Wednesday’s column by Maureen Dowd, eviscerating President Obama for his shabby treatment of former White House Counsel Greg Craig and supporter Caroline Kennedy, is getting favorable responses from his supporters in the blogosphere.

Only a year after he had helped Barack Obama get elected by eviscerating his close friend, Clinton White House colleague and Yale Law School classmate, Hillary Clinton, Craig was himself eviscerated by the Obama inner circle.

[...]

I often wondered if Craig and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, the other former Clinton official who helped undermine Hillary’s foreign policy record, would have done so if they had known that after turning on Hillary they would once more end up working beside her; if they had known that Obama can often be more interested in wooing opponents than tending to those who put themselves on the line for him.

There were complaints that Craig was out of the loop, but couldn’t Obama have walked the single West Wing staircase up to his counsel’s office and looped him in?

Craig was, after all, simply defending positions that Obama himself took during the campaign, from closing Gitmo to greater transparency.

The way the Craig matter was handled sent a chill through some Obama supporters, reminding them of the icy manner in which the Clintons cut loose Kimba Wood and Lani Guinier. But then, Obama is surrounded by many old Clinton hands (and a Clinton).

[...]

Although a handful of donors were invited to the premiere state dinner Tuesday night — as well as erstwhile allies Craig and Hillary — many donors and passionate supporters are let down by Obama’s detachment, puzzled at his failure to make them feel invested when he’s certain to come back to tap their well soon enough.

It is especially puzzling given that Obama faces tough midterms and a less-than-certain re-election — and given that we all now know someone on the unemployment line. (A new poll shows Obama and Sarah Palin neck and neck among independents, but then it is a Fox survey.)

Bill Clinton may not have cared any more about contributors than Obama does, but he was such a talented politician that he made them feel as though they were in “a warm bath,” as one put it.

Obama is more like a cold shower.

Steve Clemons, himself treated to Obama’s dismissiveness after serving as an advisor during the campaign, says the piece “shows why she is such a key part of high quality political journalism” by “pushing the Obama administration in the way stand up journalists should” even if it means being cut out of the loop.

M.J. Rosenberg remains “Obama supporter who has no regrets whatsoever about supporting him in the primaries and the general last year.”  But he’s nonetheless “disappointed in the people advising him and think a staff shakeup is overdo, starting with the Cabinet and working right down to the White House staff.”  Why, “If I wanted Team Clinton back, I’d have supported Hillary. Instead (as Hillary predicted) we have the same operator/operatives that Bill hired and Hillary would have hired had she been elected.”

The most interesting response is from Andrew Sullivan, both a fierce Obama supporter and yet one who both disagrees with him on several key issues and approaches politics with much more passion.

Dowd’s instincts about human character are foolish to bet against. She has essentially read every recent president correctly from the get-go as types. And she has always seen Obama as a bit of a cold fish, aloof, too unwilling to punch back, too arrogant to explain himself too much.

[...]

You see this in the almost clinical way Obama has assessed the politics of taking on the Bush administration’s interrogation, detention and rendition policies. The way in which both Greg Craig and Phil Carter have been dispatched for insisting that Obama live up to his campaign promises (no, I don’t believe the personal reasons line) is chilling in its raw political calculation. Ditto Obama’s disciplined refusal to fulfill his campaign pledges on civil rights any time soon. And his rhetorical restraint during the Green Revolution. The determination to figure out the very best and most detailed way forward in Afghanistan, even during a war in which allies are waiting and enemies are watching, and to take his time … well this is also a sign that we are dealing with one very, very cool character here.

Since I’ve always had a soft spot for cold fish in realpolitik – which high Tory (pun fully intended) doesn’t get a frisson from Bismarck or Kissinger? – this impresses me. Since I’m also a red-blooded Irishman, eager for a fight and a little romantic about my ideals, this also angers me at times.

[...]

In all this, Obama reminds me of George H W Bush in government, and of Ronald Reagan in campaigning. It’s a dream combo in many ways. In theory. It’s the practice thing that we’re beginning to test. My sense remains the same as in the campaign. He’s got this.

Interestingly, while I’m the reverse of Sullivan at the outset — I strongly opposed Obama’s election, can’t imagine voting for his re-election, and tend to be more detached in my political analysis — I think he’s on the right track here.

Some months back, I had and interesting conversation with Dave Schuler about this very thing on our OTB Radio podcast.   We both agreed that Obama showed an amazingly quick trigger in dumping allies who were politically inconvenient.  From Jeremiah Wright or Samantha Power or Bill Richardson or Tom Daschle, he didn’t hesitate to cut the cord rather than have them drag him down.   While I found this quality distasteful, Dave found it a necessary quality of effective leadership.

We were both right.

As much as I admired Obama’s predecessor for his loyalty to his people — indeed, he valued loyalty above almost all else in choosing them — it no doubt was a major factor in sinking his presidency.  He’d have undoubtedly been more successful had he more quickly dispatched Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Brown, and others.  Had he sacrificing them, he would have distanced himself from unpopular policies and been able to move on.

Sully’s right that there’s a danger that Obama’s aloofness will result in his base being less energized than it was in 2008.  But, frankly, unless he’s running against Sarah Palin, that’s going to be the case, anyway.  He’s not running against the backdrop of an incredibly unpopular incumbent nor is he vying to make history.  And he’ll have four years of decisions weighing him down, so there won’t be as much Hope or Change in the air.    But I agree with Andrew that Obama has to be considered the odds-on favorite unless we still have double digit unemployment in 2012.

Barack Obama has been president for just under 10 months but he’s added two trillion to the national debt and will double it by the end of the decade.  CBS’ Mark Knoller:

This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is not unexpected, considering the federal deficit for the just-ended 2009 fiscal year hit an all-time high at $1.42-trillion – more than triple the previous year’s record high.

Much of the increase in the deficit and debt is attributed to government spending outpacing revenue – both exacerbated by the recession and the government response to it – including hundreds of billions in bailouts and stimulus spending and tax cuts along with decreased tax revenues due to rising unemployment.

[...]

The National Debt has increased about $1.6 trillion on Mr. Obama’s watch, though less than $4.9 trillion run up during the presidency of George W. Bush.

But the White House budget review issued in August projects that by the end of the current fiscal year on Sept 30th, the National Debt could top $14 trillion.  It gets worse. The same document projects that by the end of the decade, the National Debt will hit $24.5 trillion — exceeding the Gross Domestic Product projected for 2019 of $22.8 trillion.

According to the Treasury Department, the debt stood at $5.727 trillion on January 19, 2001, Bill Clinton’s last day in office, and $10.627 trillion when Bush left office eight years later.  That’s $612.5 billion (or $0.6125 trillion) a year, during which we fought two major wars, had the 9/11 attacks, and at least two major bailouts to deal with a global financial crisis.

We’re thus far averaging $1.92 trillion a year under Obama, or a factor of 3.146 more.   And the government is projecting that we’ll continue spending at this crisis rate for the next decade, more than doubling the current record level?

That ain’t good.

Presumably, we’d have had another major bailout had Bush stayed in office for a third term (were that Constitutionally or politically possible) or had John McCain been elected.  So spending and thus the debt would have escalated substantially regardless.  But we likely wouldn’t be talking about adding a massive health care payment on top of the pile.

President Obama is refusing to allow serving police, military, or intelligence officials to testify before the Senate investigation into the Fort Hood massacre.

The first public congressional hearing on the Fort Hood attack will not include testimony from any current federal law enforcement, military or intelligence officials because the Obama administration “declined to provide any” such witnesses, according to a Senate committee source.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has released the witness list for its hearing “The Fort Hood Attack: A Preliminary Assessment,” scheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. The list includes four experts on terrorism and intelligence issues: retired Gen. Jack Keane, the former U.S. Army vice chief of staff; Brian Jenkins, a senior advisor at the Rand Corp.; Mitchell Silber, the director of analysis for the New York City Police Department’s Intelligence Division; and Juan Zarate, a senior advisor for the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But the list does not include anyone actively involved in investigating the Fort Hood attack, or anyone who might have been responsible for decisions made by various government agencies before the attack about whether to investigate the shooting suspect, Nidal Hasan. The Senate committee source said HSGAC Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) had hoped to have witnesses from the FBI and the U.S. Army, but was rebuffed in his requests.

Asked for comment Monday, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said: “Tomorrow morning, an inter-agency briefing team will go to the Hill to brief House and Senate leaders and committee chairs and ranking members. This is the latest in a series of engagements with the Hill since the horrific events at Fort Hood, and further evidence of the Administration’s commitment to appropriately inform Congress without interfering in the prosecution of this case.” Vietor did not address the specific question of why witnesses would not be provided for Thursday’s hearing.

President Obama has already ordered a federal review of the circumstances that led up to the Fort Hood attack, and how government agencies handled intelligence related to Hasan. But in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama urged caution on Capitol Hill. “I know there will also be inquiries by Congress, and there should,” Obama said. “But all of us should resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater that sometimes dominates the discussion here in Washington. The stakes are far too high.”

I agree with the president that it would be better for Congress to stay out of this until the internal investigations are complete.  The incident just occurred and there’s no evidence of which I’m aware that the executive agencies in question aren’t doing their job appropriately and expeditiously.  And, let’s face it, these sorts of Congressional hearings usually turn into occasions for grandstanding.

All that said, there’s simply no question but that the Senate has every right to conduct a circus if it so desires.  It’s a co-equal branch of government and has the power to exercise oversight over executive agencies.  The president can deny polite requests.  If it wishes, however, the Senate can simply issue subpoenas and force the testimony of any government employee aside from select members of the president’s personal staff.

The ball’s in Lieberman’s court.

Hat tips:  Dan Spencer and Bill Dupray

Topping Memeorandum is Mike Allen’s wild speculation for Politico about a presidential run by Roger Ailes.

Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012, top sources tell POLITICO.

“Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that’s what we need now,” says one Ailes friend who is encouraging the Fox founder, chairman and CEO to seek the Republican nomination to run against President Barack Obama.

Ailes, 69, has an aggessive, winning personality that made Fox News a huge success — and a huge target for liberal critics.

Frank Luntz, the well-known Republican pollster, said Ailes could be a force if he makes the run. “I have known Roger Ailes for 29 years,” says Luntz. “No one knows how to win better than Roger.”

Talk of an Ailes run, which informed sources said is based on more than mere speculation, could escalate the White House war with Fox war in wildly unpredictable – and fun – ways.

This is a befuddling idea.

To be sure, Ailes is a smart guy with good strategic sense and a command of Republican ideas. Presumably, he wouldn’t have trouble raising money.  And, until such time as he actually declared, he could get a lot of free air time on the most popular news network on the planet.

But he’s not exactly presidential material.  While one could make the argument that “media mogul” is better preparation for president than “community organizer,” he’s never sought elective office or held comparable positions of responsibility.  In modern times, no person has ever been elected to the presidency — or to my recollection nominated by one of the major parties — without having been vice president, governor, senator, or  a famous general.

I can’t see Ailes breaking that mold.  And he’ll carry the baggage of every silly thing that Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity has ever said with him on the campaign trail.

UPDATE:  Ailes has already dashed this one, citing an obvious point that I neglected to mention:

Fox News President and CEO Roger Ailes is laughing off the entreaties of some friends and associates and will not run for president in 2012, an aide said Friday.

Ailes replied when asked about the possibility, according to the aide: “This country needs fair and balanced news more now than ever before, so I’m going to decline a run for the presidency. Besides, I can’t take the pay cut.”

Can’t say I blame him.

Correction: The original version said no person had been elected president without holding major office. As two commenters rightly point out, Abraham Lincoln (who ran for senator and lost) did just that.  The circumstances were, of course, rather more unusual in 1860 than 2008.  Relying on more than my memory, I quickly discovered that James Madison had not been more than a member of the House prior to his election.  They seem to be the only exceptions.

Howard Fineman piles on to the burgeoning — if thus far unfounded — Obama overexposed and Obama fatigue memes with an uncharacteristically harsh column.

In addition to contending Obama gives too many speeches with too little substance, her goes further:

There is only so much political mileage that can still be had by his reminding the world that he is not George W. Bush. [...] Members of Obama’s own party know who Obama is not; they still sometimes wonder who he really is. In Washington, the appearance of uncertainty is taken as weakness—especially on Capitol Hill, where a president is only as revered as he is feared. Being the cool, convivial late-night-guest in chief won’t cut it with Congress, an institution impervious to charm (especially the charm of a president with wavering poll numbers). Members of both parties are taking Obama’s measure with their defiant and sometimes hostile response to his desires on health care. Never much of a legislator (and not long a -senator), Obama underestimated the complexity of enacting a major “reform” bill. Letting Congress try to write it on its own was an awful idea. As a balkanized land of microfiefdoms, each loyal to its own lobbyists and consultants, Congress is incapable of being led by its “leadership.” It’s not like Chicago, where you call a guy who calls a guy who calls Daley, who makes the call. The president himself must make his wishes clear—along with the consequences for those who fail to grant them.

It’s not entirely clear what “consequences” the president can mete out to members of his own party in an independent branch of government who fail to do as he wishes.  Aside from petty exclusion from the reindeer games that surround the Head of State trappings of the White House — signings, dinners, awards ceremonies, and the like — he needs them more than they need him.

The reason Obama needs to more clearly articulate what he wants isn’t to scare the Congress but rather to inspire the people.  By “going over Congress’ heads,” presidents can leverage their popularity to put pressure on the legislature.

But the truth may well be that, as personally popular as Obama remains, people aren’t necessarily enamored with the specific policies he wants and can’t be talked into changing their minds.  If that’s the case, then going on TV more won’t help.  But it’s not clear what else would.

In his Daily Beast debut, Alex Massie rises in defense of Joe Wilson’s outburst. No, not so much whether Obama was lying in this particular instance but rather the very notion that it’s “inappropriate” to heckle the president.  The whole piece is worth a read but here’s a taste:

Trivial though it may seem, this brouhaha highlights a great flaw in the American system: You elect a monarch. In olden days and on the old continent, criticizing the monarch might limit your life chances. So too, alas, in the American capital today, as the arbiters of acceptable Washington indecency—that is, the Davids Broder and Gergen—decry your shortage of civility and surfeit of vulgarity.

The convention that Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of the President in His Presence elides the great difference known to every Briton—that between insulting the head of state and insulting the mere head of the executive branch of government.

Insulting Queen Elizabeth is one thing; insulting Gordon Brown is practically an obligation. Disrespecting the former is an act of treason; disrespecting the latter and his office, a necessity: Every Wednesday, Brown must endure Prime Minister’s Questions, during which his enemies in Parliament grill him. Prime Minister’s Questions may not be the be all and end all, but it affords an opportunity for “telling truth to power” that does not exist in the regal American system.

America’s problem is that it has combined the head of state and the head of the executive branch into a single office, and it can no longer distinguish between the two roles. Obama’s health-care address was not given in his role as head of state. It was, rather, a political speech made by—pinch yourselves—a mere politician seeking to advance his own political agenda.

He makes a very good point here, extending the argument Alex Knapp makes in Bring Heckling to the Colonies! And, as a matter of principle, I agree.  Of course Wilson has a right to call Barack Obama a liar.  But there’s a time,  place, and manner for everything and an address to a joint session of Congress is not the appropriate venue.

The more I think about it, though, the idea of the president calling Congress together to give them their marching orders on health care is inappropriate.  I’m not calling out Obama here; he’s merely following recent precedent.  But, aside from the annual State of the Union address (which, frankly, I’d be happy to see return to its written message to Congress format) and genuine national emergencies such as the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks, the very format is a bad idea.  It’s yet another way that we reinforce the mistaken notion that the president is “the boss” and that Congress has an obligation to carry out his agenda.

Presidents have the bully pulpit by the nature of their office and can easily get their message to the people whenever they want.  But let’s do away with him calling the elected representatives of the people together and lambasting them for not doing what he wants.

The big news surrounding President Obama’s latest heathcare speech is that South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” in response to the claim that illegal immigrants would not be covered under universal coverage:

AP (”Obama heckled by GOP during speech to Congress“):

The nastiness of August reached from the nation’s town halls into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday as President Barack Obama tried to move his health care plan forward.

South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” after Obama had talked about illegal immigrants. It wasn’t the only interruption during Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress in the House of Representatives. Earlier, Republicans laughed when Obama acknowledged that there are still significant details to be worked out before a health overhaul can be passed.

Wilson’s outburst caused Obama to pause briefly before he went on with his speech. Overhead in the visitors’ gallery, first Lady Michelle Obama shook her head from side to side.

Carl Hulse, NYT (”In Lawmaker’s Outburst, a Rare Breach of Protocol“):

In an angry and very audible outburst, Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, interrupted President Obama’s speech Wednesday night with a shout of “You lie!”

His eruption — in response to Mr. Obama’s statement that Democratic health proposals would not cover illegal immigrants — stunned members of both parties in the House chamber.

Democrats said it showed lack of respect for the office of the presidency and was reminiscent of Republican disruptions at recent public forums on health care. “It is outrageous,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, who said it reminded him of the “antics that are being used to disrupt and fog what is going on.” After the speech, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff who sat a few rows in front of Mr. Wilson, said he immediately approached senior Republican lawmakers to encourage them to identify the heckler and urge him to issue an apology quickly. “No president has ever been treated like that. Ever,” Mr. Emanuel said. Other Democrats said they did not want to dwell on the outburst or allow it to overshadow what they saw as an effective address by the president. But they also said it bolstered their contention that some Republicans were not interested in constructive dialogue, and they noted that Democratic plans specifically barred coverage for illegal immigrants.

Republicans also said the heckling was out of line. “I think we ought to treat the president with respect,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, “and anything other than that is not appropriate.”

Mr. Wilson seemed rattled in the wake of his comment, and quickly left the chamber at the end of the speech. His office later issued an apology, saying: “This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.” Mr. Wilson also phoned the White House and reached Mr. Emanuel, who accepted an apology on behalf of the president.

Critical body language and murmurs of disapproval are typical at presidential addresses and part of the political theater. But members of both parties were trying to recollect such a pointed attack from an individual lawmaker at a presidential address and noted that a similar remark could draw a formal reprimand if delivered at a routine session of the House.

The apology was appropriate and, I’m guessing*, sincere.  Such outbursts are inappropriate in civil debate, let alone when directed at the only elected representative of the nation as a whole.  Bill Clinton was treated with more respect while under formal impeachment charges.

While Wilson’s frustrated cry was inexcusable, however, it’s at least understandable.   After all, Obama was indirectly calling him a liar.  And being untruthful.  From the speech:

Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.  [emphasis added]

This, incidentally, was the from the prepared remarks, not off-the-cuff flourish.  The president was deliberately poisoning the well, claiming that his opponents are dishonorable and ill-intentioned.  And, as AllahPundit and Mark Tapscott point out, the bill will of course cover illegal aliens.   Even the Congressional Research Service says so.

“Under H.R. 3200, a ‘Health Insurance Exchange’ would begin operation in 2013 and would offer private plans alongside a public option…H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the Exchange.” CRS also notes that the bill has no provision for requiring those seeking coverage or services to provided proof of citizenship.

Indeed, as an Obama official interviewed on NPR this morning admits, the administration has moved the ball in the other direction, removing existing restrictions requiring people to provide proof of citizenship to get various federal benefits on the grounds that they were too onerous and causing those legitimately eligible to give up or be denied.  That may well be the right thing to do (I don’t know the specifics well enough to render definitive judgment) but it nonetheless vitiates the claim that there’s some magic wall to prevent the twelve million-odd illegal aliens from gaining access.

Beyond that, simple logic tells you that illegal aliens will be covered under any system of universal coverage.  Aside from the plain meaning of the word universal,  we have laws in this country requiring unquestioned treatment at emergency rooms for anyone who shows up.  The Supreme Court ruled more than a quarter century ago in Pyler v. Doe that the Equal Protection Clause requires that children of known illegal aliens be given free elementary and secondary education in public schools.  It’s hard to justify a rationale that requires paying to educate children while denying them health care.

UPDATE: Phillip Klein points to a 2005 Media Matters piece noting that Congressmen expressing displeasure with presidents by booing has been going on for some time.  I suppose yelling, “You lie!” is worse than booing but it’s worth noting that the idea of Congress as a bastion of civility is being  oversold.

UPDATE 2: Via Taegan Goddard, I see that PolitiFact has a longish piece arguing that “Obama can make a pretty thorough case that reform doesn’t apply to those here illegally. We don’t find the public option argument enough to make the case that Obama ‘lied.’ We rate Wilson’s statement False.”  I invite you to read it for yourself but I find it unpersuasive.

Politifact misapprehends how our system works, operating from the premise that laws only do what they specifically say.  And since the law doesn’t say illegal aliens are covered, QED, they aren’t.  In reality, new entitlements operate in a very complex existing ecosystem.  Unless the law not only excludes illegal aliens but provides very strong provisions for actually doing so — and it does not — the reality is that illegal aliens will be covered.

______________
*Before this morning, the only “Joe Wilson” I knew was married to Valerie Plame.  I gather from the news accounts, though, that he was surprised and flustered by the outburst and embarrassed at the spectacle he’d created.

Ezra Klein and Steve Benen are recirculating this somewhat interesting chart on political polarization in America by political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal.

Ezra argues that “this level of polarization makes it virtually impossible to govern in a system that is designed to foil majorities and require a constant three-fifths consensus. It’s not good if the country is virtually impossible to govern.”  Steve says this is especially true when, pace Harold Meyerson, the opposition party “is dominated by Southern neo-Dixiecrats.”

Given this situation, Ezra observes, “Problems don’t stop mounting while we try and figure things out. We could respond to this by making it easier for the majority party to govern and thus less likely that we have some sort of massive crisis that totally realigns our politics.”  He’s not talking about amending the Constitution but rather implementing unspecified rules changes in Congress that would strip power from the minority to get in the way.

Newt Gingrich made a bunch of changes in 1994. Democrats made a bunch of changes in 1975. John F. Kennedy made some big changes in the early 1960s. FDR changed the way Congress worked, and so too did Woodrow Wilson. This isn’t something invented by a bunch of bloggers in the early 21st century.

My recollection of both the Gingrich and post-Watergate reforms is that they were aimed at breaking down the power that came with seniority and to deal with public perception that Members were unduly influenced by outside interests rather than the ability of the opposition party to shape or block legislation.   And I’ve got no idea whatever of what Kennedy did to reform Congress; indeed, I’m not sure how he would have done that from the White House. In the cases of FDR and Wilson, they simply seized power for the presidency during extreme national crises with the acquiescence of Congress.

Regardless, as Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein document, there have been numerous and nearly-continuous efforts to reform Congressional rules over the years.  And I’d be quite happy, for example, to do away with or seriously limit the use of the filibuster, secret holds, and various other measures which make it easy for the minority to block even relatively minor legislation.  Those are extra-constitutional at best and are not supposed to be used routinely as they now are.

At the same time, however, I disagree with the underlying premise of Ezra and Steve’s complaint.  The fact that we’re more polarized on politics as a nation than we have been in decades, by definition, means that there’s little national consensus.  That’s simply not a time for radical policy changes.  Ramming through unpopular programs in a very polarized nation is a recipe for more polarization.

George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004 along with Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress.  Among the signature programs he ran on was a radical overhaul of the Social Security retirement system that included a private option.   Once we got to the legislative phase, however, and the public saw the actual program rather than an abstract notion, it became decidedly less popular.  And the Democratic minority in Congress was able to block it.   We may well be on the road to the exact same thing happening on health care reform, with the public option failing to catch on for now.

That is how our system is supposed to work.  It’s precisely designed not to allow big change based on a small majority.

Furthermore, the Democrats have a reasonably comfortable margin in both the House and the Senate.  To the extent that they’re failing to get things done, it’s not because “Southern neo-Dixiecrats” in the minority party are using dastardly tricks to foil the popular will but because of fissures within the Democratic coalition.   Which, incidentally, the Republicans faced, too, back when they had the majority.

The nature of putting together a governing coalition in a politically polarized country is that getting over the top requires winning seats in states and districts that are either closely divided or are usually won by the other party.  “Blue dog” Democrats are no more in line with the Progressive wing of their party than the Northeastern Republicans of yore were with the Southern Conservative wing of theirs.

Charles Krauthammer is getting a lot of attention for his observation on Fox’ Special Report that Sarah Palin “is not a serious candidate for the presidency.”

As regular readers know, I think he’s right on this score:

She had to go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues in which she was not adept last year, and she hasn’t. She has to stop speaking in clichés and platitudes. It won’t work. It could work for eight weeks if you’re the number two candidate, as she was last year. But even so, she got singed a lot in that campaign.

But I have to seriously question his observational skills for his next sentence:

You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you’re running for the presidency.

Yes. You. Can.

The blogosphere is abuzz with news that the Obamas spent the afternoon relaxing in NYC.

President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama landed in New York Saturday afternoon, and after taking a helicopter from JFK into Manhattan, drove up the West Side Highway, where the northbound lanes were shut down by police for their visit, past Ground Zero, into the Village for dinner at the Village’s Blue Hill restaurant. From there, they went north to Times Square, where they went to to see a production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at the Belasco Theater on West 44 Street.

Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest read a statement from Obama: “I am taking my wife to New York City because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished.”

Asked about the cost of the trip, which Republicans have criticized as indulgent, coming just ahead of the expected announcement of GM’s bankruptcy filing on Monday, Josh Earnest told pool reporter Dave Michaels of the Dallas Morning News, that he “didn’t anticipate being able to provide a cost estimate tonight.”

After the play let out at about 11:30 p.m., the presidential motorcade went down Sixth Avenue, shut down by the NYPD, and onlookers packed onto the East side of the street cheered as the presidential motorcade passed as the Obamas headed back to JFK for a return flight to Washington.

The chief complaints seem to be that this is ridiculously indulgent and expensive and that it’s particularly unseemly given the state of the economy.   While I’m not entirely unsympathetic to either of those arguments, TigerHawk is probably right that we don’t want the Leader of the Free World to go into bunker mode and that the cost is trivial compared to other things we spend money on.  And, as Barbara O’Brien notes, we spent plenty on George W. Bush’s vacations (even if they were less showy).

It’s insanely expensive for presidents to do just about anything because of their need for a large security entourage and to have constant access to secure communications.  It’s annoying but it’s the cost of doing business and I don’t begrudge the Obamas the occasional foray into normalcy.

My major problem with these things is the inconvenience they cause for others.  It’s outrageous to shut down major highways for the convenience of public officials, let alone when they’re not on official business.  Further, I’d be shocked if their fellow theater-goers weren’t subjected to inordinate and unexpected inconvenience in order to cater to the Obamas’ security needs.  That bothers me.

I don’t, however, blame the Obamas for this but rather the culture of security we’ve built around the presidency, especially, but to other high offices as well. Since we can’t expect — and shouldn’t desire — for our leaders to live in seclusion for the entire tenure of their offices, we really need to figure out a way to let them get out and about without inordinate inconvenience to the rest of us.   There’s got to be a way to simultaneously provide them with reasonable security and not shut down the town around them.

Jeremy Lott’s attempted response to my response piece on “Ending the Vice Presidency” was, for some odd reason*, rejected altogether by my commenting system.  Rather than pasting them into the comments of a post buried in the archives, I’ve done it below, with my original in blockquotes, followed by his retort in boldface, followed by my rejoinder, if any, in italics.

What alternative system does Lott propose for dealing with these emergencies? Why, none at all! He doesn’t even mention the possibility!

Yes, I used the 400 odd words I was given to make the case against the vice presidency, per my assignment, and only hinted at what could replace it. The horror. OK, let’s take these from the top:

Except for the fact that the Southern states wouldn’t have signed on and we’d have been stuck with the Articles of Confederation, of course.

My point was, the slavery stuff is not part of the Constitution where people still say, “Oh they got that one right.” Did I overegg that one? Perhaps.

Um, Richard Nixon was a respected United States Senator who thrice got his party’s nomination for president, winning two landslides and losing the  other in one of the closest contests in history.

Would he have got his party’s nomination if he wasn’t first vice president? I doubt it. Many of Nixon’s memorable moments — from Checkers to the Kitchen debate — came out of his vice presidency.

This is a fair point.  Nixon was only 39 when tabbed for the VP slot by Eisenhower, having served only four years in the House and two in the Senate.  He had become nationally prominent for his anti-Communism activities but might never have gotten a shot without the boost of the vice presidency.

Johnson and Bush were the second place finishers in their nominating contests. Bush would have almost certainly beaten Carter on his own merits. Further, we’ve had plenty of “troubling and divisive” people get elected to the presidency without a stint as second banana.

Carter managed to beat Ford and he lost very few seats in the midterm. He could have beat Bush, who was never a terribly impressive candidate. True, Johnson could have got the Democratic nomination. Winning would have been quite another thing.

Recall, though, that Ford barely lost despite the taint of having pardoned Nixon.  Of course, we’ll never know the counterfactual.  In 1960, Nixon would likely have beaten Johnson; then again, Nixon would be excluded by this rule, never having been VP, so we’re going totally hypothetical. As to 1964, virtually anyone would have beaten Goldwater, who was simply a candidate before his time.

As for those “troubling and divisive” presidents who didn’t stop off in the vice presidency first, please name them. That’s not a challenge; I’m honestly curious who you have in mind.

Well, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton come to mind just from very recent history.

Only the 12th — which (in effect) makes the VP part of the same ticket as the president rather than the second-place finisher in the — presidential race deals directly with the vice presidency; it was ratified 205 years ago. The 20th and 25th deal with arcane matters of presidential succession. The latter of which, incidentally, recognizes the dreadful possibility that the president is killed or incapacitated and there;s a vacancy in the vice presidency and remedies that.

We could split hairs over this “deals directly” business but that would be silly. All three amendments tweaked the vice presidency in some way, which was my point. Before the 25th amendment, if the president died or was forced aside then a person Congress designated became the president. That’s not an awful idea.

The fact a Constitutional amendment on the subject went through would be evidence to the contrary.

This is insane.

No it’s not.

Fair enough.

Seriously, we want a backup that’s independently elected and who could, theoretically, have an entirely different agenda than the guy who won? And who would take office and put in his own people? Really?

That’s happened before under the current system, so I fail to see your point. John Tyler was drummed out of the Whig party. Andrew Johnson was impeached and almost removed from office. Right up until Garfield was shot, Arthur was working against him.

That’s going back a piece.  My recollection of the Tyler and Arthur presidencies is dim, indeed. As to Johnson, one might argue that he was carrying out policies Lincoln would have had he not been assassinated but lacked the charm and gravitas to carry them out.  Moving ahead to the last half century or so, since presidents started  getting nominated based on personal popularity rather than backroom deals with party bosses, it’s hard to conceive of a major shift in policy when the VP takes over.  The only time it has been tested during that period was LBJ replacing JFK and, despite personal animosity and distinct policy differences, Johnson carried out the remaining months of the term under Kennedy’s legacy.

Presumably, then, we’d simply follow the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. Hello, President Nancy Pelosi! And, if something should happen to her, hello President Robert Byrd!

No, if history is a decent guide here it would be more like hello Gerald Ford. Congress would be unlikely to put Pelosi or Byrd-like figures in the relevant congressional positions if they were next in line for the Oval Office.

Under the 25th Amendment, if the vice presidency is somehow vacated, Congress appoints a replacement and, yes, a consensus candidate is the likely outcome.  But for the last 62 years, the law has it that if the president and the vice president are simultaneously killed or incapacitated, the Speaker of the House takes over, with the President Pro Tempore of the Senate next in line.   Presumably, if we abolished the office of vice president, we’d skip right to that.

But, sure, the Constitutional amendment that abolished the vice presidency could simply stipulate that Congress choose a successor.  The problem, however, is that a sudden vacancy in the presidency — especially if a result of assassination — is a national emergency, possibly even a national security crisis.  Do we really want to wait until Congress can be convened and make up its mind to replace the president?

Alternatively, I suppose, we could designate a cabinet officer — say, Secretary of State — to be the placeholder.  Al Haig did a fine job, for example, after Reagan was shot.  But this, too, creates potential problems.  During much of our recent history, the Congress and the White House were controlled by different political parties.  Without a vice president, this creates the strong possibility of an assassin’s bullet undoing the results of the election.

* Commenting was broken owing to a glitch caused by backend updates.  Fixed now.

Sunday’s WaPo put together a collection of half-baked ideas by smart folks, designed to generate controversy and discussion more so than shed serious light on policy ideas.  Thomas Ricks’ suggestion to close the service academies and war colleges got the most attention, overshadowing the abject silliness of Jeremy Lott’s column advocating doing away with the vice presidency, an idea not worth a warm bucket of piss.

The framers of the Constitution got many things right. But when they got things wrong, they were seriously off. Compromising on slavery, for instance. That’s a bad one.

Except for the fact that the Southern states wouldn’t have signed on and we’d have been stuck with the Articles of Confederation, of course.

Fourteen of our 44 presidents started on the bottom of the ticket, a high proportion with ill effects on American politics. The vice presidency has provided a springboard to the nation’s highest office for individuals unlikely to have made it there on their own.

From 1952 to 1972, only one election went by without Richard Nixon on the national ballot. For all his legislative smarts, Lyndon Johnson was an awkward bully who turned off many voters. George H.W. Bush was an also-ran who never would have reached the Oval Office had Ronald Reagan not kept the seat warm for him. (And would George W. have made it if his father hadn’t?)

The vice presidency has also put troubling and divisive men only a heartbeat away. Aaron Burr, Henry Wallace, Al Gore and Dick Cheney came too close for comfort.

Um, Richard Nixon was a respected United States Senator who thrice got his party’s nomination for president, winning two landslides and losing the other in one of the closest contests in history.  Johnson and Bush were the second place finishers in their nominating contests.  Bush would have almost certainly beaten Carter on his own merits.  Further, we’ve had plenty of “troubling and divisive” people get elected to the presidency without a stint as second banana.

Sure, a few vice presidents who get the top job do it well. (Calvin Coolidge and Harry Truman come to mind.) But the downsides outweigh the standouts. That’s not surprising, since the office was poorly thought out and has been subject to three constitutional amendments (the 12th, 20th and 25th, for those keeping score).

Only the 12th — which (in effect) makes the VP part of the same ticket as the president rather than the second-place finisher in the presidential race — deals directly with the vice presidency; it was ratified 205 years ago.  The 20th and 25th deal with arcane matters of presidential succession.  The latter of which, incidentally, recognizes the dreadful possibility that the president is killed or incapacitated and there’s a vacancy in the vice presidency and remedies that.

It would be better if the president’s understudy were separately elected by voters,

This is insane. Seriously, we want a backup that’s independently elected and who could, theoretically, have an entirely different agenda than the guy who won?  And who would take office and put in his own people?  Really?

or better yet, if the office simply disappeared. For all the attention their campaign-time selections garner, few voters cast their ballots based on the vice-presidential candidate — even though that person has a nearly one in three chance of going all the way.

Recall, this “one in three” includes cases where the VP wins election in his own right.  But there have been an inordinate number of cases where the sitting president dies in office, mostly suddenly.  What alternative system does Lott propose for dealing with these emergencies?  Why, none at all!  He doesn’t even mention the possibility!

Presumably, then, we’d simply follow the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.  Hello, President Nancy Pelosi!  And, if something should happen to her, hello President Robert Byrd!

UPDATE:  See “Ending the Vice Presidency II” for Lott’s response.

The editorial board at The Economist (which apparently considers itself a “newspaper” despite coming out weekly in magazine format) praises President Obama for having “already done some commendable things” in the foreign policy arena but charges that, domestically, “His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped.”  They note that, after a euphoric election, “Mr Obama’s once-celestial approval ratings are about where George Bush’s were at this stage in his awful presidency.”

They excoriate him, in particular, for “failure to grapple as fast and as single-mindedly with the economy as he should have done. His stimulus package, though huge, was subcontracted to Congress, which did a mediocre job: too much of the money will arrive too late to be of help in the current crisis.” Additionally,

The failure to staff the Treasury is a shocking illustration of administrative drift. There are 23 slots at the department that need confirmation by the Senate, and only two have been filled. This is not the Senate’s fault. Mr Obama has made a series of bad picks of people who have chosen or been forced to withdraw; and it was only this week that he announced his candidates for two of the department’s four most senior posts. Filling such jobs is always a tortuous business in America, but Mr Obama has made it harder by insisting on a level of scrutiny far beyond anything previously attempted. Getting the Treasury team in place ought to have been his first priority.

They acknowledge that he is “learning” but “Mr Obama has a long way to travel if he is to serve his country—and the world—as he should.”

Take the G20 meeting in London, to which he will head at the end of next week. The most important task for this would-be institution is to set itself firmly against protectionism at a time when most of its members are engaged in a game of creeping beggar-thy-neighbour. Yet how can Mr Obama lead the fight when he has just pandered to America’s unions by sparking a minor trade war with Mexico? And how can he set a new course for NATO at its 60th-anniversary summit a few days later if he is appeasing his party with talk of leaving Afghanistan?

Jennifer Rubin and Mark Steyn argue that the reason Obama isn’t meeting The Economist’s expectation is not so much his managerial incompetence but rather that he’s much more liberal than he pretended to be on the campaign trail and therefore has a very different agenda.   As Steyn puts it,

The nuancey boys were wrong on Obama, and the knuckledragging morons were right. There is no post-partisan centrist “grappling” with the economy, only a transformative radical willing to make Americans poorer in the cause of massive government expansion.

I’m reminded once again of a line Jeff Medcalf posted on Dave Schuler’s Other Blog in mid-October:  “[M]any of the people voting for Obama seem to be doing so on the hope that he doesn’t mean what he says, and most of the people voting for McCain are doing so on the fear that Obama means exactly what he says.”

A lot of the Obamacons, fed up after eight years of Bush and not impressed by the McCain-Palin ticket were willing to overlook a lot to vote for a fellow who seemed a lot like themselves: intellectual, nuanced, able to speak in paragraphs, reasonable, and so forth.   But, alas, his domestic agenda was not one that would ultimately sit well with conservatives — just as his foreign policy was actually not going to set very well with progressives.

That, said, I think The Economist is right to reflect on managerial style.

One of the flaws of the American system is that we frequently elect amateurs to high office, thus imposing a steep learning curve.  In parliamentary systems, leaders work their way up through the ranks, filling key ministerial posts, and learning the ropes.  A new premier from the out party has typically been the leader of a Shadow Government and a new leader from the in party has typically been the number two man in the Government.   A new president, by contrast, has typically never been part of an administration and may never have lived in the capital before taking office.

In recent years, Americans have preferred governors for the presidency, which typically meant people came to the White House knowing how to create and manage a staff but with little grasp of How Washington Works or much knowledge of a whole range of issues that states don’t deal with.   Conversely, someone coming from Capitol Hill is much savvier on those scores but have no clue how to run an administration.

Obama, alas, is the worst of both worlds, having neither gubernatorial experience nor much Washington experience.   He’s been an incredibly talented dilettante, getting elected to one job and then the next without learning the ropes.  He’s a fast learner and will get the hang of it but, to come back to the Hillary Clinton quip that starts the Economist piece, “the Oval Office is no place for on-the-job-training.”   Except, as already noted, that it usually is.

Of course, Obama has taken over at a particularly unfortunate time, having inherited two wars and a global financial crisis, so his margin for error is even less than usual.

In fairness, although my preference was for the other guy, it’s not a slam dunk that John McCain would be doing any better.   He’s got more leadership training and experience but he’s never been a governor or vice president, either.  And he’s got some temperament issues that in some ways make him less suited for crisis management than Obama.

Regardless, anyone who has extremely high expectations that a new president is going to reshape the world has a strong likelihood of being disappointed.

Paul Waldman fleshes out a theme that many observers have made in passing: The young voters who helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency could create a “permanent” realignment in American politics.

In 1984, 59 percent of the nation’s Alex P. Keatons voted for Reagan, an extraordinary percentage for a Republican (and just over his proportion of the popular vote as a whole). What was going on? As E.J. Dionne, then a reporter for The New York Times, wrote near the end of Reagan’s tenure in the fall of 1988, “Academics and political consultants who have studied the youth vote have many explanations for their movement toward the Republicans, but the most powerful is the simplest: Young Americans have known only Mr. Reagan and Mr. Carter as President, and Mr. Reagan is the overwhelming favorite. Similarly, many people who first voted in the Depression still see politics in terms of the Democratic President Roosevelt and the Republican President Hoover.”

It was a remarkable shift, and one that helped shape politics for the ensuing two decades. Currently, we are beginning an even more dramatic turn. Today’s young people — often called the millennial generation — could pull American politics even further to the left, and for a longer time, than the Reagan generation pulled our politics to the right.

Start with the obvious: 67 percent of voters under 29 cast their ballot for Barack Obama, a result unequalled since exit polling began. (If you’re interested, exit-poll data dating back to 1976 can be found at the Roper Center.) Despite periodic proclamations that young conservatives are poised for a comeback (see, for instance, this lengthy portrait in The New York Times Magazine only six years ago of the “Young Hipublicans” who were ready to take the country by storm), young people aren’t finding much to like about today’s GOP. And as a pair of new reports from the Center for American Progress on the present and future of American ideology show, those feelings are likely to run much deeper than a single election or a single candidate.

While they cover a great deal of ground, the reports contain some particularly interesting points about the millennial generation. In “State of American Political Ideology, 2009,”, we learn that young people are the most progressive age group overall and the most progressive on social issues, which might not be surprising. But they are also the most progressive age group in their opinions about the role of government, which might be. And as the other report, “New Progressive America,” points out, this generation’s share of the voting population will increase every year until 2020, when they will represent nearly 40 percent of the electorate.

[...]

To paint with a broad brush for a moment: They know plenty of gay people, don’t find anything particularly notable about people of different races dating, and see the traditional family setup (a two-parent heterosexual couple in which Dad works outside the home and Mom doesn’t) as the exception rather than the rule. This may not be true for all of them, but it is true for enough of them that it has become their generational norm.

This is simply a fact of life that even most under-50 conservative intellectuals are coming to terms with.  Indeed, even some of the older set.  George Will recently remarked on a “This Week” roundtable that, for this generation, being gay was about as remarkable as being left-handed.

The fictional Alex P. Keaton was my contemporary; indeed, we both graduated high school in 1984.  I’m now older than Michael Gross, who played dad Steven Keaton, was when the show started.  So, it’s perfectly natural that today’s teens have different political views than I do.  (For that matter, I’m much less socially conservative now, at 43, than I was when the show first aired 27 years ago.)

Waldman anticipated my ready rejoinder to his thesis:

But how much the generation of which she is a part will continue voting for Democrats, and whether her social progressivism will be joined to similar views on economics and foreign affairs, depends on how things go over the next four or eight years. Just as the views of the Reagan generation were shaped by the seemingly ineffectual Carter presidency and the seemingly successful Reagan presidency, the current generation will be shaped by the Bush and Obama presidencies — one an unmitigated disaster, the other a story still being written.

Of course, this presidency could be a disaster as well; who knows what crises await tomorrow or next month or next year. But if Obama accomplishes his grand goals — pulling the nation through the economic crisis, reforming health care, confronting global warming, transforming our relationship with the world — the millennial generation will belong to him and his ideological heirs. And conservatives will find themselves in a very deep hole for many years to come.

That’s quite right.  But, frankly, even if Obama is a miserable failure, the country’s social mores will have evolved in four or eight years.  Further, American politics will naturally evolve along with the American public, just as it always has.  Presumably, the Republican Party will eventually do so as well — just as it always has.

We’ll always have a strong “conservative” movement.  It’s just that Ronald Reagan and Alex P. Keaton wouldn’t quite recognize it.

UPDATE: See my follow-up post, “Democrats Can’t Win for Losing.”

In “Hillary Clinton’s Job Description,” I consider the steady stream of data pointing to an obvious conclusion: there’s not much left for new Secretary of State to do.

Clinton is a shrewd insider in the games of Washington and one presumes that she considered the possibility that her erstwhile opponent for the presidency was shunting her to State to prevent her being a  political nuisance.  One presumes that she got some pretty strong assurances before leaving her perch in the Senate.

There has to be more to this than meets the eye. From this vantage point, however, it’s very difficult to see what her role is.

More at the link.