It occurs to me that what's going on in the White House might have something to do with having two Senators at the helm. Recent reports of Joe Biden's role in the recent tax-cut-for-the-wealthy-to-save-unemployment debacle suggest that the Senate's horse-trading mentality has infiltrated the oval office.
Mr. Biden not only played an important role in negotiating the tax deal with Republicans and trying to sell it to Democrats, but also was one of the people in the West Wing who urged Mr. Obama to try to find a compromise on the issue in the first place, aides said.
According to Senator Chris Dodd, the president leans heavily on Biden because he "just doesn’t have the personal relationships that Joe has."
Fine. But what if those relationships are part of the problem?
What if a horse-trading president is actually harmful to the people?
As on health care reform, it appears that the president's starting position was "what will Republicans accept for our minimum goals?" Having decided up front that those goals must be protected at any cost, he decided to craft any deal rather than put people at risk. In the process, however, he subverted the will of the people.
At a minimum, he seemed to ignore the wishes of his allies:
"While Democrats praised Biden’s handling of their complaints, several said they did not hear a willingness to reopen the debate over the tax cuts.
"It's fair to say that he said, 'We've negotiated with the Republicans, but we're not going to negotiate with the Democrats," Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said in paraphrasing the vice president."
The president's goals (protecting the unemployed, and people of low to moderate incomes) were laudable. But the appalling trade highlights the problem of thinking like a horse-trader instead of a leader.
The president is not a member of Congress. He should not behave like one. It's time for the executive branch to stop negotiating, and start setting the tone. President Obama has enormous power, via the bully pulpit, to frame debates around core values.
It's time for the president to be the Captain of the Enterprise.
He commands the megaphone from which to frame a people's agenda. A real one. One that defends the unemployed, the beleaguered homeowner, the down-sized and the marginalized in terms of simple human rights.
More than any other person in the nation, he can make it impossible for the GOP to win their selfish me-first, shower-the-rich-with-goodies-so-they-can-ship-more-jobs-overseas agenda, but only if he stops bargaining with them and starts telling the public what they're really up to. He needs to channel the people's will and challenge the plutocrats--before they ask for ransom, not afterwards.
Stop pretending that this is an honest negotiation. It's not a fair fight. They've got landslide of corporate wealth to help them spread their message. It's beyond foolish to negotiate with people who have a proven record of acting in bad faith. You just don't tell the other side what the most effective hostage would be, and then let them seize it.
A better way to win a negotiation is to ask for more than you want, and then let Congress negotiate it down. Ratchet up the stakes. Put your opponents on the defensive. Asking for modest, reasonable, "pragmatic" things, just gets you screwed every time.
More than any other single person in Washington, a president has the moral authority to represent the people. He can lay out their actual needs. Not merely what he thinks they can get. It's time for him to start acting like the president. He's relied on the Senate's compromise mentality long enough.
The horse-trading mentality has got to go.