ZUCKERMAN’S LAMENT, KRUGMAN’S DISGUST
By Rick Moran
Right Wing Nut House
I’m not even an Obama supporter and I found Mort Zuckerman’s towering rant yesterday against the president painful to read. I genuinely feel for this fellow, who by many reports has been one of the nice guys in the media over the last few decades. Editor in Chief of US News and World Report, as well as publisher of the New York Daily News, Zuckerman has been a moderate liberal voice in the Democratic party for a generation.
An early Obama supporter, and great admirer of the president still, Zuckerman went off on Obama’s policies and performance like there was no tomorrow in a piece entitled “He’s done Everything Wrong”:
<<< Obama punted on the economy and reversed the fortunes of the Democrats in 365 days.
He’s misjudged the character of the country in his whole approach. There’s the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He didn’t get it. He was determined somehow or other to adopt a whole new agenda. He didn’t address the main issue.
This health-care plan is going to be a fiscal disaster for the country. Most of the country wanted to deal with costs, not expansion of coverage. This is going to raise costs dramatically.
In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.
Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery. I suppose they could say, that’s the system. He was supposed to change it or try to change it. >>>
I’ve been reading Zuckerman’s writings for nearly 30 years and the only other examples I can think of where his emotions pour forth in such a raw, uncorrelated way is when he talks of the dangers facing Israel. But this is truly remarkable. The entire article is, in internet parlance, a “screed.” It’s structure is haphazard. There is no attempt to clean up the rank emotionalism that dominates the piece. There isn’t much reason and less logic. It is the wailing lament of someone who obviously feels betrayed, or more relevantly, of a man who has had the scales fall from his eyes.
<<< Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him. The fact is he had 49.5 million listeners to first speech on the economy. On Medicare, he had 24 million. He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other political figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things.
I don’t consider it a triumph. I consider it a disaster.
One business leader said to me, “In the Clinton administration, the policy people were at the center, and the political people were on the sideline. In the Obama administration, the political people are at the center, and the policy people are on the sidelines.”
I’m very disappointed. We endorsed him. I voted for him. I supported him publicly and privately. >>>
Specifically, Zuckerman rails against the stim bill and health care reform as examples of what we on the right have been accusing Obama of for months; farming out the writing and shaping of major legislation to the Pelosi-Reid axis in Congress:
<<< I hope there are changes. I think he’s already laid in huge problems for the country. The fiscal program was a disaster. You have to get the money as quickly as possible into the economy. They didn’t do that. By end of the first year, only one-third of the money was spent. Why is that?
He should have jammed a stimulus plan into Congress and said, “This is it. No changes. Don’t give me that bullshit. We have a national emergency.” Instead they turned it over to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who can run circles around him.
It’s very sad. It’s really sad. >>>
The final criticism is perhaps the most disturbing; despite being popular overseas, Obama is not respected:
<<< He’s improved America’s image in the world. He absolutely did. But you have to translate that into something. Let me tell you what a major leader said to me recently. “We are convinced,” he said, “that he is not strong enough to confront his enemy. We are concerned,” he said “that he is not strong to support his friends.”
The political leadership of the world is very, very dismayed. He better turn it around. The Democrats are going to get killed in this election. Jesus, looks what’s happening in Massachusetts. >>>
Mr. Zuckerman and other cold war liberals don’t get it. The president has made a deliberate decision to curtail American power and influence in the world, going so far as to say in Cairo that no one nation should dominate. The unipolar world is history - partly due to our own misguided attempts to influence events but also because the president sees us as equal partners with the UN. There is less emphasis on our alliances, a stepping back from some of our closer relationships as demonstrated by a pulling away from the “special” relationship we have had for 130 years with Great Britain.
It’s not as if the president was trying to hide his policies. In fact, this aspect of his presidency is one of the few that receives any support from his progressive base. If Zuckerman is just catching on to this now, he has only himself to blame for his myopia.
You can’t say that if Obama has lost Mort Zuckerman, he’s lost the center left of the Democratic party. But you can say that if he’s lost Paul Krugman, he’s lost an important voice among far left progressives:
<<< Health care reform — which is crucial for millions of Americans — hangs in the balance. Progressives are desperately in need of leadership; more specifically, House Democrats need to be told to pass the Senate bill, which isn’t what they wanted but is vastly better than nothing.
[...]
Maybe House Democrats can pull this out, even with a gaping hole in White House leadership. Barney Frank seems to have thought better of his initial defeatism. But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in. >>>
“Fight for what his supporters believe in?” What about what the president believes in? Presidents don’t pick up the fallen standard of their fringe supporters and go into battle in order to commit suicide. That might be fine for the Krugmans of the Democratic party who don’t have skin in the game. The Times columnist isn’t running for anything, which gives him the luxury of cheering on the combatants from the safety of the peanut gallery.
And, of course, Krugman isn’t making any new charges against the president by the progressive wing of the party. His thoughts find an echo in many online activist’s critique of Obama and his administration.
But coming on the heels of Zuckerman’s tirade, and several other scathing criticisms of the president in other venues - all the result of the Massachusetts debacle - Krugman et al might legitimately ask, “What now, Mr. President?” Whither Obama? Where goes the left?
Some of this is certainly hand wringing by the usual suspects. Massachusetts was, after all, only one senate race although a great, big, red warning sign of a race for the president. But in the end - and I tried to make this point on my radio show on Tuesday night - there are other issues where one or two Republicans could be pried away from their caucus to support the administration. For example, a dramatically scaled back health care initiative would probably pick up close to a half dozen Republicans, including Snowe, Collins, Grassley, Graham, McCain, and probably Scott Brown himself. All have announced support for some of the goals of Obama’s health care reform and the right package could elicit what the president so dearly desires; a bi-partisan bill.
The Krugmans of the party would scream bloody murder and such a bill might not even fly in the House. But it is indicative of the fact that the Obama presidency is not over - if the president and his people would take what the Massachusetts voters were trying to say in a constructive manner and switch gears.
Not a turn to the right or a “pivot” necessarily. These are liberals after all and one shouldn’t expect the impossible. Recalculation might be a better term. More emphasis on the economy is good advice everyone is giving the president. Cutting the deficit substantially would ease a lot of fears among centrists. Modest health care reforms, an energy policy that makes sense, and perhaps a shot at reforming immigration are all on the table, and doable with the right kind of leadership.
In short, the situation is salvageable if there is a noticeable and substantive change in course. Low approval ratings are not set in stone, nor is the growing perception of his administration being incompetent.
I suppose I should be rooting for epic fail from this crew. Indeed, I cheer the demise - if true - of the monstrosity of Obamacare. But this country has big problems that must be addressed. Anyone who cares about America realizes this and hopes that the political leadership can get their act together in order to deal with them.
Politics may be a zero sum game but that’s no reason governance should be. Party men and ideologues will no doubt damn me for my apostasy, and there is little hope that the kind of government we need will arise from the ashes of the political wild fire that raced through Massachusetts.
But America is in crisis - economically and otherwise. While some see paralysis in government as a blessing, the only result of such will be the continued decline of our economic fortunes, and a lowering of our standard of living. That, and a people living in fear of the future is what awaits us without a dramatic change in Washington. Flipping the House and Senate will not be the answer. The same kind of obstructionism and partisan hatred will simply be transferred from the Republicans to the Democrats and still, nothing will get done.
Obama will never get my vote. But he can earn my respect by trying to deliver on his promise to change the political culture in Washington. So far, he hasn’t impressed me, Zuckerman, or Krugman for that matter.
We’ll see if he can change that.
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