The Daily Debate
edited by Robert Tracinski
Brought to you by RealClearPolitics.
July 18, 2012
1. "You Didn't Build That"
2. Storytellers
3. The Veepstakes: The Chicago Way
4. Around the RealClear Universe
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1. "You Didn't Build That"
"You didn't build that"—President Obama's response to those who have succeeded in business—has become the new version of "the private sector is doing fine." It has become the rallying point for the right to make the case that Obama is out of touch with the American economy. But in this case, they have an even bigger case to make: the Obama is opposed to the American ideal of individualism.
Juan Williams offers the only line of defense we have heard so far for Obama. When he said "you didn't build that," he wasn't referring to an entrepreneur's own business; he was just referring to the basic government-provided infrastructure: things like roads, bridges, and law and order.
I don't think this makes sense, because spending on roads and bridges and police and firefighters makes up only a few percentage points of the federal budget. Yet Obama was invoking them to justify a top federal income tax rate just under 40%. You don't need taxes that high just to build bridges.
In any case, it is the right that is still having its way on this issue, invoking it as the key to Obama's basic ideology and outlook.
The American Spectator's James Antle sums up Obama's message as: "There's No 'I' in 'Government'."
"[T]he president's little lesson is self-evidently absurd. Lots of people attend public schools and have teachers. Very few people become Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Everybody uses the roads and bridges the factory owner uses to bring his products to market. But not everyone builds a factory. "The tax dollars that paid for those roads, bridges, schools, and teachers didn't just come from 'someone else' or the 'rest of us.' They came from the innovators, the factory owners, and the entrepreneurs too. In 2009, the top 400 taxpayers paid almost as much in federal income taxes as the entire bottom 50 percent combined."
Rich Lowry describes it as a "statist" attack on the "self-made man."
"The Obama theory of entrepreneurship is that behind every successful businessman, there is a successful government. Everyone is helpless without the state, the great protector, builder, and innovator. Everything is ultimately a collective enterprise. Individual initiative is only an ingredient in the more important work when 'we do things together.'... "For that most American figure of the self-made man, exemplified most famously by Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, President Obama wants to substitute the figure of the guy who happened to get lucky while not paying his fair share in taxes. What a dreary and pinched view of human endeavor. What a telling insight into his animating philosophy."
He ends with a trenchant reductio ad absurdum:
"The Obama formulation goes something like this: Steve Jobs couldn't get to work every day without roads; he couldn't drive safely on those roads without a well-regulated system of driver's licenses; ergo, the San Jose, Calif., DMV practically built Apple." Zing, pow. Expect more such lines from the right. They'll be here all week.
In this modern age, Obama's speech became a "meme" and spawned a Tumblr satire which photoshops Obama into images of Thomas Edison and the light bulb, Henry Ford and the Model T, the Wright Brothers and their airplane, Steve Jobs and the iPhone, and so on—all of them with the caption, "You didn't build that."
Mitt Romney seems to have taken inspiration from this, pouncing on Obama's remarks.
"'I'm convinced he wants Americans to be ashamed of success…[but] I don't want government to take credit for what individuals accomplish.... "The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn't build Apple, that Henry Ford didn't build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn't build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn't build McDonald's, that Bill Gates didn't build Microsoft...is not just foolishness, it is insulting to every entrepreneur....
"The president's logic doesn't just extend to the entrepreneurs that start a barber shop or a taxi operation or an oil field service business.... It extends to everybody in America that wants to lift themself up…[because] the president would say, 'Well, you didn't do that' [and] 'you couldn't have gotten to school without the roads that government built for you...so you are not responsible for that success."
As for this being an insult to entrepreneurs and small business owners, John Podhoretz calls this the "biggest mistake of the campaign" and calculates the electoral impact.
"In 2007, the last year for which we have data, according to the Census Bureau, there were 21.7 million businesses in the United States with no employees—meaning they were sole proprietorships, or free-lance businesses employing only their owner. Of the six million remaining businesses in the U.S., more than 3 million had 1 to 4 employees, and 1 million had 5 to 9. So, all in all, small businesses run by one person employing fewer than ten numbered an astonishing 25 million. "This is probably the matter of greatest pride for each and every one of the people who runs that business. He or she views himself or herself as a hard-working, go-getting, scrappy individualist. And it's likely that many of them—many, many of them—are independent voters....
"And a man running for national office just said of their own businesses that they 'didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.' This statement is a colossal opportunity for Mitt Romney and will prove a suppurating wound for the president."
S.E. Cupp describes Obama as an advocate of "collectivism" and pulls out the big guns, quoting the arch-individualist philosopher Ayn Rand:
"Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to 'society,' to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests." Perhaps this is Obama's real blunder: to bury his negative attack on Mitt Romney's tax returns by invoking a sweeping philosophical debate—in which he is portrayed as being opposed to the long cultural tradition of American individualism.
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2. Storytellers
Item #1 above lends a certain irony to Arianna Huffington's argument that "storytelling" is the"secret weapon" of this election. After all, the portrayal of Obama as an anti-individualist is certainly a compelling story.
But she goes on to define what she sees as the essence of the presidency.
"'The nature of this office...is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times.' "That's a spot-on description of one of the key elements missing from the last three-and-a-half years: storytelling."
Gene Healy pours skepticism on this line of argument.
"Anyone else out there for the explanation that a lack of storytelling, explaining, and inspirational speeches was the great sin of the Obama presidency? According to CBS's Mark Knoller, in his first two years in office, the president clocked 902 speeches and statements and gave 265 interviews.... "To be fair, Obama didn't invent the juvenile notion of the president as inspirer in chief. But he has served as its reductio ad absurdum, relentlessly stoking irrational public expectations for presidential salvation, raising hopes that no human institution could possibly fulfill."
In other words, this skepticism applies, not just to Obama, but to Huffington's expansive view of the role of the president.
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3. The Veepstakes: The Chicago Way
After reports that Mitt Romney might name his vice-presidential running mate before the Olympics, the latest news is that he will do so after the Olympics. It does make more sense for him to make the announcement after the Olympics and dominate the news for the two weeks between then and the Republican convention, whereas an announcement this week would guarantee that news coverage would die in about a week as Olympics coverage gears up.
But what really makes sense is for Romney to keep chumming the media waters with leaks and speculation about his vice-presidential pick, keeping attention on the topic and sucking away oxygen from the issues the Obama campaign would like to discuss.
Hence a New York Times profile, seeded with strategically vague insider "leaks," of Romney's vice-presidential search. The focus is on the thoroughness of the vetting process and the caution of the Romney campaign. "Friends and advisers say that after assessing basic qualifications and personal chemistry, Mr. Romney has been guided by a simple principle: do no harm to the ticket." So don't expect any kind of Sarah Palin "Hail Mary" pass this time around.
RCP's Erin McPike runs down Tim Pawlenty's and Rob Portman's foreign policy experience—though it mostly consists of gubernatorial trade missions and congressional junkets.
Alex Altman looks at the case for and against Bobby Jindal, but concludes that "The smart money is still on Romney tapping a boring white guy."
RCP's Tom Bevan suggests someone more burly than boring.
"All three men [Pawlenty, Portman, and Jindal] have various traits to recommend them; each appears qualified to perform the duties of vice president should Romney win in November. What they all lack, however, is what Mitt Romney may need most to counteract The Chicago Way: the kind of conspicuous toughness and natural bellicosity that will be invaluable in fighting back against Obama and his team. At his core, Pawlenty is too 'Minnesota nice'; Jindal is more professor than pugilist; and Portman comes across more like Lassie than Cujo. "But Romney is quite familiar with someone who knows a thing or two about brawling—and has a pretty good record in office as well: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie."
After all, the "Chicago Way" is not too different from the New Jersey Way.
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4. Around the RealClear Universe
There's much more on the main page at RealClearPolitics, and here are some highlights and sidelights from around the RealClear universe.
RealClearMarkets links to John Berlau's answer to President Obama: a history of how Howard Johnson built Obama's favorite hotel chain.
RealClearWorld links to an analysis of the latest power struggle in North Korea, where hard-liners seem to be consolidating control under their new leader.
RealClearTechnology links to the latest report on the revolution in online higher education.
RealClearHistory marks the anniversary of Chappaquiddick by linking to two indictments of Ted Kennedy, from Jeff Jacoby and Carl Cannon.
RealClearReligion links to Anthea Butler's declaration that "I Booed Romney for Jesus."
RealClearBooks links to a review of a book that tries to return to the Ancient Greek philosophical tradition, decrying the shrinking of modern philosophy into hair-splitting technicalities unconnected to life. Connect that back to today's top story, and it just might be true that the best philosophical debates you are likely to encounter these days are in the realm of politics.
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—Robert Tracinski |
