What's Wrong with Obama?

Thomas L. Friedman has a fairly good op-ed in the in NY Times which spells out why people are losing faith in Obama's policies while still liking the guy:

I’ve always believed that Mr. Obama was elected because a majority of Americans fear that we’re becoming a declining great power. Everything from our schools to our energy and transportation systems are falling apart and in need of reinvention and reinvigoration. And what people want most from Washington today is nation-building at home.

Many people, including conservatives, voted for Barack Obama because in their hearts they felt he could pull us all together for that project better than any other candidate. Many are what I’d call “Warren Buffett centrists.” They are not billionaires, but they are people who believe in Mr. Buffett’s saying that whatever he achieved in life was due primarily to the fact that he was born in this country — America — at this time, with all of its advantages and opportunities.

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But to deliver this agenda requires a motivated public and a spirit of shared sacrifice. That’s where narrative becomes vital. People have to have a gut feel for why this nation-building project, with all its varied strands, is so important — why it’s worth the sacrifice. One of the reasons that independents and conservatives who voted for Mr. Obama have been so easily swayed against him by Fox News and people labeling him a “socialist” is because he has not given voice to the truly patriotic nation-building endeavor in which he is engaged.

“Obama’s election marked a shift — from a politics that celebrated privatized concerns to a politics that recognized the need for effective government and larger public purposes. Across the political spectrum, people understood that national renewal requires big ambition, and a better kind of politics,” said the Harvard political theorist Michael Sandel, author of the new best seller — “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” — that calls for elevating our public discourse.

But to deliver on that promise, Sandel added, Obama needs to carry the civic idealism of his campaign into his presidency. He needs a narrative that will get the same voters who elected him to push through his ambitious agenda — against all the forces of inertia and private greed.

“You can’t get nation-building without shared sacrifice,” said Sandel, “and you cannot inspire shared sacrifice without a narrative that appeals to the common good — a narrative that challenges us to be citizens engaged in a common endeavor, not just consumers seeking the best deal for ourselves. Obama needs to energize the prose of his presidency by recapturing the poetry of his campaign.”

Friedman -- actually Michael Sandel -- has put his finger on it. This captures my uneasiness.

Hopefully this message will filter up to Obama and he will do a course correction and start to deliver on the promises of his campaign.

Sure, it looks like health care reform is coming to the US, but it is a weak version of what he promised. Instead of "Change You Can Believe In" Obama has been delivered "Change in Little Bits over a Long Time". He wouldn't have gotten elected on that platform.

When I was kid Kennedy did the "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." That was inspiring, like Obama's campaign oratory. But Kennedy delivered a Vietnam war that had 58,000 Americans dying for misguided policy and hundreds of thousands wounded, not to mention the millions of Vietnamese killed and maimed. That was doing a "lot for your country" but in a wasteful, useless way.

I'm getting the feeling that Obama is going down the same road with commitments in Afghanistan, with his special "relationship" with Wall Street, with his inability to galvanize people for real change. The US needs an injection of "can do" optimism. Reagan did it with "morning in America" but sadly Reagan wasted that opportunity with big tax cuts for the rich and ugly little wars around the world.

Where is a leader with vision who can deliver? I get reminded of the American Civil War where Lincoln wanted a general who could fight, but he kept drawing a list of characters who fell short. The American voting public keeps coming up with candidates who don't deliver.