A PRESIDENT TRANSFORMED

By Edwin Cooney

Last Wednesday night, before America’s eyes and ears, President Barack Obama challenged Democrats to use their majorities to accomplish something instead of “running for the hills.” He also urged Republicans to help govern instead of merely saying nay. In so doing, he transformed himself from the status of mere President to that of a national leader.

As I’ve said from the beginning, I voted for Obama because I believe that there’s more to governing than the application of party doctrine. It may not please left or right wing ideologists, but historically successful leaders have often ignored party ideologists. Here are some examples:

When FDR was swept into office in 1933, the first thing he did was save big business from itself. He didn’t nationalize the banking system; he reconstructed it. His National Industrial Recovery Act actually encouraged business trusts as long as big business agreed to the codes stipulated by the National Industrial Recovery Administration (NIRA) act. FDR didn’t destroy Wall Street; he merely regulated it by establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission. Remember who he put in charge of the SEC? That man’s name was Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., one hell of a businessman. Although the bankers and businessmen would never admit it, the “liberal” FDR was the best friend they ever had.

In the 1980s, President Reagan promised Conservatives to do away with the Department of Energy. Instead, he appointed three heads to that department. The last one, John Herrington of California, served from 1985 to 1989. He encouraged closer relations with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, potentially the largest producer of oil in the Middle East. President Reagan also promised to balance the budget, but scrapped that piece of GOP fundamentalism in favor of defense spending. He promised to protect us from terrorism, but during the 1980s, Black September took American hostages in the Middle East almost at will. Although he remains modern conservatism’s Messiah, President Reagan pragmatically strengthened Social Security rather than eliminating or privatizing it. Keep in mind, Social Security is still considered by Conservatives to be one of FDR’s most lingering evils.

The point of all this is that presidents usually do what needs to be done by steering a pragmatic political path down Doctrinaire Way.

Here’s more historical information: Abraham Lincoln pleased neither Abolitionists nor Copperheads (Northern Peace Democrats) during the Civil War. His political opponent for re-election in 1864 was the man he’d put in charge of the Union Army in 1861 -- Copperhead General George B. McClelland. Additionally, Lincoln infuriated John C. Fremont (the first GOP presidential candidate and governor of Missouri in 1861) and other abolitionists by rejecting Fremont’s statewide “Emancipation Proclamation” as politically impractical.

American politics, while hardly devoid of ideology, is largely the politics of practicality. Now that George W. Bush’s eight years in the White House are complete, Conservatives insist that he wasn’t really one of them. As proof, they point to Bush’s Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act as well as to his support of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act of 2002 and the legislation to bail out the banks in 2008.

There’s no reason to feel sorry for President Obama and the “political pickle” he appears to be in. After all, he knew that being President wouldn’t be easy. President Obama can’t avoid criticism from either the hard right or the hard left. Still, it’s his right to remind us from time to time of what the conditions were when he came into office. After all, didn’t FDR often remind us of Hoovervilles and the sins of those old “economic royalists and money changers?” Were Conservatives in the 1980s willing to forget Jimmy Carter and “stagflation?” Of course not—nor should they have.

Perspective, as I see it, is inevitably more valuable than doctrinaire politics. Perspective, minus deliberate political amnesia, provides a compass for evaluating the conditions for wise and workable decision-making.

Of course, the center isn’t the sole home of truth, wisdom and good government. Historically, political ideologists, often minority party leaders, have contributed valuable ideas for good government. A few ideas originally regarded as radical which have now become mainstream concepts include the Bill of Rights (ideologically Conservative), Initiative, Referendum and Recall (ideologically Progressive or Liberal), income tax indexing (ideologically Conservative), labor and civil rights equity (ideologically Liberal), labor union regulation (ideologically Conservative) and Social Security (ideologically Liberal).

What President Obama demonstrated before Congress on the night of January 27th is that he’s more interested in leadership than he is in ideological or political purity.

It’s my guess that the President would subscribe to the following observation: Successful leadership overcomes all barriers—both political and ideological.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY