Having Bush and Cheney reappear is a reminder to step back and look at what Obama is up against. You might want to cut him a little slack.
Those are the concluding words of a Washington Post op ed titled Bush and Cheney remind us how we got into this mess by the inimitable Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winner from the Post and MS-NBC commentator. Regardless of what you think of Obama's presidency on certain issues, or on how he has at times undercut himself or his party, you will find things worth considering in this column.
The beginning of the column lays out for us what Robinson is going to say:
Thank you, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, for emerging from your secure, undisclosed locations to remind us how we got into this mess: It didn’t happen by accident.
The important thing isn’t what Bush says in his interview with National Geographic or what scores Cheney tries to settle in his memoir. What matters is that as they return to the public eye, they highlight their record of wrongheaded policy choices that helped bring the nation to a sour, penurious state.
Throughout the column Robinson hammers his points home, for example:
Bush and Cheney decided to fight two wars without even accounting — let alone paying — for them.
The cost of those wars so far exceeds even the $3 trillion about which Nobel Laureate economist Joe Stiglitz warned some time ago, now running between $4 and $5 trillion.
Even so, had Bush simply left taxes alone, the projected surplus over a decade of 6$ trillion at the end of the Clinton administration would probably have made the deficit and debt a non-issue, except, as Robinson notes, for the likes of Ron Paul.
Robinson examines the source of the Republican approach on government financing, the idea that the government must always be starved, which he says they attribute to the same Ronald Reagan that he notes raised taxes 11 times in 8 years. He then puts it bluntly:
Reagan may have believed in small government, but he did believe in government itself. Today’s Republicans have perverted Reagan’s philosophy into a kind of anti-government nihilism — an irresponsible, almost childish insistence that the basic laws of arithmetic can be suspended at their will.
There is more, critical of the current breed of Republicans, and while his focus is very much on those in Congress (and by implication running for President) we have seen a similar approach in state legislatures and governors' mansions since the election last year.
As I was writing the reminder of the words of Joe Stiglitz, I could not help but wonder how things might have been different had the governments of the past two presidents included such highly qualified economists. Might policy makers have been willing to listen to the insights of those who have proven so perspicacious on the markets and government finances? I accept Robinson's words that perhaps we should cut Obama some slack, but what if those guiding his economic policy were not beholden to Wall Street and the big banks? What if the likes of people like the other recent Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman were the voice he was hearing, instead of Tim Geithner? Might the stimulus have been larger enough to have had a greater impact? Will the addition of Krueger to the economic team - assuming Republicans do not filibuster that appointment (a "labor" economist might raise sufficient flags for the likes of Limbaugh) bring some sense to our economic policy making?
Here I am, one of the strong critics of Obama on this site, for the second day in a row pointing at a column by a Pulitzer Prize winner that is not criticizing the President. Yesterday I focused on Kristof's column about Libya and agreed with him that the President deserved some credit. Today it is Robinson and I agree that he is entitled to SOME slack.
Libya has not yet seen its end game.
Cutting slack is not the same as offering a blank check of approval.
Yes, Obama was handed a stink bomb on the economy and the Republicans have been willful in doing all they can to make it impossible for Obama to fix things - that is childish, but it is also how they do politics.
So I agree with Robinson that the President is entitled to SOME slack. Still, I think he needs to use his bully pulpit, to tell the American people what really needs to be done. He has an opportunity because it seems as if the mood is changing. He needs to hammer home what Robinson writes a few paragraphs from the end:
We face devastating unemployment. Many conservative economists have joined the chorus calling for more short-term spending by the federal government as a way to boost growth. But the radical Republicans don’t pay attention to conservative economists anymore. The Republicans’ idea of a cure for cancer would be to cut spending and cut taxes.
The radical Republicans - perhaps an unfortunate phrase, since that term was first applied to Northern anti-slavery Republicans after the Civil War who wanted to punish the South. The use is justified because of the desire of the modern Republicans to punish the nation for daring to vote for this uppity (word choice deliberate) President and any of his allies.
It is not just that they don't want to listen to conservative economists. They don't want to listen to any economist who disagrees with their theology, any more than they will listen to the vast majority of scientists who disagree with their theology on climate change, or any real scientist for those who advocate theology in the form of "creation science."
The time for seeking compromise is past. One can only compromise with a reasonable opponent. Robinson is correct that the reappearance of Bush and Cheney will remind people powerfully of how we arrived in our present mess. This give the President and the Democrats an opportunity to set the agenda, if they are willing to seize the moment.
I began with the conclusion. Allow me to end by repeating the beginning:
Thank you, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, for emerging from your secure, undisclosed locations to remind us how we got into this mess: It didn’t happen by accident.
The important thing isn’t what Bush says in his interview with National Geographic or what scores Cheney tries to settle in his memoir. What matters is that as they return to the public eye, they highlight their record of wrongheaded policy choices that helped bring the nation to a sour, penurious state.