Obama '84

A new poll shows that 48% of Americans want Obama to run for a second term. In August 1982, only 36% liked the idea of Reagan running again, and 51% thought he should not. These numbers widened to 35% and 57% by February 1983. He still ran, of course, and won by a great margin.

The poll mainly shows the level of partisan division over Obama: 83% of Democrats want him to run, compared to 12% of Republicans (it was 19%-65% for Reagan, respectively). So it certainly implies an easy nomination, but also a need to win over some independents and, if it is at all possible, soften GOP opinion on him, to gain 50%+ approval.

Interestingly, though, and confusing the meaning of the poll, the only two recent presidents to have half or more Americans wanting them to run again were Carter and GHW Bush - who both failed to win reelection.

How an Ordinary Conservative Author Became an Extrordinary Partisan Hack

This is me quietly climbing on the long-passed bandwagon that met Dinesh D'Souza's article in Forbes in September, "How Obama Thinks". The piece, which posited that the president's politics come not from any tradition of American liberalism, but from his father's Kenyan anti-western, anti-colonialism (a theory which the great scholar Newt Gingrich hailed as great scholarship), has since been much fisked for its sloppiness, inaccuracy and insipidness, amongst other things. D'Souza's book, The Roots of Obama's Rage, which the article foreran, has recently been reviewed in the Weekly Standard as "The Roots of Lunacy".

I am less interested in the details of D'Souza's theory than in the style of his interpretation, and how it compares to his treatment of another president. Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader (1997) was D'Souza's first attempt at presidential scholarship, which I credit with being one of the first and best articulations of conservative revisionism of Reagan's presidency. Occasionally slapdash, but livley and engaging, the book sought to redress standard critical interpretations of Reagan from both left and right, elevating him as an American hero and great president who was yet an ordinary, flawed individual.

Reading the Forbes article, I was struck by the odd comparison between the author's two presidential studies. Both follow similar premises - no-one fully understands this leader's character, motives or methods, so I will provide a detached and thorough analysis that will fill in the gaps. The conlcusions are startlingly different. In Reagan's case, the mystery surrounding his presidency is the creation of his critics and their blindness to the effectiveness of his methods and sincerity of his beliefs. It is explained with a study of a character more complex, but ambtions and methods more coherent and straightforward, than have been appreciated. In short, his ordinariness is the answer. In Obama's case, a selection of policy choices and quotes present a mystery of intentions that can only be explained by revealing a secretly harboured but determined commitment to a foreign ideology. Obama must be understood as extraordinary.

D'Souza blames Reagan's critics for a wilful blindness to his successes, and for the invention of fantastic theories to explain his appeal - his confusion of Hollywood with reality, and his theatrical bedazzlement of America. He also provides some instructive comment on the judgement of presidents:

Since many of these pundits disapproved of Reagan's views from the outset, regarding his policies as wrongheaded and destructive, we cannot expect them to applaud his success in enacting his agenda. It is human nature to judge the effectiveness of a leader based on whether we approve of what he put into effect. Incredible resources have been invested by Reagan's opponents since the 1980s to descredit his record, which in a way is a tribute to his legacy.

I fear that The Roots of Obama's Rage will, for future historians, be judged similarly. And another:

A further problem in assessing greatness in leadership is that those who study the subject frequently apply biased, self-interested, or arbitrary criteria that render their evaluations incomplete or suspect.

This brings to mind the expectation, which D'Souza rearticulates, that Obama as president must conform to a standard of "exceptionalism" to lead America. D'Souza has always been a distinctly conservative voice, but where I enjoyed Illiberal Education as good polemic, and appreciated Ronald Reagan as nuanced hagiography, it does seem as if he has lost his self-reflection or mistrust of elaborate, self-serving, unifying theories.

Centering Reagan

The efforts to distance Reagan from contemporary conservatism continue. Cenk Uygur argues clumsily on MSNBC that Obama is more conservative than Reagan was, while Andrew Romano in Newsweek makes a more substantial case for Reagan's moderation, asking "What Would Reagan Really Do?". These are little more than retreads of arguments that have been popping up the past year or two, but it is interesting that the reaction to conservative mythography still has momentum. The question is, when will liberals start believing their own counter-propaganda and start celebrating Reagan as a symbol of moderation, unity and continuity?

Beinart Thinking Again

Peter Beinart has a new piece on conservative myths about Ronald Reagan at Foreign Policy. Much of this treads old ground about Reagan's relative doveishness and caution in the Cold War, in Latin America, and in confronting terrorism - and the dismay he provoked in contemporary conservatives. The most interesting part is on how Obama compares to him, and can learn from him.

Like Reagan, Obama took office in an environment that severely constrains the ability of the United States to launch new military campaigns. For many contemporary conservatives, being a Reagan disciple means acting as if there are no limits to American strength. But the real lessons of Reaganism are about how to wield national power and bolster national pride when your hands are partially tied. That doesn't mean Obama should mimic all of Reagan's policies, some of which were deeply misguided. But Obama can, and should, be Reaganesque in his effort to project great strength at low risk. That means understanding that America's foreign-policy debates are often cultural debates in disguise.

Essentially, Obama should learn the art of symbolic acts which satisfy the national psyche without creating political obligations. Reagan was not always good at this, considering Bitburg, but it was a definitive theme of his presidency. It has been, and will be different for Obama, who is hampered by the extraordinary symbolism of his race. Moreover, his conservative critics lead the discussion on symbolic issues, most recently over his precedented non-attendance at Arlington for Memorial Day, leaving him little room for personal innovation.

Obama vs. Reagan vs. Eisenhower

As you probably know already, we are into the second week of Protect America Month, the four weeks of every year where we contemplate ruination as the Obama administration strips America of its muscle. This is organised by the Heritage Foundation, who adopted the slogan "Resurrecting a Vision of Peace Through Strength" as they launched this year's events. This is an echo of Reagan's argument for high defence spending, and contrasting Reagan and Obama is a theme of the occasion.

Conn Carrol argues that military cuts demonstrate that unlike Reagan, Obama is not an exceptionalist:

So strongly did Reagan believe in American exceptionalism that he often described our country as “this experiment in liberty, this last, best hope of man.” But President Obama disagrees. He sees the United States as just another declining power like Britain or Greece.

This is a canard. Obama has frequently expressed a belief in America's exceptional story and opportunity, and has even, like Reagan, quoted Lincoln on occasion. Exceptionalism, though, has developed recently on the right as a euphemism for nationalism (I has some thoughts on this during the 2008 election). Meanwhile, another Heritage man, Kim Holmes, has suggested that this moment is analogous to the late seventies:

We may well be at that moment again. After Jimmy Carter, we elected Ronald Reagan. He restored not only our belief in America, but our commitment to defense. Conservative principles and traditional American values prevailed then. They can prevail again.

As far as I know, Heritage has not chosen its candidate for 2012, and nor has the Committee on the Present Danger, the defence-oriented think-tank collective who in its last incarnation took Reagan into its ranks and elevated his candidacy with its intellectual weight.

The Secretary of Defence has since come out to defend his cuts from this organised criticism. Attacked by fellow veterans of the Reagan administration such as Ed Meese, who again quoted one of their boss's aphorisms - "no nation ever got into a war because they were too strong" (debatable) - Bob Gates turned instead to Eisenhower to support his position. Speaking at the Eisenhower Presidential Library on VE Day, Gates promoted the war hero and Republican president as a model for austerity:

Eisenhower told his senior defense team that he wanted the Pentagon cut down to a “Spartan basis,” lamenting that “people he had known all his life were asking for more and more.” He went on to say: “I say the patriot today is the fellow who can do the job with less money.”

Time and again, whenever Eisenhower was asked to fund something his response usually took the form of a question: where is the money going to come from, and what will the military cut in its place? The other question was priorities. In a meeting with defense officials earlier in his presidency, Eisenhower said he was troubled by the tendency to “pile program on program” to meet every possible contingency.

Looking back from today’s vantage point, what I find so compelling and instructive was the simple fact that when it came to defense matters, under Eisenhower real choices were made, priorities set, and limits enforced. This became increasingly rare in the decades that followed, despite the best efforts of some of my predecessors and other attempts at reform over the years.

Gates also quoted from Ike's farewell address, which coined the "military-industrial complex" and warned: "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience…We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications." While conservatives reach back to the triumphalism of the Reagan years, the Obama administration recalls the uncertain new paradigms and new choices that America faced in the early Cold War.

Bob Barr: Obama Criminalises Reagan

Bob Barr, a committed Libertarian, has a cranky response to President Obama's recent commencment address at the University of Michigan, where he offered a defence of government in American history.

President Barack Obama extolled the inherent and expansive virtues of all things government, even as he was sharply and pointedly critical of those who criticize government as being “inherently bad.” Such talk, Obama clearly intimated, can lead “extremists” to commit acts of violence.

Had Obama been in a similar position of authority in January 1981, would he have thus accused Ronald Reagan of inciting to violence during his inaugural address? In order to be consistent, Obama would have had to similarly charge his predecessor; and he would have been just as wrong and off-base then as he is in 2010 to blame those who are critical of Big Government for the actions of a small number of criminals who commit acts of violence.

The answer, of course, is "no, he wouldn't". Firstly, Barr's quotation of Reagan is incomplete and misrepresentative, as his summation of Obama's speech. Mickey Edwards argued against similar conservative sloganeering a few months ago:

Reagan, who spent 16 years in government, actually said this: "In the present crisis," referring specifically to the high taxes and high levels of federal spending that had marked the Carter administration, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." He then went on to say: "Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work." Government, he said, "must provide opportunity." He was not rejecting government, he was calling -- as Barack Obama did Tuesday -- for better management of government, for wiser decisions.

Obama on Saturday:

So, class of 2010, what we should be asking is not whether we need 'big government' or a 'small government,' but how we can create a smarter and better government... Government shouldn’t try to guarantee results, but it should guarantee a shot at opportunity for every American who’s willing to work hard.

Secondly, Obama didn't blame critics of big government for the acts of extremists. Instead, he made a point about the need for civility of discourse in US politics - something Reagan is frequently praised for upholding - and the ultimate danger of hyperbole and demonisation by both left and right:

It makes it nearly impossible for people who have legitimate but bridgeable differences to sit down at the same table and hash things out. It robs us of a rational and serious debate, the one we need to have about the very real and very big challenges facing this nation. It coarsens our culture, and at its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response.

So, no, Bob Barr, Obama didn't just call Reagan a terrorist, he echoed his rhetoric and asked Americans to do the same.

Reagan and Obama in the Approval-o-Meter

A poll-watcher has been noticing the similar trend of Obama's and Reagan's approval ratings in their first months in office. A result of familiar economic conditions and comparably ambitious agendas, the two both score relatively low compared to other modern presidents.

Their opening positions are quite different; Obama's honeymoon was immediate and historically ordained, while Reagan's more gradual. His early peak probably relates to his survival of an assassination attempt.

The End of the Age of Reagan

Reagan has been an occasional reference during the healthcare debate. Conservatives flooded Youtube with his attacks on socialised medicine from the early sixties. Democrats, in using reconciliation to push through the bill, turned to a tactic first tried by Republicans to realise Reagan's early tax and spending cuts.

Now that Obama's healthcare reform has become law, the word is that the Age of Reagan is over. David Leonhardt describes the Reagan era as three decades of rising wealth inequality, and the healthcare bill the first piece of legislation that reverts the trajectory Reagan pursued. Rush Limbaugh despairs at the Age's passing:

In the early eighties I earned less than I ever had in my life and I still loved Ronald Reagan and I still loved what was going on. Americans loved their country. We had come off of four years of utter disaster called Jimmy Carter, and we now have Jimmy Carter's second term, only worse. Carter was a bumbling idiot but I don't think he really despised the country. We're being led by people that don't like this country or at least they've been raised not to like it.

At Hot Air, J.E. Dyer challenges Leonhardt's definition of the Reagan era, arguing that the trends he points to stem from the regulatory legislation of the 1970s.

Meanwhile, a dual image of Reagan has been evoked in the New York Times in response to the anger of the Tea Party. Timothy Egan cannot imagine the Gipper amongst the protestors or engaging in the frantic, aggressive rhetoric of the GOP: "Reagan was all about sunny optimism, and at times bipartisan bonhomie. In him, the American people saw their better half." Paul Krugman disagrees: "For today’s G.O.P. is, fully and finally, the party of Ronald Reagan — not Reagan the pragmatic politician, who could and did strike deals with Democrats, but Reagan the antigovernment fanatic, who warned that Medicare would destroy American freedom."

The Age of Reagan might persevere as long as it is understood as a movement of resistance, as long as he is seen as a figure of opposition, rather than government.

What Reagan can do for Obama

President Obama's current woes might be lifted, would he only learn from the Gipper. In the New Republic, John B. Judis suggests that the White House follow Reagan's strategy for the 1982 midterms. This argument for more coherent and effective (and negative) communication is echoed by Elanor Clift in Newsweek.

Obama, though, appears to have renounced Reagan-esque communication, favouring the verbal over the visual. Though a reaction to the blithe triumphalism of the Bush presidency, the White House's decision to avoid staged performance amounts to a rejection of the presidential image that was defined in the eighties. Director of communications Dan Pfeiffer explains: "We don’t want to participate in the artifice of politics that have turned so many people off. Great images are important but they should be believable to people who did not study at the knee of Michael Deaver." The aura of illusion, fantasy and falsehood that Reagan brought to the presidency must be purged, even if it means sacrificing the magic and mystique. Given the style of Obama's campaign, though, this abstinence from glamourous pseudo-events seems more like penitent self-denial than principled reform of the presidency.