The failed presidency of Barack Obama

[Karmadillo]

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-07-22-the-failed-presidency-of-barack-obama/

The failed presidency of Barack Obama
by Joseph Romm
22 Jul 2010 11:08 AM

... the disaster in the Gulf should have been a critical turning point for global warming. Handled correctly, the BP spill should have been to climate legislation what September 11th was to the Patriot Act, or the financial collapse was to the bank bailout. Disasters drive sweeping legislation, and precedent was on the side of a great leap forward in environmental progress. In 1969, an oil spill in Santa Barbara, Calif. -- of only 100,000 barrels, less than the two-day output of the BP gusher -- prompted Richard Nixon to create the EPA and sign the Clean Air Act.

But the Obama administration let the opportunity slip away ...

That's from a must-read Rolling Stone obit "Climate Bill, R.I.P." excerpted below.

As I've said many times, Obama's legacy -- and indeed the legacy of all 21st century presidents, starting with George W. Bush -- will be determined primarily by whether we avert catastrophic climate change. If not, then Obama -- and all of us -- will be seen as a failure, and rightfully so.

<edit>

Top environmental groups, including Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, are openly clashing with the administration, demanding that Obama provide more hands-on leadership to secure a meaningful climate bill. "We really need the president to take the lead and tell us what bill he's going to support," says Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund. "If he doesn't do that, then everything he's done so far will lead to nothing."

But Obama, so far, has shown no urgency on the issue, and little willingness to lead -- despite a June poll showing that 76 percent of Americans

<edit>

The question I've been asked most often by people in California is why has Obama walked on this issue.

more...

[NJmaverick]

1. He's not mopping fast enough!

[Bobbie Jo]

11. !

:rofl:

[DevonRex]

13. *snort*

[HughMoran]

29. BWAHHHHHHHHHHhHAHAHAHAH HHHHHHHHHHhHAHAHAHAH

:rofl:

[Karmadillo]

35. BWAHHHHHHHHHHhHAHAHAHAH HHHHHHHHHHhHAHAHAHAH

:fistbump:

[azmouse]

51. At a loss for words, eh?

[Karmadillo]

54. At a loss for words, eh?

nt

[CTLawGuy]

48. +1

NT

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Arkana]

66. I want a feast!

I want a bean feast!

[MineralMan]

2. Unrecced for single-issue doom-saying.

That is all.

[Orsino]

18. Single issue?

I would say that it's an over-arching issue, with ramifications for every other one. Civilization's doom is assured, if we continue to ignore it.

If you're going to unrec, let it be for the OP's implication that the already-assured doom is the fault of one of the last presidents before the fall. Obama simply bears the greatest share of responsibility now--though future history texts scrawled onto cave walls may remember his name above most others.

[Karmadillo]

36. You make a good point.

Obama is only the latest in a line of presidents who've failed to address the issue, and, to be fair, he's had less time than any of them. It is painful, though, to read the Rolling Stone article and see how he failed to take advantage of a sterling opportunity to address it. And, as Bob Herbert pointed out, the Democrats had a mandate for change unlike anything we've seen in quite awhile, and that has, more or less, been wasted. Bailing out bankers & pushing the war in Afghanistan isn't going to get them much good word in the future. Addressing global warming and creating the infrastructure to take us away from the catastrophic path we're clinging to like crazy would have gotten them a ton of gratitude.

[napi21]

3. Oh horse droppings! Everybody wants him to be a male Samantha

and wiggle his nose to make everything OK again. Well, that would be WONDEFUL but it only happens on TV! Think about the BIG THINGS he has gotten done under the clouds of NO Pub help and in the face of the worst group of problems faced b any President since FDR!

[Bluebear]

5. Well, I will say "the male Samantha" is a new twist on "everyone wants him to have a magic wand!"

:cry:

[jgraz]

12. Maybe Dr. Bombay can help us out.

:shrug:

[Ignis]

42. What would a male Samantha wiggle?

[tridim]

4. In Joseph Romm's world, you get 18 months to solve every major problem.

After that, no matter the scope of the problem, and regardless of the fact that dozens of other problems have already been solved, Joseph Romm considers you a failure.

Since Joseph Romm is obviously infallible and has a 100% record of perfection solving major problems, I assume he'll be running against Obama in 2012.

Good luck, idiot.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. " what September 11th was to the Patriot Act"

"the financial collapse was to the bank bailout."

I do not think I want climate legislation that is the equivalent of the Patriot Act or the bank bailout.
In fact, thank god we did not get such legislation.

The point of the article got very entangled in bad comparisons.
The oil-cano and resultant eco-cide which could have led to very positive environmental laws, did not.
However, it did show the world who was running the government.

[derby378]

40. Tony wants his life back - fuck the Gulf

We mere mortals can go fish for shrimp somewhere else - if we have the gas to get there. And who's got the gas? Uncle Tony, that's who!

Ye Gods.

[azmouse]

7. Unrecc'd for pure bullshit.

[lillypaddle]

8. My pleasure to unrec

[Cary]

9. But those who complain have urgency and lots of willingness to lead.

Talk is cheap. Mopery is cheap. Being a bagger of any stripe is cheap.

[HipChick]

10. Unrec'd..must be the daily-bash-the-president time...yawn..

[JuniperLea]

17. +1

[HughMoran]

27. +2

[joeybee12]

14. I've rec'ed, but apparently not many people want to hear the truth...n/t

[HughMoran]

25. We're not all hate-filled

[uppityperson]

37. Try here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=125

[Karmadillo]

56. Thanks. Given the consequences of global warming, it's hard to imagine why we

would want to give anyone, Democrat or Republican or Green or whatever, a pass.

[ProSense]

15. If you read the update to this at Romm's site, you will see he overreacted

The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 1

Rolling Stone: "Instead of taking the fight to big polluters, President Obama has put global warming on the back burner"

<...>

Obama is the first president in history to articulate in stark terms both the why and how of the sustainable clean energy vision. Last April, he said, “The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline.” In October, he said at MIT, “There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy — when it’s the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs.”

Pretty (harsh) words. But the question now is whether he really believed what he said. On the one hand, he made bigger investments in clean energy than all of his predecessors combined and put into place fuel economy standards that represent the biggest greenhouse gas reductions in US history and his EPA has declared carbon dioxide a pollutant that must be regulated because it endangers public health and he personally intervened to stop the Chinese from making Copenhagen a total failure. These are major achievements that under any other circumstances would make Obama the greenest president in US history.

<...>

UPDATE: For the sake of completeness and so as not to be misunderstood by those who aren’t regular readers and didn’t see my June 30 post (”Republicans demagogue against market-oriented climate measures they once supported“), most of the blame should go to the anti-science, pro-pollution ideologues. They have spread disinformation and poisoned the debate so that is no longer even recognizable. Who could have guessed just a couple of years ago, that the GOP champion of climate action would now trash a bill considerably weaker than the one he tried to pass twice? (see Rolling Stone on “The Climate Killers: 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb the climate catastrophe.”)

And if you are keeping score at home in the blame game, the media is the second most culpable group for their generally enabling coverage — see Must-read (again) study: How the press bungles its coverage of climate economics — “The media’s decision to play the stenographer role helped opponents of climate action stifle progress.” along with And the 2009 “Citizen Kane” award for non-excellence in climate journalism goes to …

Those two groups deserve about 90% of the blame (60-30?), I think (assuming that we assume the 60 vote antidemocratic super majority requirement is unchangeable). The other 10% goes to Obama and his team (along with Senate Democrats, scientists, environmentalists, and progressives) — and let’s not forget the “Think Small” centrists who also helped shrink the political space in the debate (see “Michael Lind of the New America Foundation misinforms on both climate science and clean energy“).

<...>

Let's see: "The failed Presidency" of likely "the greenest president in US history" who shares 10 percent of the blame for the bills death (delay).

Obviously before the update, the post was an overreaction.

[Karmadillo]

38. Thanks for posting this. I assume

most people at DU know the degree to which the Republicans are culpable for failing to address the issue. As Romm assumed in version one of his article, nobody counts on them to do the right thing here. It's the Democrats who talk the global warming talk. The Rolling Stone article does a good job of pointing out that the Obama administration knows better. If ever there was an administration that could have successfully taken this issue on and could have maybe saved our posterity a heap of trouble, it was this one. Instead of fighting and leading on the issue, it chose not to.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/183346?RS_show_page=2

<edit>

But the Obama administration let the opportunity slip away. On June 15th, the president – a communicator whom even top Republican operatives rank above Reagan – sat at his desk to deliver his first address to the nation from the Oval Office. It was a terrible, teachable moment, one in which he could have connected the dots between the oil spewing into the Gulf and the planet-killing CO2 we spew every day into the atmosphere. But Obama never even mentioned the words "carbon" or "emissions" or "greenhouse" – not even the word "pollution." The president's sole mention of "climate" came in a glancing description of the "comprehensive energy and climate bill" that the House passed. In a moment that cried out for direction-setting from the nation's chief executive, Obama brought no concrete ideas to the table. Restating the need to break our addiction to fossil fuels, he stared at the camera and confessed that "we don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there." He didn't challenge Americans to examine their own energy habits. He didn't rally his fellow Democrats into a fight with the Republican Party of "Smokey" Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who later apologized to BP. Far from offering a clarion call for action, Obama said, meekly, that he would listen to give senators from both parties a "fair hearing in the months ahead." Then he asked us to pray.

Climate advocates were stunned. "That speech wasn't anything different than Bush gave in an energy address," says Pica. "There was nothing new about climate and energy – it didn't move the debate forward. If he was going to recycle the same old talking points, maybe he should have just let Robert Gibbs give a little talk about it to the press corps."

In the aftermath of Obama's speech, environmental advocates seemed to wake up to the idea that the president doesn't have the spine for this fight. Al Gore tried to sound the call to action that Obama failed to deliver: "Placing a limit on global-warming pollution and accelerating the deployment of clean energy technologies is the only truly effective long-term solution to this crisis," Gore said. "Now it is time for the Senate to act. In the midst of the greatest environmental disaster in our history, there is no excuse to do otherwise."

But the president never picked up on the calls for action. Fed up, nine high-profile environmental groups – including Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists – wrote a scathing open letter to the White House, pleading with Obama not to fumble away this opportunity. "A rapidly growing number of our millions of active members are deeply frustrated at the inability of the Senate and your administration to act in the face of an overwhelming disaster in the Gulf, and the danger to our nation and world," the letter warned. "The Senate needs your help to end this paralysis. With the window of opportunity quickly closing, nothing less than your direct personal involvement, and that of senior administration officials, can secure America's clean-energy future."

[SoxFan]

16. Yawn

[AnArmyVeteran]

19. Funny photo!

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DevonRex]

21. "Do not post broad-brush smears against Democrats or the Democratic Party. "

Saying that this is a failed presidency is a pretty broad-brush smear. It is also unconstructive criticism.

[Karmadillo]

39. If you read the article & the Rolling Stone piece,

you'll see why the author used that title. The criticism, inasmuch as it would lead the administration to a much, much better course of action on global warming (addressing it head on instead of walking away), is incredibly constructive, regardless of whether or not you agree with it.

[DevonRex]

47. Pity they shot themselves in teh foot with that title, don't you think?

Or, perhaps you simply delighted in using that title? Because, really, you could have led with any title of your choosing, one that actually was more constructive, say.

[Karmadillo]

49. Again, you don't address much other than me & the title. There's probably

more substance in the OP and the Rolling Stone article, but as you note below, it all just makes you laugh and laugh. I guess I don't find global warming and what it will do to the planet and our children all that funny.

[DevonRex]

59. But that title is only meant to draw in people that aren't repulsed by that notion.

Believe it or not, there ARE people who would be repulsed by it and for a number of reasons - one of which is plain old fairness.

You're obviously a smart person. I have respect for that since I abhor stupidity. I also have respect for many of your views. I also agree with many of your views. Because you ARE a smart person, you have to know that when you post a title like that, you will wind up preaching to the choir.

When I see a title like that I tend to doubt any facts that might be contained within the article itself. It's a huge red flag. If the facts and conclusions (title nonwithstanding) are correct, then the title does the article a huge disservice and therefore does the potential readers a huge disservice.

As for laughing and laughing and laughing - the title deserves nothing better. You chose to lead with it rather than something less divisive that would draw DUers in and actually educate DUers on a serious subject. Choices have consequences.

[Karmadillo]

60. Thank you for your reply, but

it seems pretty clear the author feels global warming is so important that the failure of any administration to deal with it effectively makes that administration a failure. One doesn't have to agree, and obviously many don't, but the position is made clear in the article. And it's not like the author is insane. He's obviously a pretty smart guy and global warming is obviously (and for the sake of discussion maybe I should say arguably) the most important issue facing the planet. It seems reasonable to get pretty worked up about it. If one disagrees, it would seem one could address it with a reasonable comment, e.g. "Given the obstacles the Obama administration faces, it's understandable etc etc etc). Other posters might conclude the author has a point. The result might be a good discussion, not a bad thing, since, as paulk notes above, DU is (or was) a discussion board. I honestly don't understand why the people who felt the need to try to trash the thread wasted their time. If they have no interest in the topic, why try to impede discussion? Their behavior is simply embarrassing, and DU has lost more than its fair share of good, intelligent posters in recent months, in part because of that kind of behavior. I just don't see how it helps anything.

Again, I appreciate your taking the time to write out a thoughtful comment. I disagree, inasmuch as I think the title is pretty reasonable and I think Obama should have used the oil spill as a global warming Manhattan Project/New Deal/Whatever moment. We need leadership on this and I don't think is unreasonable to say we didn't get it with that speech. It was, as the OP & the RS article note, a lost opportunity. Given the consensus in the scientific community and the scope of the salvaging efforts before us, I just don't see where we have time for that.

[paulk]

22. I wouldn't call his a "failed presidency"

But Romm has it right that Obama really hasn't led on this issue

"A comprehensive energy and climate bill -- the centerpiece of President Obama's environmental agenda -- is officially dead. Take it from the president's own climate czar, Carol Browner. "What is abundantly clear," she told Rolling Stone in an exclusive interview on July 8th, "is that an economy-wide program, which the president has talked about for years now, is not doable in the Senate."

But the failure to confront global warming -- central not only to Obama's presidency but to the planet itself -- is not the Senate's alone. Rather than press forward with a climate bill in the Senate last summer, after the House had passed landmark legislation to curb carbon pollution, the administration repeated many of the same mistakes it made in pushing for health care reform. It refused to lay out its own plan, allowing the Senate to bicker endlessly over the details. It pursued a "stealth strategy" of backroom negotiations, supporting huge new subsidies to win over big polluters. It allowed opponents to use scare phrases like "cap and tax" to hijack public debate. And most galling of all, it has failed to use the gravest environmental disaster in the nation's history to push through a climate bill -- to argue that fossil-fuel polluters should pay for the damage they are doing to the atmosphere, just as BP will be forced to pay for the damage it has done to the Gulf.

Top environmental groups, including Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, are openly clashing with the administration, demanding that Obama provide more hands-on leadership to secure a meaningful climate bill. "We really need the president to take the lead and tell us what bill he's going to support," says Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund. "If he doesn't do that, then everything he's done so far will lead to nothing."

But Obama, so far, has shown no urgency on the issue, and little willingness to lead -- despite a June poll showing that 76 percent of Americans believe the government should limit climate pollution.

The question I've been asked most often by people in California is why has Obama walked on this issue.

I have discussed this in previous posts, especially "The unbearable lameness of being (Rahm and Axelrod)," and I'll be coming back to it again in future posts since I'm quite sure it is going to be a great puzzle to future historians in the hothouse, who will not at all be interested in the story of healthcare reform or financial services reform or the deficit or the war in Afghanistan or all those other issues that Obama and his team think will determine his legacy."



I posted more of the article for those that might actually be interested in discussing the article - I mean, DU actually used to be a discussion board...

[Karmadillo]

41. Thank you for your comment. I can remember when I would come home from work/school and look forward

to reading DU. There were incredibly bright people posting comments they had obviously put some thought into. It could get combative, but there was an underlying commitment to actually discuss the issues, even if you happened to disagree with the posters discussing them with you. It's sad how far we've come from those days.

[Balbus]

44. Yeah, just the word "failure" works for me.

[treestar]

23. He's not even halfway through

And already did so many things. Unrec.

[Biker13]

24. Rec

[HughMoran]

26. Unrec

I'm not a Republican.

[BootinUp]

30. lol

a hilarious thread.

[Ignis]

45. Wow, how many votes do you get?

We mere mortals only get one apiece. :(

[HughMoran]

28. Unrec - teh stupid - it bruns

[DevonRex]

32. Nah, it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh!

:rofl:

[DevonRex]

31. I unrecced it too!

Yay!

[MilesColtrane]

33. Joseph Romm would have declared Roosevelt a failed president after Pearl Harbor.

...for clearly he had lost the war.

[derby378]

43. Ouch!

I've gotta give you props on that response - well done. :toast:

[MikeNY]

55. Barack Obama is definately not FDR n/t

[Sheepshank]

34. One unrec from me

damned if he acts like a dictator.....damned if he allows BP to do their own mopping....damned if Obama sets up a trust fund....damned if he uses this circumstance to press climate control, knowing all the Reps will use this as an "I told you so". Damned that he does decide it's good policy to fight tooth and nail with the Reps rather than letting these consequences pay out against the Reps. Damn!

As for the last line, "...why has Obama walked on this issue." I'm not even sure what this means> is there someone who can translate with tangible verifiable examples?

[G_j]

46. provocative title

myself, I felt that way when all the war criminals were held accountable for nothing. That alone has hurt human rights across the planet. We look to a future of less accountability across the table. We haven't taken the high ground and we hold no moral authority. To let crimes against humanity go unpunished, and unrecognized, is another crime against humanity and the future of all earth's children.
So, I saw that as serious irreconcilable failure.

The environment is one of the few issues as "overarching" as someone said above. To call it a "single issue" is like telling someone not to worry when their house in on fire. My ideal leader would be a fiery bull on the environment/climate. I haven't read the article, but I have been disappointed in Obama's appointment of Ken Salazar at the EPA and a number of related issues.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

50. Oh my

This thread should end well..............I mean, with a title like THAT
:popcorn:

[Hekate]

53. Pass the butter

:popcorn:

[flvegan]

52. I have to give you a lot of credit.

Even I, known for being a bit over the top, would not have posted this considering the audience here. When I saw that article a day or so ago, I thought about posting it here. But then, I said to myself...nah.

You have my admiration, friend.

[Karmadillo]

62. LOL. Thanks. It is a pretty good article. It kills me that we aren't addressing

global warming/alternative energy with the kind of determination it requires. I wish we could make Bill McKibben dictator for a couple of years.

[blindpig]

57. Failed? Don't think so.

Failed in the perception of those who had 'hoped' for a reversal of the reactionary trend which every administration has followed for the past 30 years, yep.

This administration is doing what it was designed to do, throwing us directly back into the Gilded Age, the privatization of everything.

[lonestarnot]

61. And what do you expect from Cinderella?

[Coastal Skies]

63. RE: Failed Presidency

I for one see no failure here at Mr. Obama's level.
What I do see is a general lack of awareness of how critical our situation is and a total lack of support by one another to help out. When was the last time you helped someone for free? I watch 2 kids two days a week for free so my neighbor can go to work and not loose there house.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

64. This takes a special kind of stupid.

Like, 9-11 truther stupid.

[jah the baptist]

65. obama is worse than hitler and eats babies nt

[Arkana]

67. This is horseshit--less than halfway through his first term

and the left is declaring him an abject failure. Want to know why Republicans have ruled the landscape for the last 30 years? This is why.

[jah the baptist]

68. ooops wrong place

[SidDithers]

69. Error: you can only (un)recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours...

Unfortunately, I missed this POS yesterday.

Sid