THE PLANK JUNE 23, 2009
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Harper's publisher John R. MacArthur, writing in the Providence Journal, says that President Obama misled the American people:
IT ISN’T QUITE
FAIR to call Barack Obama a liar. During the campaign he carefully
avoided committing to much of anything important that he might have to
take back later. For now, I won’t quibble with The St. Petersburg
Times’s Obamameter, which so far has the president keeping 30 promises
and breaking only six.And yet, broadly speaking, Obama has been lying on a pretty impressive scale.
MacAurthur goes on to list Obama's "lies." He provides four examples. The list is worth going through. First:
Obama portrayed
himself as the peace candidate, or at least the anti-war candidate. He
is not a peace president, nor is he stopping any wars. True, he
promised military escalation in Afghanistan (to blunt John McCain’s
accusations of wimpishness), but well-meaning folks believed their new
hero would genuinely move to end the occupation of Iraq and seriously
try to negotiate with the Taliban.
In other words, Obama said he would send more troops to Afghanistan, and some naive lefties chose to believe he was lying, so now that's he's following through, it counts as a lie because "well-meaning" people like MacArthur never believed it. Oookay.
Second:
Obama said he
wanted to reform Washington and “fix” its “broken” system of corrupt
lobbying. But Obama is neither a reformer nor a skilled legislative
mechanic. Hatched from the Daley Machine in one-party Chicago, Obama
wouldn’t be president today if he rocked boats. Witness the appointment
of Roland Burris by the corrupt former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fill
Obama’s Senate seat: not a word of public protest from the new
administration because Burris is a made man in the Chicago Democratic
organization.
So, Obama promised to be a reformer, but he lied because it turns out he's from Chicago. I'm pretty sure he admitted that fact during the campaign. I also fail to recall Obama promising to insert himself into the appointment of a replacement Senator from Illinois.
Lie #3:
Obama, with his
Arabic middle name and his big Cairo speech, wants people to think that
he is the Muslim world’s new best friend. Well, the
photograph of a cheery Obama with Saudi King Abdullah and a smiling
Emanuel with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, proves the contrary. ... Indeed, the
president doesn’t mean for one minute to force Israel into anything
more than symbolic withdrawals of its illegal settlements on the West
Bank.
Did Obama promise to cut ties with Saudi Arabia and do more to pressure Israel than to demand a halt to settlement construction? I must have missed that as well.
And the final "lie":
Obama makes like
he’s a friend of organized labor, at least he did during the Ohio
primary when he needed to beat Hillary Clinton. ...In a debate
with Clinton on Feb. 26, 2008, he said, “I will make sure that we
renegotiate [NAFTA] in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about”
and “use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage” to get “labor
and environmental standards that are enforced.”But two months
ago, U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk said such a blunt instrument was no
longer necessary and that the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico
were now “of the mind that we should be looking for opportunities to
strengthen [the North American Free Trade Agreement].”
Meanwhile, as I
noted in my April 15 column, “Wall Street sharks circle the UAW,” Obama
and his banker friend Steven Rattner are liquidating the United Auto
Workers even as they liquidate the American auto industry.
The NAFTA renegotiation flip-flop is legit, but was pointed out long before the 2008 general election. MacArthur's claim that Obama is liquidating the auto industry is bizarre.
--Jonathan Chait
16 comments
I'd say that this evisceration was fair aand balanced.
- basman
June 23, 2009 at 12:16pm
This is obviously absurd, but there's a grain of truth. I think a lot of people took "change" to mean "Obama's going to change everything in Washington, nothing will ever be the same again." And then he shows up and the same old political realities are still there. The Mid-East is still a mess, and somehow China, Russia, North Korea, etc. didn't get the memo that now everything is different. We can't just snap our fingers and get universal health care. There are actual trade-offs and compromises that must be made.
Even more than that, some people took Obama to be a more revolutionary figure than he really is. He never pretended to be that, but he also never worked real hard to counter that perception either. Why should he? It's useful for a politician to appear to be all things to all people.
Personally, at the beginning of the primary, I was skeptical about Obama, precisely because I thought he would be a revolutionary. I've had it with them. Gradually, once I started paying serious attention, it become quite clear that Obama is a pragmatist, a compromiser, a centrist, a technocrat, etc. That's what I wanted. Some people never picked up on that, and now they're disappointed.
Well guys, you should have paid more attention.
- ratnerstar
June 23, 2009 at 12:31pm
Jon, you might want to indent that second to last paragraph lest we think you wrote it!
As for the rest of it, yes, wow. I especially enjoyed 2. The frequently repeated charge that Obama got his start in "Daley's machine" or the crucible of corrupt Chicago politics or whatever is not true. (Does anyone know what that charge is supposed to mean exactly?) Frist, he was a state senator, not a city or county politician. (And Illinois was not a one-party *state*. He was in the minority for most of his time in Springfield.) Second, he was situated on the "reformer" side of the ledger -- more goo-goo than hack -- though category-busting too, as he is today. Obama wisely stayed out of the Blago-Burris mess not because he likes Burris or because he's a "made man" in state Democratic politics. That's got to be among the silliest thing I've ever heard. Burris was nothing before the appointment resurrected his dubious political career, and he was a bottom-of-the-barrel choice. No, he stayed out of it because he was far above it, there was nothing he could do about it, and getting involved could only tarnish him or make him look foolish as it did somewhat for Durbin and Reid who ended up having to go back on their hasty early pronouncements.
I remember distinctly when Obama came out against the Iraq War. He said in that speech, "I'm not against all wars. I'm against stupid wars." He always maintained that his opposition to Iraq was Iraq-specific, and that he was not what you might call a peacenik who would always oppose military action. If that's your view, Kucinich was your man -- never Obama.
But beyond those factual howlers, the general point is outrageous: Obama committed the "big lie" by clearly, consistently explaining what he would try to do and what he wanted to do, and then following through after the election. It's not the "big lie." It's the "big projection." The joke is that Obama is a strikingly honest politician who appears to take campaign promises more seriously than average. Perhaps *that's* the big lie. In an environment where we're accustomed to politicians lying through their teeth and saying anything to get elected, Obama is deceptive in his straightforwardness!
- jhildner
June 23, 2009 at 12:44pm
Regarding the first point:
As Hitchens said on Fox before the election: "The losers in this are not [hawks like] me [who have endorsed Obama]. It's the MoveOn.org types that are campaigning for someone who says that, if necessary, he'll go straight across the border into Pakistan to root these guys out."
And also in Slate: "Meanwhile, I repeat my question from two weeks ago: Does Sen. Obama appreciate, or do his peacenik fans and fundraisers realize, just how much war he is promising them if he is elected?"
Just because you weren't paying attention doesn't mean you're being lied to.
- Androscoggin
June 23, 2009 at 12:56pm
Other than my disappointment in the current financial reform proposals (almost used scare quotes there!), he's pretty much met my expectations. Don't know what everyone else was expecting.
- Nari224
June 23, 2009 at 1:09pm
I do think Obama is being incredibly cautious and, possibly, too solicitous toward the Republicans. However, it could be argued that he's really a transition president, keeping the Democrats stationed securely in the executive branch while the GOP continues to implode. If the country continues to trend left, then the next Democrat president could actually have Obama to thank for not overreaching and swinging things back to the GOP.
In trust Obama to incrementally make the 'right' decisions. As a gay man, yes, I really want Obama to be more aggressive about gay rights . As an average working American, you bet I want a public option on healthcare. As a new teacher, yes, I want him to reform No Child Left Behind. As a Californian living in a large city, yes, I want him to deincentivize using petroleum and other fossil fuels.
I would love to see the administration adopt my liberal sensibilities. But you risk alienating the vast majority of this country that does not do its homework, does not understand the issues, and gets its news from cable TV or blogs. Sadly, we're all hostage to the lowest common denominator. It's miraculous, in some ways, that Obama was elected at all.
No, Obama is not righting the eight years of GOP disaster. But I'd rather see him lay a foundation methodically and intelligently, than rush to do it and get us kicked out of the White House again.
- shaw-man
June 23, 2009 at 1:11pm
...Gradually, once I started paying serious attention, it become quite clear that Obama is a pragmatist, a compromiser, a centrist, a technocrat, etc. That's what I wanted. Some people never picked up on that, and now they're disappointed....
I thought he was all these things right from the get go.
- basman
June 23, 2009 at 1:32pm
Rantner said: "I think a lot of people took "change" to mean "Obama's going to change everything in Washington, nothing will ever be the same again."
No one I know took “change” to mean that. I know some silly people, but they're not that silly. All they wanted was a "change" from Bush/Cheney, and anything beyond that would be gravy, maybe something to do with their own humble hopes and desires for a better country, a better world. And, thankfully, happily, that's what we got. I agree wholeheartedly with Ratner, I got what I wanted (for example, NOT McCain), and I'm not disappointed.
I don't know this MacArthur from Adam, but why the over-the-top analysis...no, the extremism, the hysteria? Why the particular language: "New hero" as MacArthur frames it, or as I’ve seen on the Plank many times "the One", "the messiah", etc.
And this repetition of “lies”. What’s up? What do shitbirds like McArthur want? What is the "change" they want now. Can they wait until 2012--for free, democratic elections--or are they preparing the ground for a “change” before then?
- cvillekid
June 23, 2009 at 1:32pm
Shorter MacArthur: when Republicans attacked Obama as a Muslim socialist capitulator I secretly hoped they were right.
- Simon Greenwood
June 23, 2009 at 3:36pm
Simon - you left out fascist.
- Geoff G
June 23, 2009 at 3:58pm
No, no, Geoff, the fascist thing is a post-election innovation in Republican rhetoric.
The same devastating rebuttal could be made for conservative critics of President Bush. The man went on TV in 1999 and promised amnesty for illegals, and repeated the promise across the country in 2000 and 2004, and then when he tried to do it in 2005, conservatives acted like it was the greatest betrayal since Brutus et tued. Other than his two foreign invasions, not one thing President Bush did as president differed significantly from what he promised as early as 1999 to do if elected.
- rhubarbs
June 23, 2009 at 4:53pm
I don't like the idea of liars as though this is a trait of some but not others. People don't always tell the truth and politicians find themselves at odds with it all the time. I would say that Obama seems to get away with more because the press likes him and I would also say that he lied his ass off on health care. Key elements of his opponents plans which he criticized in a dishonest way have made their way into the plan that he hopes to sign into law. It is not clear to me that he needed to be dishonest on this, and he probably wishes now that he had not been.
- CraigMcGil
June 24, 2009 at 7:38am
(stamping my little feet)
I wanted a PONY!
- Wandreycer1
June 24, 2009 at 8:33am
Obama during his campaign promised that Jerusalem would remain the undivided capital of Israel. Enough said?
- nbarry
June 24, 2009 at 2:27pm
Hoooope! Chaaaaaange!
When all you spout are slogans, there really isn't much of a betrayal going on here. It's like World Wrestling Entertainment. Everyone knows it's fake, but they all play along and sort of try to believe.
As if one idiot could change the dynamic geopolitical equations and tribalism embedded in the human psyche since the dawn of time. Who does he think he is? God?
- jwl2672
June 24, 2009 at 2:55pm
Is Obama a liar?
That's like asking, "is Obama a politician?"
gw
- iambiguous
June 24, 2009 at 7:57pm