Glenn Greenwald on the 'powerless presidency' excuse

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/21/obama

As I noted earlier today, there is a newly minted Obama apologist meme that has been created and is being disseminated by Obama-defending pundits far and wide: namely, liberals are blaming Obama for too much because the Presidency is actually quite a weak and powerless office, and he's powerless to do most of what liberals advocate. This claim was articulated by Jonathan Bernstein in response to my post documenting how Barack Obama -- by supporting Blanche Lincoln rather than remaining neutral or supporting her primary challenger -- likely swung the election in her favor. I argued that the central role Obama played in Lincoln's race illustrates that Presidents possess substantial means for influencing members of Congress. In describing my argument as "ignorant nonsense that betrays a deep lack of understanding of how the government of the United States works," Bernstein did not bother to address, let alone refute, that extremely formidable presidential leverage that Obama just used to help Lincoln win in Arkansas.

Instead, he broadly asserted that "the idea of an 'Impotent, Helpless President' . . . basic American politics," that "the presidency is a very weak office," and that Obama has no real leverage to influence Democratic members of Congress to support legislation he wants. Since then, a whole slew of Obama defenders have cited Bernstein's "Impotent Helpless Presidency" excuse to argue that progressives expect too much of Obama and that their criticisms of him are unfair, irrational and unwarranted. Today, Jonathan Chait complains that I have only derided and mocked but not responded in detail to this argument. That's basically true, as I find the argument self-refuting, but permit me to change that by responding in detail now.

Initially, this issue arose in the context of the health care debate, when progressive critics were complaining that the Obama White House was doing nothing to ensure passage of the public option. In response, Obama defenders insisted that the fault lay not with Obama, but with Democratic members of Congress over whom Obama had no leverage. All year long, they told their readers not to blame Obama for the lack of a public option because there was just nothing the helpless, powerless leader could do. Except now it is conclusively clear that Obama never wanted the public option from the start -- Russ Feingold said as much, and The New York Times revealed that Obama secretly negotiated away the public option in deals with industry representatives very early on in the process. Thus, critics who were complaining that Obama was publicly claiming to want to the public option while ensuring it would not be enacted were correct, while those who kept telling their readers that the fault lay with Democratic members of Congress -- not Obama -- were engaged in pure apologia.

More broadly, after 8 years of Bush/Cheney, the very idea that the Presidency is a weak and largely powerless office is laughable on its face. It's Barack Obama -- not the U.S. Congress -- who is detaining innocent people without trials, targeting U.S. citizens for due-process-free assassinations, secretly ordering covert wars via Special Operations Forces, ordering a "surge" in the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan, and launching cruise missile strikes with cluster bombs in Yemen. The more honest commentators who are invoking this "weak presidency" defense on behalf of Obama -- such as Matt Ygleisas, Ezra Klein, and Scott Lemieux -- acknowledge its basic inapplicability to Terrorism and foreign policy, which accounts for a substantial part of the liberal critique of the Obama presidency. And, for that matter, many of the positive steps Obama has taken -- changes in drug policy, an improvement in tone with the Muslim world, release of the OLC torture memos -- were also actions taken unilaterally using the power of the Presidency.

(...)

"there is a newly minted Obama apologist meme" betrays Greenwald's dishonest agenda. That and fact that this article is NOTHING but a strawman construct created so he can bash the President and his supporters. Salon should fire Glenn Greenwald, if they had an ounce of journalistic integrity.

;) That's a really big "IF". I'd really love to see Glenn run for office & win, just to see how quickly his admirers turn on him. That would be really interesting.

with no influence?

or any of the points made. They just attack the messenger and try cheer each other on.

If they address your question, they find themselves in a loop where they might say something about the issue that might be quoted. So they avoid issues and attack.

By the logic of the "president has no power" argument, we needn't worry about who is in the office, since it makes no difference. You can see the problem they have.

putting thoughts into their minds.

fascinating.

If I don't put ideas there, how will we know if you have any?

Unless, of course, you care to address the issues of the OP. How do you feel about those who defend the president by saying that his is a powerless office?

equal having no power at all.

the president is using all the power the has at hand.

"why do they hate me"

:rofl:

a banky for Glen!

:rofl:

he seems a rather fragile fellow. ;)

and determining the future.

Gee, but it would be just sloppy and low to actually do what you just chastised someone for doing.

Again. Would you care to address any of the issues in the article? Have any idea on the "powerless presidency"? Care to offer an opinion about the ideas expressed rather than your opinion of the one expressing his thoughts?

Just tell us if you think the office of the president is weak and that no president can actually do anything unless congress allows him to do so.

Or you can just snark off on me or Greenwald. You decide which is more constructive.

being with Greenwald, though he has his blind spots like anyone else.

Salon has about as much credibility as FDL these days.

saying Obama didn't do much at all to help Lincoln. It's a joke to say her win is proof of Obama's influence. :eyes:

i'll give him credit for that one. Glenn Greenwald would probably give him credit for it. Not sure that credit is the word that either of us would use.

"...Barack Obama -- by supporting Blanche Lincoln rather than remaining neutral or supporting her primary challenger -- likely swung the election in her favor. I argued that the central role Obama played in Lincoln's race illustrates that Presidents possess substantial means for influencing members of Congress."

He thinks that Obama swung the election in her favor. No, it was Bill Clinton who did that. He claim's Lincoln's win was proof of Obama's influence, but he seems to forget the 4 or 5 candidates who Obama campaigned for that LOST. Greenwald is a joke.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/former-pres-clinton-blasts-olbermann-for-politicizing-health-care-event/

BClinton said he would not attend the one in Arkansas because he felt Olbermann was politicizing healthcare :shrug: and that the "left" was lining up a primary challenge to Lincoln.

It was BClinton that dragged her sorry ass over the finish line.

and citing specifics (which a poster here claimed Greenwald's detractors fail to do). :hi:

supporting her challenger? If the so-called socialist president had actually supported the left would the results have been different?

The point is that Greenwald credited (discredited ?) the wrong Democrat for embracing Lincoln. Although the WH endorsed her as the incumbent (ugh), it was BClinton that campaigned vigorously on her behalf.

:rofl:

Very appropriate too.

Neustadt's "presidential power" thesis has been well-established for half a century. Greenwald thinks he can morph it into a piece of straw man fiction only to knock it down and advance his political fantasies. What a tool.

...and Greenwald absolutely demolishes the notion of a powerless President.

Although, as he points out, he should not have to demolish the argument since it is absurd on its face.

Oh well.

I encourage everyone to read Bernstein's piece to see how disconnected Greenwald really is.

http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2010/06/presidency-is-weak-really.html

I wonder how he'd fair in a real argument.

Funny how his detractors almost always neglect to address the specifics of Greenwlad's arguments and their rebuttal is almost always a one liner or snark. I think that fair minded readers on DU can see quite clearly that Greenwald's critics have nothing to offer other than meaningless piffle.

This is the meme that annoys me the most. It's an insult (to our intelligence) on top of injury (betraying our interest).

The WH repeatedly seems to have enough clout to get good provisions removed from legislation. And then we're expected to believe that the same clout cannot get good provisions added to legislation.

Sorry. I don't buy that.

It's very clear that we could be getting a lot more damage of the past reversed, if the WH wanted it so. I find that very disappointing but it's simply obvious.

There are enough Repubs and blue dogs to remove anything we might like...because it limits "big Gov". It's another thing to add provisions which is seen as excess spending and more gov.

I don't understand how hard that is to understand. When you're a dealing with a center to right Congress even if with more Dems this is expected.

In print? that's funny. Like if its in print, Rahm will rush to read it, send it to Obama and then glory be all is well.

Let's ask ourselves how much Bush Republicans would have gotten done without the corporate media, or corporate muscle in general, behind them.

The president may have more power than any other American politician, but it's largely attributable to the Bully Pulpit. Next to our corporate masters, the presidency is weak.

It's Big Money that is too strong.

Greenwald is 100% correct in this assessment.

The MOST ridiculous argument that I have ever heard on DU is that the President was powerless on the Public Option,
that it was entirely dependent on Congress and Joe Lieberman.

Obama is powerless?
Go ask the Congressmen in the Progressive Caucus how "powerless" the Obama Administration was when they were holding out on the WAR appropriation.

Go ask Kucinich how powerless Obama was when he was holding out for a Public Option.

I don't recall Obama going to Connecticut and negatively calling out Lieberman for obstructionism during the HCR debate.


"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

I'll never forget or forgive being sold out on public option.

We have way too much fuzzy thinking and blind faith going on here.

Your quote from Wellstone should be spoken at the beginning of any Democratic meeting.

But there were 13:
edited for link ---> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8516732

Max Baucus
Evan Bayh
Maria Cantwell
Tom Carper
Kent Conrad
Diane Feinstein
Mary Landrieu
Joe Lieberman (fake Democrat)
Blanche Lincoln
Bill Nelson
Ben Nelson
Mark Pryor
Ron Wyden

Whatever else you may think of Obama, he's not a magician and it's grotesquely unfair to lay blame for the failure of the PO at his feet. Kucinich knows this and his emotional remarks were tantamount to sniveling. The lesson from this should be that if Democrats want progressive policy, Democrats have to knock these Blue Dog/ConservaDem legislators out of office. Policy is crafted in Congress, not the WH.

I am simply observing the FACT that the White House did NOT fight Lieberman and the Centrist Democrats anywhere near as much as he fought the Progressives for his War money and votes for Mandates without a Public Option.
In fact, he put up NO visible fight at all.
You can take that however you want, but the facts speak for themselves.


"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone


"By their works you will know them."

Then feel free to post some videos of "The Fight",
or point to occasions where he traveled to their home states and negatively campaigned against them,
or where he dispatched his Winged Monkeys to their home states,
or cite some editorials where he named them and called them out.


"I did not campaign on a Public Option."
.
.
.
Some fight.

We have been relentlessly told that it is Congress and Congress alone that must move on the major LGBT issues of the day.

Two incidents on DADT have exposed the weakness of this argument. First, Speaker Pelosi asked the President to halt the discharges under DADT until the repeal comes into force. Speaker Pelosi has directly requested the President use his powers as Commander in Chief to relieve LGBT service men and women of having their lives and careers ruined. The President has refused to take this step. Second, Congress wanted to pass a simple repeal without triggers, compromises, or delays. It is the President, and the President alone, who offered resistance to Congress on this issue.

The President has powers in this area, but he refuses to use them - or he uses them to delay progress. The logic behind "The President cannot do anything about it" is faulty and false, no matter how often it is repeated.

I personally believe the argument about the President's powerlessness is actually denigrating to him - it is not a compliment of his abilities or agenda. It is an argument that declares him a weak leader, and I do not think that is the argument the people who make it intend to get across.

and not bloggers who just watch a lot of tv.

a god when he was telling the truth about Hillary during the primaries.

Now he has become a nasty man because he tells the truth about Obama.

These nasty attack posts that avoid the issues of the OP say more about the intellectual honesty of some than it does about Greenwald.

There is evidence of only one guiding moral principle: Say good things only about anything Obama says or does, and you are wise and good. Call out our president on his foibles and you are scum. The issues don't matter. The principles don't matter. You can be for the war or against it. You can be for prosecuting bushco or against it. You can be for gay rights or against them. You can support both sides of any issue within a year as long as your current posts do nothing but praise the president.

To me this demeans and diminishes the man. If some never find anything wrong, their praise is pointless and to be ignored.

One is that, while I do not know you, i am guessing you have not gotten over Hillary losing.

The other is that like so many on the left, you confuse criticism of policy with personal tear downs.
You can disagree with a policy, legitmately, and such without disparaging someone's character. And this is where the disagreements lie within the left's rupture.

you confuse your idea of what is happening with what is really happening. In this case you disagree with the opinion, so you label it with disparaging character. Show me the character diparagement in the OP that is not a disagreement with policy, that is not a criticism of actions taken. You say that a person can disagree, but when they do, you label it an attack.

Now, for your first attempt at a straw man. My reference to HIllary was because it was Greenwald's attacks on her that brought him to fame and garnered him god like status among the neo-political types that view government as a game. Like so many not on the left, you confuse supposition with logic. Try to understand this. If I were still smarting from Hillary losing the primary, why would I be defending someone who was one of her big detractors? See? Your guessing lacks any thought. And you are right. You do not know me. I don't know you, but I would be willing to bet that I put more hours into Obama's election than you might have. I am quite sure that I have every right to complain about the actions of a man for whom I put in hundreds of hours to get him elected. I find the difference between the campaign rhetoric and the governance to be disappointing and depressing.

By the way. As you seem to consistently disparage the "left", just where do you consider yourself on the political spectrum?

It's been commented more then once that Greenwald has lost his perspective and has confused unreasonable hate for legit criticism.
Many feel he is not providing a clear analysis and criticism. Just more rightwing style hate mongering.
He is in need of a vacation to do some intense soul searching.
Greenwald is fast becoming a joke, much as his buddy Firebagger Jane has.

see this thread and every thread about Greenwald.

"Many feel he is not..."

"It's been commented more than once that..."

Your statement about his credibility echoes Bill-O's sentiments. It is also unsubstantiated.

"It has been commented more than once". Let's see. I think that we can find many comments that say Democrats are the devil. I know a right wing bar where those comments are common. So you use "commented more than once" as a piece of proof? Just like Faux.

"Many feel" How many? Who are they? Can you provide cites and quotes to back up your claim or do you, just like Faux, simply add a non-term like "many feel" and think that makes it credible. Now that's some real right wing hate mongering. Do you know the difference between right wing and left wing. Let me help you. Right wingers love corporations and wars and taxes and government helping the poor. How does Greenwald complaining that Obama is too corporate friendly and didn't do enough to help the common man with the Health Care fiasco make him right wing. Now you could say he was too left wing, but you confuse the two so that you can score a cheap point. Unlike Greenwald who actually uses things that really happened to make his point.

I think posts like this only bring into question your credibility and need for a soul-cleansing vacation.

(Oh and I love the class of your final bit of name-flinging. It is so refreshing to see true logical argument and discussion. Between Glenn and someone who posts this lamely, Glennis not the joke.)

you'd think you all could have brought this article into the negative recs territory.

I see the usual ignored douchemonkeys are here stinking up the place.