frustrated with what he sees as a dysfunctional Congress, his call for bipartisanship is enunciated as a royal wish, not something he is ready to roll up his sleeves and work for.

His use of executive power is hard to predict and is often criticized for its incoherence, but a closer look reveals an inner logic. Always the Constitutional law professor, he abides by checks and balances, which explains his cool distance from legislators once a bill is being deliberated. However, he is ready to use executive orders to bypass Congress on core priorities which he has long decided will be part of his legacy, for example, on his decision this week to reduce greenhouse gases by 37% in a period of 7 years. He thinks strategically and on a case by case basis: in this case, the carbon reduction rules were announced together with a conditional approval to the building of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, a project strongly supported by Republicans and the public. But, he added, “only subject to review of its effects on carbon pollution”. The announcement raised protests from both Right and Left, but seems measured to satisfy the center.

On foreign and security policy, however, he defers to the establishment. One interpretation of this detachment is that once he became aware by secret daily briefings, of the intricacies of National Security and the immense power of the military-intelligence complex that naturally accompanies it, he decided leave it to the experts, his main focus being on “keeping the country safe” as he articulates it daily to his audiences. This is true on all defense issues except those that are personal to him, part of his envisioned legacy, such as disarmament. But his approach is clearly perceived as weakness by foreign leaders, as demonstrated by the reaction to self-admitted leaker Edward Snowden: the US indicted him for espionage, revoked his passport and asked for his extradition but both Hong Kong (pressed by Beijing) and Russia ignored the request.

Obama’s domestic policy legacy is quite in line with what he was elected to do both in his first and second term. Through his early action of getting Congress to pass a stimulus package, he saved the banking system and the automobile industry. Health reform was his next success. Today Immigration Reform has passed the Senate and is bound for the House. Failing to get Congress to pass his plan for environmental regulation, he has now done it through the EPA using a broad interpretation of the old Clean Air Act. At every step his actions were challenged and sent to the highest court which has for the most part ruled in his direction. Last week the Defense of Marriage Act was deemed unconstitutional, another triumph for the President and his base. Right now it is mainly his actions or inactions in foreign and defense policy that are being challenged by parts of the electorate, including a sizable part of his base.

If Obama believes, as many devotees of Executive Power do, that presidents possess a vast reservoir of power that can be invoked at their discretion, then he preserves it carefully and uses it strategically, in pursuit of the “safety and well-being of the American people”. His personal interpretation of American constitutional democracy seems to be: never forget the three first words of the Preamble, We the People, but use executive power to the full in order to save the Republic, even in contradiction to the written law, under the authority of what Thomas Jefferson called, the “laws of necessity, of self-preservation.” These have to be redefined by every generation. For Lincoln, it was the inevitable suspension of certain rights during the civil war. History will judge whether Obama is governing according to the spirit of his time.

Sobre el autor

Maria Fornella-Oehninger - Old Dominion University