The Top Seven Problems for the President, Image Division

I saw John Harris' Politico article on the seven stories Obama doesn't want told, and thought it was a good summary of the emerging image problems for the Administration. Marc Ambinder, in what Andrew Sullivan termed a "careful takedown", responds here. He first summarizes Harris' points...

In rough order, they are:

1. Obama is spending too much and doesn't seem to care about it.

2. Obama is too cool for school -- too Spocklike -- unable to make Clintonian emotional connections on key issues.

3. Obama's political team is insular and mean; Chicago-style brawlers.

4. Obama doesn't push hard enough; he doesn't follow through; he takes the path of least resistance on everything.

5. Americans want their POTUS to be an exceptionalist, and Obama ain't an exceptionalist.

6. Obama defers to Democrats in Congress too much.

7. Obama is too arrogant.

True, some of these (admittedly contradictory) narratives play out on cable news, and in the political trade press. What Harris does not tell us whether any of the narratives ring true -- whether the perceptions are fair -- whether the press is responsible for developing them. Let's try and take each narrative on its own terms.

1. Obama and spending: Harris teases out a good political question, which is whether the president's '10 emphasis on fiscal restraint will further depress Democrats and, by virtue of the austerity transitive effect, make Americans feel more pain. Left out of this question is whether Obama is actually responsible for the spending; the complex interplay between the Fed's balance sheet and domestic purse strings; the stabilizing effect of the stimulus; an evaluation of whether people who say they're frustrated about the deficit actually care about the deficit (and aren't simply using the deficit as a proxy for ideological objections.). Still, Harris is right about the salience of this narrative for independents.

2. This is a McLaughlin-group meta-narrative that has no resonance beyond Nebraska Avenue NW.

3. This narrative comes from conservative activists only -- and it has resonance among conservative activists only. It's fairly transparently silly.

4. I hear this from liberal elites, but his doggedness in the health care fight and his uncompromising delay in announcing his Afghanistan decision sort of belies this narrative factually. The scope of the coming changes to our health care system are enormous; Obama's poking Congress in the eye by bringing emissions targets to Copenhagen. On Afghanistan, he's not taking the path of least resistance, at least politically. Same goes for trying the 9/11 conspiracists in federal court. GTMO is well on its way to being closed -- if it had not been for the administration's follow through, GTMO would still be open in 2012 -- a virtual impossibility right now. That might not be the best course, policy-wise, but it's Obama's course, and he's pursuing it as aggressively as the law and diplomacy will allow.

5. Another conservative meta-narrative, one that resonates among the Cheneyites in the GOP. It is rejected by most of Washington, and it seems to have been rejected by most non-conservative Americans. Not sure what Obama's foreign policy narrative actually is just yet..and how it all hangs together... but trying to foist this historicist framework on it doesn't seem to tell us much.

6. Republicans will run in 2010 on this perception. Whether Obama defers to the Pelosi Congress "too much" is a question that cannot be evaluated without deciding whether (a) the Pelosi Congress is united about important questions and (b) whether their policies are correct. This is more of a question than a narrative at this point. It's also standard-Denny's-restaurant fare for politics.

7. This one doesn't bother me as it might bother others who bemoan the presence of characterological analysis in politics. It does matter how Obama comes off -- whether he plays as president -- whether his style intersects with the times. This narrative is different than narrative number 2 in that the question is not whether a president is overexposed, it's how the president decides to expose himself: what he says, and whether he follows through. This is a character question, and one that, rightly, will be debated over the next three years.

I won't quibble too much with whether the summary is right or wrong, but is this really what constitutes a takedown?

Going point by point...

1. I don't think Ambinder refutes any of the argument about Obama's seeming indifference to the deficit. If anything, the White House seems to be willing to acknowledge this problem, since they're reportedly ready to focus on deficit reduction. But my favorite part of this line of argument is whether Obama is "actually responsible for the spending." What, is the Hamburgler breaking into the White House each night and taking away cash? He's the one who decided that a stimulus was necessary to combat the recession, and endorsed the form of stimulus. He was in Congress when the first round of bailouts occurred, and supported the strategy. He pushed for the auto bailout. He's pushing for a health care plan that, depending on whether you believe fairy tales or reality, will likely add to the deficit.

2. "[A] McLaughlin-group meta-narrative that has no resonance beyond Nebraska Avenue NW." How does Ambinder know this to be the case? Hell, Sullivan appears to agree with this criticism when he says, "If I were to isolate one weakness, I'd say that Obama's inability to relate emotionally to his supporters since being elected is the most obvious." I don't know if it's true or not, but Noonan made a decent case for it last week, when she wondered who really loved Barack Obama. I'm fine with Presidents who don't make an emotional connection with the audience, but most Americans like their leader to have empathy and sympathy at the right times. I'm not sure if Obama falls way short of what's needed, but he's not remotely in Clinton's or Reagan's league, and is way behind even W.

3. Yes, a good way to address a narrative is to dismiss it as being attractive only to the opposition... while never denying that it's true. Maybe this has resonance only among conservative activists... or maybe this same type of complaint is starting to come from moderate Dems on Capitol Hill. I'm not sure why its "fairly transparently silly" when people acknowledge that Rahm Emanual is a tough-as-nails political operative. Is it wrong to say that a White House that attacks Fox News as "illegitimate" isn't playing hardball?

4. I'm not sure this one is accurate, but I'm not sure it is an unfair critique, either. I think pushover isn't the issue -- it's the inability or unwillingness to make hard decisions that strikes me as the real issue here. The critique also depends on one's point of view. Maybe this is an issue for liberals, but you'd have to ask them. I will say that Ambinder seems awfully confident that all these grand plans of Obama's will actually go through, although the bar seems lower than it was; instead of thinking a cap and trade bill will pass, Obama is poking Congress in the eye by bringing emissions targets to Copenhagen? Wow, color me impressed, tough guy.

5. I don't think this is a conservative meta-narrative -- I think it's true. I don't think it actually resonates with the American people, because they're concerned with other problems. But the shoe seems to fit. And the seemingly directionless foreign policy of the Administration referenced by Ambinder doesn't help.

6. I largely agree, although I'd note that the President's deference to Congress is also reality -- this was part of his strategy on the stimulus, health care, and cap and trade. On all of these bills, he deferred to Congress on details, weighing in only when absolutely necessary. I don't think this was a good idea, but the proof will be in the election results.

7. I think Ambinder would have probably said the line about "how the President decides to expose himself" differently if we were dealing with Bill Clinton. With that joke out of the way, I'm pretty sure Obama is arrogant, but most politicians are, and that's probably a good thing. A healthy self-image would take a beating in that job, and an overly infalted sense of self will probably be helpful at times. The real problem is when that tendency toward vanity (a) leads to an insular mentality where you're right and your critics are idiots (not sure if this is an issue for Obama moreso than it is for any Chief Executive), and (b) convinces you to think that you can sell anything, leading to overexposure and too much familiarity by the public. The latter is a problem for Obama -- the public is less likely to buy what he's saying if they hear it too often.

Sullivan seems to think that the large number of "scattershot" points shows the weakness of critics attacking Obama. Really? His list of inconsistencies is strange...

The right wants to argue both that Obama is a mean-ass Chicago pol and a push-over. They want to argue both that he's a socialist control freak and that the real power in Washington is Nancy Pelosi. They want to attack him as weak abroad and yet they support his Afghan surge and his attempt to rally the world to place sanctions on Iran. The inconsistencies are legion, because, I suspect, Obama's enemies have yet to get a single, compelling narrative that rings true. They didn't manage it in the campaign and they have not managed it since. He's too big and interesting a figure to be caricatured that way. The cartoonists and the comics have the same problem. He eludes them, as complicated adults often do.

Is the right really arguing that he's a pushover on domestic policy? If that's coming fromt he left, as I think it is, then it's a matter of perception from each side. Maybe they're both wrong, but neither Ambinder nor Sullivan make a compelling case for why they're wrong. As for the silly line about him being a "socialist control freak" while the real power is Nancy Pelosi... is there any point in Harris' article where he cites the "control freak" idea? Maybe the right makes this argument, but I hear "socialist" far more than control freak -- Obama may not care who in government has control, as long as it is government that has the control.

And as to the last point... yes, that's why eludes comics -- he's too interesting. I'm sure that's why SNL hasn't been mocking him... whoops.

Maybe the fact that there's seven pretty decent lines of critique tells us that there's a large number of problems the Administration needs to deal with, at least in terms of perception. Or maybe we should just check the declining poll numbers to determine that.