Barack Obama and the 'Boldness' Question THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

[Demeter]

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/carpenter/236



Yesterday I voiced some displeasure with Rahm Emanuel and what I felt was his unnecessary coyness on ABC's "This Week" -- a criticism which, I'm sure, caused him no minor loss of sleep -- but he did venture one opinion that was both profoundly true and worthy of forceful statement again and again.
Our present economic crisis, said Emanuel, is actually an "opportunity … to do things that Americans have pushed off for years."

The backlogged list is a long and challenging one, from structuring accessible healthcare to launching educational reform beyond sloganeering, from the job-creating development of new energy sources to retooling our automobile industry. In brief, however, what's needed is a fundamental remodeling of government as an invisible helping hand for the swelling ranks of the have nots, rather than a continuation of government as the upward redistributionist arm for George Bush's base, the already haves...In relation to this question and knowing that the president-elect is a student of history, E.J. Dionne recently wrote that Obama "can spend most of his time fretting warily about the shortcomings of past presidents and how to avoid their errors. Or he can think hopefully about truly successful presidents and how their daring changed the country."

In these troubled economic times the most relevant model of presidential success -- and I would, perhaps unlike Paul Krugman, label it a valid model of "daring" as well -- is FDR's New Deal. Krugman did have a point, however, when on Monday he wrote that "the New Deal wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run. And the reason for FDR’s limited short-run success, which almost undid his whole program, was the fact that his economic policies were too cautious."

By today's standards, about that there is no doubt. But inherent in Krugman's analysis is what historians call "presentism" -- the unfortunate tendency of observers to apply contemporary knowledge and understanding to times past. And as a student of the sociopolitical environment of the 1930s, I can assure economist Krugman that what FDR attempted was seen by card-carrying members of the ancien régime as anything but "cautious." Indeed, that "socialist" in the White House set their hair on fire. His newfangled fiscal policies were not merely unsoundly adventurous, they were menacingly radical and downright unAmerican. Now it's true that FDR was, at heart, a fiscal conservative, and it's also true that he rejected more aggressive appeals from the far left of his party. But several layers beneath FDR's fiscal conservatism was his most characteristic trait -- that of overarching pragmatism. He attempted, in other words, only the realistically attempt-able, and he therefore accomplished only the politically accomplishable.

Yet given the presidential history that preceded FDR -- it's all about context -- his economic management was far from cautious... No matter how critically economic presentists view the New Deal's limited successes today, FDR's determination to save America's traditional foundations while creating an entirely new socioeconomic class -- the one now in the middle, and struggling -- were about as "bold" as bold could get.

FDR fought to achieve what no previous president would have even considered. Not for a D.C. minute. So as Obama studies and ponders the past, he can also, as Mr. Dionne recommended, "think hopefully about truly successful presidents and how their daring changed the country."