Like many, I am pretty disgusted with the Obama Administration pushing this foolish domestic spending freeze as a highlight of the direction in which the President wants to take the country. First, it's a bad idea on the merits -- especially the notion that defense spending is sacrosanct. Christ, if there is any place where we are massively misspending money it is there (although I wouldn't even cut there right now for stimulus reasons). More disturbing to me than the merits of the policy is the ideological positioning it indicates -- it's positively Clintonesque, and I don't say that as a good thing. It's both defensive and transparently manipulative, not exactly the way you change the debate. And that, as our friend low-tech cyclist observed, was a big part of the point of electing Obama -- he would be the guy who would change the terms of the debate. In fact, I liked what l-t c said so much, I am just going to go the lazy route and quote him:
The problem with using right-wing frames to push liberal goals is that you're entrenching right-wing frames. Like with triangulation, it may work your way for a moment, but over the long haul, you lose big.
The best reason for supporting Obama over Hillary was that here was a guy who was capable of changing the way Americans thought about things. He's a guy who could really have been using the Presidential bully pulpit to do just that. Instead, as Ezra said last week, he's been playing an inside game for the past year. And now that that seems to be coming to an end, he's pushing the other side's frames? That's almost as bad as his absenting himself from the field as the Dems were falling apart last week.
Yes -- exactly so.
I think it's pretty clear that the SOTU is the opening shot in the 2010 mid-term elections. I hate to think that, but that's the reality of the foolish world in which we live. Accordingly, I would like to see Obama try to begin the conversation about what happened to the economy, why it happened, what he has tried to do about it, why his efforts to date have fallen short, what he intends to do about the failure, and why the Republicans have nothing to offer in terms of solving our current dilemma. I think it needs to be a pretty partisan speech and one which lays the blame squarely on the greed and stupidity of the free marketeers run amok. But he shouldn't just point fingers at Bush and the GOP. He also needs to admit that his Administration failed to fully grasp the gravity of the crisis and that, as a result, not enough has been done to help the average person. And then he should lay out some simple, concrete, and immediate steps that he will be asking the Congress to enact in order to get America working again.
The model is Franklin Roosevelt's fire side chats -- educate the people, describe the problems and their causes, and identify the solutions. He should ignore the audience in the Capitol and speak directly to the people at home and should do so by conveying in direct and empathetic tones that he understands the fear and frustration brought about by unemployment and our current economic insecurity. I would not worry a whit about sounding bi-partisan or throwing a bone to the Republicans. I would speak out against the filibuster. I would not say a word about the election in Massachusetts.
It actually strikes me as a pretty important moment for him and the country. I hope it's a fighting speech and not a mewling, milquetoastian, monologue. I'll be watching anxiously.
