Musings on blind pooties, bipartisanship, President Obama, President Lincoln, Generals Grant and Butler. As my first diary after lurking for multiple years (I take my handle seriously I guess), I thought I would combine multiple threads of my thinking about Daily Kos and the politics of the day. Watching the Sotomayor hearings does put one into a contemplative mood. So if your curiosity has been raised, pounce on over the orange fold to join my musings.
I recently acquired my second blind pootie, Ruth, from a rescue group. She was ten weeks old, but had a bit of a respiratory infection, so she has been in isolation for a over a week. I have just started introducing the blind kitten to my other blind pootie (15 months and named Mahogany) and 2 three-legged pootie. So I am living with constant growling and hissing. But it is the watching of the interaction of the 2 blind pooties that I have found most instructive. Pooties, like people, really do not like change in their routine. So they resist change as much as possible. In our country, change is drastically needed, but we can't ever forget that just because people intellectually know change is needed, doesn't mean that they can overcome the fear of change.
So in my little melodrama playing out in my home, Ruth, the kitten, is playing the role of progressive thought. She is exploring ever knock and cranny to find interesting things. She wants to be friends with everyone. She has courage to run, even though she has no real idea what is in front of her. I have watched her run into objects at full kitten speed and fall from heights I am not happy with. But she seems to believe there is a better world out there and she will overcome any obstacle in her way, not matter how many times she hurts herself. Mahogany is playing the role of a supporter of the status quo, or a Republican, if you like. She is a lovely pootie and very friendly. But expose her to change, she changes into a hissing, growling monster. Since she can't see where the threat, change, is coming from, she will stand facing the bed and let the bed have all of her displeasure, hissing and growling up a storm. Just like the Republicans, all this hot air doesn't really make much sense (for Mahogany the bed does not seem to care and for Republicans, well you know.)
Watching this little melodrama unfold, I was struck how Ruth has an intuitive sense of the importance of bipartisanship. On this issue, I find myself opposed to the great orange one himself. But look at bipartisanship from Ruth's perspective. It is impossible for her to impose her will on the other three. So she either has to live her life in isolation or engage in bipartisanship. Her technique is interesting to watch. She goes around exploring her surroundings and by random chance she bumps into one of the other pooties (usually literally), and hissing occurs. She bounces back, sometimes hitting objects in the processes, and then she immediately starts approaching the other pootie a second time, forcing engagement. The poor other pootie, surprised that Ruth didn't take the hint, responds with even more bravado. I guess the theory is that if it didn't work the first time, do it again, but only louder. The analogy with current Republican behavior, particularly in the Sotomayor hearing is clear.
In this display of bipartisanship, the only obviously loser is Ruth with the bumps and head slaps she receives. But in the long run, I believe that Ruth will be the winner and change will occur in my home. With luck Ruth and Mahogany will become best of friends. It is this strategy that I believe President Obama is employing and is what is missed by the critics of bipartisanship. In order to achieve the change President Obama, he needs to engage the Republicans even though it results in much sound and fury and unfortunate compromises, from my perspective. This engagement very slowly is exposing the bluster of the Republican party even through the protective haze produced by what passes for journalism in this country. The purpose of bipartisanship in the current poisoned environment is not the short term, but the long term. Thus we can't view the success of President Obama in terms of his efforts for bipartisanship for many years, and unless the great orange one has the ability to see ten years into the future with clarity, I must disagree with him and support the President's continued efforts in this area. It will be true sometime that the President will have to drop bipartisanship and ram something through Congress, but that use of force will come at a huge price. Anything forced upon people legislatively can be quickly reversed legislatively. I want true change, not temporary change.
All these musings and some of President Obama's comments which I vaguely remember make me wonder on how much the current President has read about President Lincoln. I suspect it is a significant amount. I would hope that progressives who are complaining about the current administration would read about the Lincoln administration. I believe that President Lincoln was a great President, but if one only looks at many of his individual decisions it would appear that he was an incompetent. Even his emancipation proclamation meant nothing practically as it emancipated slaves he had no control over. It was totally symbolic, but its significance was only truly understood with the passage of time.
Consider, for example, the tremendous advantages President Lincoln held over the south. He had advantages in most every measurable quantity from sea power to industrial power. So with all that power, why did the war take 4 years? Simple, even though Lincoln developed quickly a strong strategic view on how to wage war, the President in some ways has almost no power. He/she is constrained by the information they can receive and they receive a tremendous amount of it, much of it bad. They are also constrained by the members of their administration. While they may want something done, getting it done must be done by others who may or may not agree. There are a myriad of ways for the desires of the President to be thwarted by members of their own administration. Also, everything they do impacts everything else, sometimes in unexpected ways. Finally getting the right person in the right position to carry out the President's vision is not easy. General McClellan is a good example of this. Lincoln had no choice but to deal with him and stay with him much longer than he probably wanted to. He had to hope he was wrong, but could not get rid of him until he screwed up really badly. I feel that McClellan is a good example for the current situation with many leading Dems in the role of McClellan who feared to do anything until they have so overwhelming odds that success is guaranteed. McClellan was great with the finding reasons why he could not move forward. Does this sound to you like current Democratic leaders?
Finally Grant and Butler. General Butler (Beast Butler) was one of many political generals during the Civil War. While Lincoln found in Grant a commander who understood Lincoln's strategic vision, Lincoln also saddled Grant with Generals like Butler. If Butler had been a better general, Petersburg would have fallen in June 1864 which would have meant the taking of Richmond and getting Lee's army out in the open with limited supplies. Instead, Petersburg did not fall, and the world got a preview of the trench warfare of World War I. While it is true that Lee essentially lost the war in June 1864 (protracted warfare Lee could not survive in the long term) , the failure to take Petersburg did give a chance for McClellan to win the Presidency. Butler was a General because he could help Lincoln maintain the Presidency and prosecute the war, but his generalship prolonged the war. So was Lincoln's decision to make Butler a general a good or bad decision? Even after 150 years, I don't think the answer is clear because it depends on which piece of the puzzle you make the most important.
So how does this apply to President Obama? I think he has taken lessons from President Lincoln and is a strategic thinker and also realizes that he is the President for those who both agree and disagree with him. He wants to be a uniter of a very divided country and he realizes this does not happen overnight.
In case anyone is still reaeding, I believe that there are lessons in all of this for this community. First, I wish people would refer to President Obama instead of Obama. It is easier for our enemies to destroy Obama than President Obama. We should not make it any easier by encouraging this informality. This country has seen too much politics of personal destruction. Politicians are human and anyone who expects perfection out of a politician is a fool. Second, I find it terribly destructive to the stated goals of this site to see phrases like "Obama betrayed us" on some issue. Unless the diarist was sitting there listening to President Obama make a decision, only time will tell if a betrayal occurred or strategic retreat. Third, the President is human and I do not expect to agree with many of his decisions (if he actually made one) or the real reasons for those decisions. It is unhealthy for the country and this administration not to criticize it. But we should do it in a way not to help our enemies. We should criticize the administration, but unless you are a personal friend of the President, don't express that criticism as criticism of Obama. I, at least, have no idea of what President Obama has decided and what has been forced upon him by members of the administration. He has to accept keeping certain people in positions which he would not do in a perfect world. The President operates with severe limitations. Finally, I know it will surprise members, but our President is black and there are racists in the administration (executive branch) who would love to see him fail and have means of contributing to this failure. It will take years for President Obama to take full control of the executive branch and get the correct people in the correct places. So don't acted shocked when the administration doesn't decide things the way we want. We must keep the pressure on this administration on issues of importance to us, such as accountability, torture, DOMA, DADT, health care, climate, and a myriad of other issues. It is up to us to get better people elected to Congress so that the administration will be able to do what is right or be forced to do what is right.
Finally to return full circle to pooties. As a long time lurker, I am aware of the constant complaints that pootie diaries are not appropriate for this blog. I know that the great orange one has stated his support of these diaries as community building. I would like to posit a different justification of pootie diaries and other community diaries. How does a political blog like Daily Kos stay together over the long term? A blog dedicated to electing better Democrats will naturally attract the very committed amongst us---those passionate about their candidates and interested in the tactics and strategies to accomplish progressive legislative goals. As with all things, passion is great, but it has it negative side also. This site could destroy itself with infighting if we did not get constant reminders on why the issues are important, namely the impact on people. Most members on this site care about people and their problems, so it is not surprising that many would feel passionately about their pets and would need to share. So what Kos has called community building diaries are in my opinion community sustaining diaries. They remind us what we have in common and that our policy and other disagreements are less important than our common humanity. It is a kind of bipartisanship. (He ducks and runs for cover, finally shutting his mouth. Anyway it is time to let change out of isolation and see how her efforts at bipartisanship are working.)