“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat,” humorist Will Rogers once famously quipped, and that observation has never been more relevant than today.
Not content with battling the Republicans, the Democrats have resorted to their typical infighting that has hurt them in the past and will make the Party – and the President – easy prey in the 2012 election if they don’t come to their senses.
Saturday, Dec. 4, in a Washington Post Op-Ed, for example, liberal guest columnist Michael Lerner suggests that the best way to get President Obama to become the progressive populist he promised to be is for the Democrats to have a real progressive Democrat challenge him in his 2012 re-election bid. Even E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Frank Rich of the New York Times are grousing about the President’s lack of spine and backbone and portend disaster for his re-election chances if he doesn’t change.
First of all, back to Michael Lerner’s point, presidential candidate Barack Obama did not promise to be a progressive populist. He promised to be a centrist President, a President to unite all the people, and if you read his political blueprint for the Presidency, The Audacity of Hope, written before he was elected, he has largely stayed true to what he has promised. Secondly, politics is the “art of the possible,” as Bismarck reminded us many years ago, or “to govern is to choose,” as President De Gaulle observed, and sometimes that choice is between what the late liberal columnist John Kenneth Galbraith called the “disastrous vs. the unpalatable.”
This is precisely the kind of choice the President is facing with the Bush tax cuts, which seems to be the main focus of the progressive Democrats’ latest ire. Let’s review his options: His position all along — to allow tax cuts for only those families making $250 thousand or less and allow the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire — was effectively taken off the table this past week when the Republicans blocked such a bill in the Senate. This leaves the President two options: take a hard stand against allowing tax cuts for the wealthy or allow a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts.
If he takes the tough stand against tax cuts for the richest, the Republicans will continue to block an extension of emergency unemployment benefits for those still out of work. Those benefits are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The Republicans are willing to hold benefits for the unemployed hostage in exchange for a tax cut benefiting the rich and, astonishingly, Middle America remains largely silent.
Also, by hanging tough, tax cuts for everyone would expire along with tax cuts for the wealthy. And, Republicans are reportedly willing to let that happen because they know that the President and Democrats will get blamed for allowing taxes to increase during the midst of a recession, and the Republicans can use that as a campaign issue in 2012.
This is the ugly Sophie’s choice the President faces and understandably, from my perspective, he is willing to negotiate with Republicans, hold his nose and allow a temporary extension of tax cuts for the wealthy in exchange for benefits for the unemployed and those hardest hit by the recession. That does not demonstrate lack of spine, in my judgment, but a profile in courage, as President George H.W. Bush showed when he violated his “watch my lips” policy on tax increases for the greater good during his one term in office.
Also at stake during this lame-duck session of Congress are other important issues on the table that won’t get done unless the tax cuts are resolved. These include ratification of the SALT treaty with Russia, which has been endorsed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and six former secretaries of State. Yet, Republican Senator Jon Kyl is holding it up in the Senate as part of the continuing successful “just say no” political policy of the Senate Republicans.
It is dumbfounding to me that Democrats are starting to distance themselves from the President instead of closing ranks and directing their ire where it belongs. What’s there not to like about this guy? He has a first-rate mind and a first-rate temperament. He is thoughtful and articulate. He has a good family life, with no skeletons in his closet; otherwise his opponents would have long ago found them. He is admired around the world and has helped restore America’s standing with our long-time world partners. He was able to get health care reform enacted, an achievement of historic proportions in itself. Financial reform, extricating our fighting forces from Irag… the list of accomplishments goes on.
When is the last time we had a U.S President with such a combination of personal and professional qualities and attributes, as well as so many accomplishments in such a short time as this President?
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of one.
Gerald E. Lavey
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