I wrote a spur of the moment comment on Krugman's blog yesterday in response to his brief post on the pay cut for federal employees. I mentioned a story I distantly remembered about how Bill Clinton and Al Gore had vowed not to use the term "bureaucrats" when referring to federal workers, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing because of the pejorative nature of the term.
The comment got a lot of rec's so I figured I should do a little digging to see if I remembered correctly, lest I embarrass the Old Grey Lady with a bad source. According to this short article in the LA Times, I had remembered correctly. Since I had written in the context of the federal pay freeze (I agree that it's a gimmick), I thought I'd dig a little deeper into President Obama's use of the word.
The results were somewhat of a pleasant surprise, emphasis on "somewhat." Looking over the President's pronouncements yesterday and in the recent past, he did not use the term "bureaucrats" to describe the federal employees, whose salaries he was freezing. Actually his pronouncement was sensitive and well phrased. My principal objection to the freeze, among the many objections I have, is that it feeds the Republican meme that all federal government is bad. That said, I've read some posts, including Ezra's "three perspectives" from yesterday that caused me to soften my view of it, but today's piece quoting a federal worker pretty much validates my orginal take on this. But this diary isn't about the merits of the pay freeze as policy or politics.
It's about the controversy swirling around this community about the degree to which we should be attacking the President. I am a critic of the President because I think his politics are clumsy and inept (please leave now Messers. Axelrod and Gibbs) and because I believe his tendancy toward compromise unnecessarily undermines the progressive agenda. I am also a realist. I'm fine with heath care reform as is. I think Baucus's lost summer cost us the public option, but when push came to shove we got HCR. And I will vote for him in 2012 and support him and work for him. I am also not even thinking of leaving this community, which I have been participating in actively for a year, and reading for many years before that. Don't kid yourself folks - this is where the action is. You can't take your ball home because this is the ball.
But I digress.
I did discover the key circumstance where the President did use the term "bureaucrats" in reference to federal workers after he was elected. It was in the context of health care in 2009. This post in the Washington Post recaps the issue nicely. But first, the money quote:
Obama stated, "If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need."
He used similar language on Saturday in Colorado: "If you like your doctor, you keep seeing your doctor. I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care."
Ditto on Friday in Montana: "If you like your doctor, you can keep seeing your doctor. This is important. I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care, but I also don't want insurance company bureaucrats meddling in your health care either."
So when the chips were down and he was trying to sell health care, the federal employees were an easy foil, tempered of course by the "insurance bureaucrats," another maddening example of false equivalency. You know, the people Tim McVeigh slaughtered are just the same as the folks denying you cancer treatments. Sorry - that was a cheap shot.
But I'm not the only one who who saw it this way. Frank Luntz, of all people, agrees with my take:
Pollster Frank Luntz, author of " Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear," recently authored a memo for Republicans that suggested how to best construct a message of opposition to health care reform.
Polls suggest that using the b-word helped increase opposition to the reform efforts, Luntz concluded. Republicans should thus say things like: "It would have federal bureaucrats determining health care standards rather than the doctors who are actually providing the care," or, "President Obama wants to put the Washington bureaucrats in charge of health care. I want to put the medical professionals in charge."
"Bureaucrat conjures up everything the public hates about government," Luntz said in an interview. "It conjures up red tape. It conjures up delay. It makes people think of the DMV. Everything bad about government can be summarized in one word: bureaucrat. What Obama has basically done is he's thrown all of his loyal government workers under the bus to get health care reform."
(emphasis mine)
Getting back to Krugman, he posted this perceptive item a few months ago where he labelled Obama the "anti dog whistler." Bush was an expert dog whistler, according to Krugman, because he would insert language that on its face appeared neutral or innocuous, but was red meat to his base (which heard the dog whistle). I think the President's use of bureaucrat in the HCR debate is a prime example of "anti dog whistling." Perhaps the sensitivity in which he couched the fed pay freeze shows a growing awareness of the dog whistling problem, which is just another way of saying that he has been unnecessarily alienating the base. Maybe he is starting to recognize it.
This is my contribution to the "don't criticize the President" debate. There is always room for thoughtful, respectful criticism of the President's policies. In the end it will serve him and the country greatly. And this forum is among the best places in the interwebs to air these grievances.