We have all been cautioned against hoping too much of President Obama. But what of our legislators? Last time I checked, we still had -- at least on paper -- three branches of government.
In this month's issue of Harper's, Kevin Baker writes that "[i]t is impossible not to wish desperately for [Obama's] success as he tries to grapple with all that confronts him." However, Baker predicts that Obama, like Herbert Hoover, will be unable to "radically alter his thinking" as he must to find viable solutions to those problems that confront us, helpfully listed in part as: "worldwide depression, catastrophic climate change, an unjust and inadequate health-care system, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ongoing disgrace of Guantanamo, a floundering education system." Baker acknowledges that it is "not too late for [Obama] to change direction and seize the radical moment at hand," but worries that necessary action will be forestalled by our cool as a cucumber president's penchant for prudence, common sense, and reasonableness.
Baker then goes on to reserve his harshest words for those of Obama's own party who have lacked the courage and political will to rise to the occasion:
One might have assumed that the adrenaline rush of regaining power after decades of conservative hegemony, not to mention relief at surviving the depredations of the Bush years, or losing the vestigial tail of the white Southern branch of the party, would have liberated congressional Democrats to loose a burst of pent-up, imaginative liberal initiatives.Instead, we have seen a parade of aged satraps from vast, windy places stepping forward to tell us what is off the table. Every week, there is another Max Baucus of Montana, another Kent Conrad of North Dakota, another Ben Nelson of Nebraska, huffing and puffing and harrumphing that we had better forget about single-payer health care, a carbon tax, nationalizing the banks, funding for mass transit, closing tax loopholes for the rich. These are men with tiny constituencies who sat for decades in the Senate without doing or saying anything of note, who acquiesced shamelessly to the worst abuses of the Bush Administration and who come forward now to chide the president for not concentrating enough on reducing the budget deficit, or for "trying to do too much," as if he were as old and as indolent as they are.
Reading Baker's piece reminded me of another story I recently read. In the midst of California's ongoing budget crisis last month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sent to State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg a metal sculpture of bull testicles, evidently as a suggestion that Steinberg find the fortitude to close the budget deficit. (Unamused, Steinberg returned the gift.) Perhaps what Obama needs is indeed -- as Baker only vaguely and not particularly helpfully sketches out -- a radical streak. But perhaps what Obama's fellows Democrats need are their very own bull testicle sculptures, so as to inspire in them the fortitude to fucking shut up and step up.
What say you? Shall we take up a collection box?