Embracing the role of problem-solver
WASHINGTON - President Obama yesterday used the grandest stage of the presidency to reveal how he wants to be seen - as a realist, not an ideologue, as a figure of consensus, not the leader of a movement, as a hard worker grappling with problems, not a visionary seeking new horizons.
In a long address with few frills and even less soaring rhetoric, the president sought to recast such ideologically charged issues as providing national health insurance, imposing tough regulations on Wall Street, and eliminating costly new weapons systems as problems to be confronted and solved, in what he hopes will be an orderly and bipartisan fashion.
"The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of healthcare; the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit," the president declared at a key juncture in his debut speech before both houses of Congress. "That is our responsibility."
Such sentiments are probably as familiar to those who've sat through previous State of the Union-type speeches as the now-standard lineup of American heroes seated beside the first lady in the gallery. But the president's particular approach was evident in his framing of them - the so ber warning of dire consequences ("the only way this century will be another American century . . ."), the starkness of the language ("schools that aren't preparing our children"), the call for responsible action.
Both Republican critics and official friends such as Bill Clinton have suggested that Obama's approach has been too negative, and the White House took the unusual step of releasing a very early snippet of the speech in which he confidently promised that "the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
But the rest of the speech was relatively short on the type of sunny optimism that Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan used to buoy the nation in hard times.
Rather, Obama's style was a variation on the bargaining approach of Clinton. But while Clinton excelled at explaining his policies, Obama is most effective at explaining his own intentions - especially his desire to pursue post-partisan solutions to urgent national problems.
"As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by Presidents' Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government - I don't. Not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've inherited - I am. I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships."
Obama's commitment to nonideological problem-solving carries differing implications for the issues. It suggests a willingness to make centrist compromises on budgetary concerns such as spending on the entitlement programs of Medicare and Social Security, and cutting unnecessary defense programs.
It also portends a more workmanlike, less idealistic pursuit of changes in the healthcare system, with the possible result of a less sweeping overhaul than some liberals have wanted - though Obama did not retreat from his call for affordable care for all.
And it suggests that the president's pursuit of bipartisanship will continue to be a salient aspect of his administration - and a key talking point of his critics.
Some of Obama's fellow Democrats have grumbled that his promise of bipartisan solutions only serves to give the Republicans, with their much-reduced numbers, a platform to criticize the ruling Democrats. And Republicans, before and after Obama's speech, accused the Democrats of failing to live up to his pledge.
But Obama also knows that in a time of crisis, there is only one president, and he still holds most of the cards.
What matters is whether voters continue to trust him. And Obama - in a rigidly honest, careful way - showed last night that he will fight to keep that trust by presenting himself as the embodiment of the national interest.
