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19 responses to “Dr. Cornel West’s Note to President Obama (Video)”
I applaud the sentiment, I only wish the message had been more coherent.
Dr. West is a vital voice but I think he left a little in the tank here.
Dr. West admits that great change requires a popular uprising. Great leaders need great forces aligned with their historic intent and ready to provide a push when necessary.
Dr. West says it's time for that push, but he looks for one man to do the pushing. Where is the great movement which will give the movement its momentum?
Where is the Progressive Agenda?
What is the Progressive Agenda?
Why did't we demand a large stimulus, when all the economists were saying "This isn't enough, and you won't have the political capital to go back for more when you realize it."
Where are the people demanding government action to provide meaningful work for honest workers? Where is the WPA of the 21st century?
Surely Dr. West knows these are dead letters if proposed from the isolation of the oval office. Surely he knows his history. If there is going to be great change it must start with the people. Yes, they must be led so they know which way to go, but major policy change goes nowhere without it.
So it seems to me that Dr. West should be trying to inspire us, who will then in turn inspire our president – indeed, push him
I warned in October 2009 that we would have to push Obama further than his instincts would tell him to go.
He wants to be centrist. He wants to be populist, and popular. He wants the validation of that second term.
If Obama is to be a true agent of meaningful change, the only way is to pretend that a second term isn't even available. To live every day of this as though it was – and it just might be – his only term. To go to the mat for what he believes in. To lie down on the railroad tracks in the name of what's right and in the name of his mandate.
He needs to take back control of that mandate and he needs to stop caring how it plays on both sides of the aisle.
He's the president. He needs to make the aisle.
Anyway, we're all frustrated but I did see all of this coming, his desire to avoid being labeled a 'black' president (meaning not identifying too closely with black issues), his determination not to be seen as liberal (he's not liberal, but in these times if you're not in favor of nuking Iran, you're liberal), and worst of all, not to seem too partisan (which simply let his opponents start their possession on the 50 yard line).
Either he figures these things out or he's a one term president and a massive historical failure.
That's a very real concern.
So if Dr. West would like to see that fate avoided, it's time to identify the Progressive Movement and to rally people to that cause.
"I warned in October 2008 (not 2009)" just before the election, in an interview with you know who 🙂
But I will also say:
It's time for Obama to show some emotion on the health care bill. It's time to get mad at members of his own party for fatally weakening it (Ben Nelson, anyone?) and to reveal what exactly Republicans are against and for.
Are they against affordable insurance? Are they for allowing InsCos to drop the sick only when they get sick? Are they against protecting the very ill from bankruptcy?
Get mad, Mr. President! You ran on this issue and you got it to the one yard line. If it all goes up in flames now, so does any shot you had at a legacy.
ACT LIKE IT!
I agree with Walt…..to a point. No one can legislate greediness. I don't care if Obama's love is as deep as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans put together, the banks, corporations, etc. are not going to be pushed to give up one iota of a penny of profit. They will layoff employeees; they will export jobs; they will whine, cry foul and plead for help……
Wait, they have already done that haven't they? They even accepted TARP money and within months repaid it as if they really never needed it in the first place.
I am just saying, not making excuses, but why are some of us expecting Obama to create miracles with a morally corrupt system? Greed got us into the mess and Obama will not be able to control and command other greedy leadership called Congress and greed (plus ignorant) society to make morally right laws. No matter how much he cuts up.
And if he does that, he will be just another "stereotypical" angry black man.
Danged if he do, danged if he don't.
oh well.
walt, you comments were well stated!
It's so frustrating that Obama has utterly failed to galvanize public opinion.
Tavis and I mused about the similarities between Obama's ascent to the presidency and Reagan's, and where I saw those similarities was in Obama's potential to define a course for the country and stick to it, to sell the people on a direction that may not seem correct at the outset, and convince the country to "stay the course."
These are differen times, with different issues and a much different playing field. And let's be blunt: There is one definable political movement in this country right now: Conservatism. It's not clear what exactly that means, but it has been incredibly effective as a method by which Republicans can attack Democrats and define the terms of the conversation.
The antidote to that was supposed to be Obama. But when we examine his election win closely, some things emerge:
1. He was able to take the Democratic primary away from Hillary when she failed to adequately explain her Iraq War Resolution vote, which became the wedge issue by which she destroyed herself. Hillary became so annoyed with this line of debate that she simply went on the attack and tried to destroy Obama. She was rightly engulfed in vitriol for doing so, especially when Obama never went on the attack, not in the way she did.
(I still remember the "plagiarism flap" where she declared Obama's positions "change you can Xerox." She became the "anti-hope" candidate in a nanosecond.)
I never saw a candidate with more going for them at the start of a campaign destroy themselves as quickly and as thoroughly.
And the take-away lesson from that primary: Perhaps the country was even less ready for a female President than it was ready for a Black, but at least Male President.
2. The economy melted down during the fall campaign, which did two devastating thing to McCain: (a) it wrecked his advantage in military issues; the country now considered the economy more important than the war; (b) it absolutely poisoned the voting public against those dang Republicans. Obama cruised to victory.
Whereupon he immediately forgot the lessons of 2000. Bush was elected by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court despite losing the popular vote. The pundits all wagged that there was no way he could seize a mandate from such results, that he would be obligated to lead from the center to assuage the enormous anger among those who felt he'd been handed the presidency.
To which Bush, led by Rove, said "Oh, yeah?" and proceeded to govern as though he had received a rock-solid mandate to push the country further to the right. He slashed taxes, rammed through the unfunded mandate No Child Left Behind, and began tearing down the wall between church and state.
And he got his way, largely because Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. And he did much of this before 9/11, when he was handed his ticket to take the country pretty much anywhere he wanted to take it, which Mr. Cheney insisted was into direct military conflict with Iraq.
Huh?
No, Obama missed that lesson. He came into Washington with the stated mandate to remove partisanship from Washington.
He hadn't been there long enough to know: It's the Only Game In Town. It would have been akin to removing slot machines from Vegas.
And it's been an utter failure. He has completely failed to reduce partisan animosity in Washington. In fact, by laying down his weapons he gave the Republicans a year-long head start to the mid-term elections.
And he's always, politically, playing from behind. He's always overtaken by events and forced to come up with sound bytes which defuse the disadvantage he places himself in.
Never more self-consciously than after the Underwear Bomber, which could just have easily happened on Bush's watch, but which Republicans immediately seized upon as evidence, based on Obama's reaction to the event, that he did not want to "admit" that the country was "at war", whereupon Obama noticeably and defensively started uttering the word "war" in seemingly every other sentence.
You can't lead from behind.
So if I can take away one thing of use from Dr. West's obvious frustration with his President, it's this:
Start Leading.
Correct, Walt. But I would this: Americans were in a froth. They would've voted Ronald McDonald in for President in 2008, so angry they were with Bush. The problem is that now they've awoken to what Obama is:
An empty suit, with no leadership experience, no track record of handling crises, and a set of policies that most Americans simply do not want forced on them.
If Obama wanted to remove partisanship, then he should've governed from the Center right away,not tried to pass far left wing legislation that walloped people and corporations with taxes, passed a stimulus bill w/ no real stimulus, and tried to force a government health plan down our throats that people last summer clearly stated they did not want.
Of course he's playing from behind. He has no fucking clue what he's doing because he has no experience as a leader. How can he lead when all he's done is "organize"?
Americans got what they paid for. Too bad they didn't check out the merchandise first.
Jack,
It's more the style than the policies. Reagan offered us four years of castor oil and we drank it.
The bailouts were probably the best thing for the American worker; the problem with the stimulus was that it was too small and not nearly far-reaching enough (modern WPA, as I said, would have been justifiable) and Obama completely failed to pin the blame where it belonged, with the previous administration.
And he was, if anything, too center-conscious to start with and much too accommodating to people who wanted him to fail.
I agree, he's a very poor leader and is always, always playing from behind.
And we should be getting out of Afghanistan, not sending more troops in.
Walt, good points — except Obama DID blame Bush over and over and over again during the campaign. That's what got him elected. But once he got in, the Blame Bush Song had to end because otherwise it would sound like an excuse. And one year in, anytime I hear it, I laugh. It's so obvious an attempt to deflect responsibility.
Afghanistan. Neither you nor I have the expertise nor omniscience to say what we should or should not do there.
Jack,
No, but lots of other people do, and many of them see it the way I do. The old joke about a ground war in Asia is especially true in that region.
We were considered the smart ones in the 80s when the USSR tried to win a war there and we just kept funding the insurgents who kept them at bay.
Then we lost the aftermath, but that's a whole 'nother story, isn't it? (Fairly well told in "Charlie Wilson's War").
And Obama has not done NEAR enough to pigeon-hole the Republicans. What do they stand for, other than obstructing him? And the massive unrest with regard to bailouts – what was the alternative, and whose mess was it anyway?
Partly this is the people forgetting who they elected and why; partly this is some rank ineptitude on the part of Democratic candidates; partly this is: Whoever is in office is in trouble, regardless of party.
But come on: The man has control of the bully pulpit. He must own the blame for this Keystone Kops-like confusion in his administration and the absolute obscurity of his agenda.
My suggestion: form a bipartisan congressional committee to reach a consensus on health care reform. And if he can't get there: Sell the fact that Republicans had their chance and turned it down, and use budget reconciliation to pass as much as he can.
But first he must demonstrably reach out to all sides. The people will not tolerate a "one party" solution and he will take a severe beating if he tries.
He's in for a severe beating anyway, I think.
9/11 was Bush's miracle. Obama needs one now and he needs it bad.
Agree with you, Walt. Another way to go is to offer up a very reasonable health care reform, one that focuses on popular things like not canceling policies when someone gets sick, allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Things like that are very reasonable. Then if the GOP refuses, they look obstructionist. IF they agree, then Obama scores points on populist reforms.
He does have the bully pulpit and should use it. Agreed.
But he has to be careful about owning the blunders thus far. Chris Matthews, in one of his books (back when I respected him), said that Carter blew it because he took responsibility for everything — too much, and that cost him.
I observed to my wife last night that Obama enjoys being smart a little too much. The classic picture of him is leaning back in a chair with one leg propped on the other knee, talking with somebody about something.
I think that's accurate. That's his comfort zone. As I occasionally tease, "The National Professor."
I don't think he's all that great a public speaker. He goes on too long, covers too many things, tries to sound like he's already done the heavy thinking, and by the time he's done you expect the end-of-class bell to ring. You yawn, you stretch, you try to wake yourself up.
Tomorrow night looms large, so large.
And the contrast to a Bush, for example, is striking: Keep it short, keep it simple, keep it positive, end on a high note.
Reagan was also good at that. Hmm…
Prediction: Health care gets fumbled out of his own end zone (after first and goal at the one, no less), the mid-terms are a bloodbath, and by the end of this year if not sooner, Democrats are running away from their own President.
I said to my wife that this will be a worse fiasco than Carter, because at least he was humble.
You know how it's considered a political necessity during a campaign to ask people for their vote? Both directly in person and broadly when making speeches.
I think that tomorrow night Obama needs to ask us for our "vote" by letting their congressmen know how they feel about health care reform, and maybe going to a web site to get information about WHAT'S IN THE DAMN BILL.
Oh, that's right. We still don't know. It's in reconciliation except that the Senate can NO LONGER PASS THE BILL because the new guy will vote no, depriving them of the super-majority they need.
Yeesh.
So…Obama needs to ask for our help, our assistance, our energy. He needs to ask us to help him determine what the priorities of this country really are. Do we want health reform or don't we? What do we consider essential and what don't we?
My general thrust is that he needs to reach out to us and ask us to commit to SOMETHING.
It's our fault he can't get a damn thing done, but it's his fault that he hasn't spanked our rear ends for it.
He needs to really shake things up tomorrow. A boilerplate speech will not get it done.
And let's see if he has a "humble" switch.
You know, this goes back to the old question: Do Senators make good Presidents? The last president we elected who had no executive experience was LBJ, and his presidency was a fantastic mess and he didn't even bother to run for re-election.
There's something to be said for having had to make the final decision as part of your job duties, especially when it involves a budget, public and social services, the military (National Guard) and so forth.
Senators are good at talking and "seeking consensus" (a gag-worthy cliche in this era); how good are they at cutting through the muck and leading?
Walt,
Conversely, do governors make good presidents either? Governor Carter and Governor H.W. Bush weren't exactly stellar presidents. Governor Clinton was impeached.
Agree with you, Walt. Another way to go is to offer up a very reasonable health care reform, one that focuses on popular things like not canceling policies when someone gets sick, allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Things like that are very reasonable. Then if the GOP refuses, they look obstructionist. IF they agree, then Obama scores points on populist reforms.
He does have the bully pulpit and should use it. Agreed.
But he has to be careful about owning the blunders thus far. Chris Matthews, in one of his books (back when I respected him), said that Carter blew it because he took responsibility for everything — too much, and that cost him.
All other things being equal, I would vote blind for a Governor over any other politician any day. They RUN a state.
The exception is California. What we need right now is a CEO to turnaround the complete fucking mess that Arnold and the Legislature have created. Fortunately, Meg Whitman is a candidate. I could give a shit about her ideology or political views. We are in Fiscal Hell and need someone like her to get us out.
The health reform bill — you want to know what's actually IN it? Well, if it weren't 2500 pages long, you might have a chance.
I would support Whitman…
I thought that was one of the least inspirational SOTUs I have heard in my life.
And he continues to lecture everybody within range of his voice.