And, regarding Dowd's claim that Obama didn't use the "bully pulpit" to sell his domestic policies, that simply isn't true. Obama has taken his message to Congress and out to the country often and eloquently. Remember, it was during one of his addresses to Congress on the health-care law when Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, shouted out, "You lie!"
Last year, Obama took his demand for a new jobs bill on the road, traveling to states and districts represented by his Republican opponents and pointing out decaying infrastructure that needed immediate work. His failure to break the legislative logjam wasn't for his lack of giving speeches.
As for foreign policy, Obama's key errors were not indecision but in trying not to offend George W. Bush's loyalists. Instead of kicking out Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Bush's top commander, Gen. David Petreaus, Obama kept them on as a sign of continuity with Bush's war policies, even though Obama's political "base" wanted a dramatic break.
As a further concession, Obama refused to hold Bush or any of his subordinates accountable for their crimes of state, including torture and aggressive war. Given the economic crisis facing the nation -- and his hope for some Republican cooperation -- Obama shelved meaningful investigations of his predecessor's wrongdoing.
And when it came to pulling the trigger on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the drone strikes that have slaughtered other al-Qaeda leaders, Obama has been anything but indecisive. Rather than some fretting Hamlet, he has behaved more like a "Dirty Harry" character.
But none of that reality would mesh with Dowd's preferred narrative of a psychologically-tortured soul sitting in the White House searching for his personal identity, incapable of action or even an ability to explain himself.
A Bigger Problem
What Dowd and other Washington pundits don't want to acknowledge is that the failings of the Obama presidency have much less to do with his personality flaws than with the corrupt nature of the Washington Establishment, of which they are a part.
It's easy to blame Obama -- or find some "Eureka!" moment in a comment by an old girlfriend. It's much harder to look into the mirror and recall all the times the New York Times and other major news outlets bent to pressures from Republican administrations and the Right in general.
The pundits don't want to acknowledge this systemic problem because it would diminish their lofty self-images. Despite all their acclaim and best-selling books, their own weaknesses are a big part of the mess the nation is in.
Over the past several decades -- after Watergate and the Vietnam War -- the Right built a vast media apparatus to browbeat the mainstream press. And, as mainstream journalists sought to avoid the career-killing "liberal" label, they traded journalistic principles for a little protection. The American Left also shares in this blame, being mostly AWOL in this "war of ideas." [See Robert Parry's Lost History.]
As the U.S. news media retreated from its Pentagon Papers/Watergate glory days of four decades ago, the Republicans also built a potent political attack machine, learning how to bully Democrats with great success. Big money bought clever attack ads -- and many of the courageous Democrats were targeted and defeated.
These trends have been underway for four decades but only recently has this reality penetrated the consciousness of the Washington Establishment, finally prompting two committed centrists, Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, to detect the reality. They penned a recent Washington Post Outlook article entitled "Let's just say it: the Republicans are the problem":
"In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party."The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."
But that GOP transformation wouldn't have been possible if there had been serious pushback over the past four decades, if the U.S. press corps had done its job, if Democrats had stood firm in demanding accountability, and if the Left had not closed down or sold off much of its media infrastructure after the Vietnam War was over.
Since that time, a series of miscalculations and acts of cowardice by American journalists, Democrats and progressives have enabled the most corrupt and dishonest elements of the Republican Party to run wild, like a herd of rabid elephants. [For details, see Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep.]
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