But after only five months in office, something began to go wrong. Voters rebelled against spending and health care; Greece and other countries began to go bankrupt; and numerous states in this country faced the same problem, done in by extravagant benefits to government workers and other forms of domestic largesse.
Together, these ambushed the plans he came up with, and put in their place a whole other story: If the first part of the 20th century proved the need for regulations and safety nets (which it did, child labor, the Triangle Fire, and market fluctuations having made the case for them), the first part of the 21st century is proving that the welfare state that grew out of them has become unsustainable, and must prune itself back to survive.
It turns out Obama does have a big job, just not the one he signed on for. Presidents become great when they fit the times and the mood of the moment, which is Obama’s great problem.
He can give up his dream of expanding the government, and become great by addressing the problem and saving the safety net by making it viable. Or he can cling to his mission, and fail.
A crisis is a bad thing to waste, Rahm Emanuel told him, but this is the second one in succession Obama has failed to finesse. With his first one — the financial collapse that got him elected — he tried to leverage it into a mammoth expansion of government, that led in turn to a mammoth resistance, to the rise of a new class of conservative heroes, and to a mammoth defeat in the House.
With the second — the tsunami of debt rolling toward the country — he is pretending it doesn’t exist. In his State of the Union, he proposed still more spending, all on nonessentials.
Thirty-five minutes later, he (briefly) mentioned the deficit. Sensible liberal Ruth Marcus called it “a disturbing vacuum of leadership.” Worse, she said, he undercut efforts by senators from both parties to rein in expenses.
“The State of the Union gave Obama the opportunity to confront the contradictions and educate Americans in the unpleasant realities of uncontrolled government,” said Robert Samuelson. “He declined.” Men of destiny try to pre-empt crises, not allow them to fester.
It was as if FDR gave a speech in 1940 on foreign affairs, and ignored Nazi Germany while he touted our friendly relations with Canada. This is not the way men of destiny act.
Obama is not transformational, and he will not be great. If he goes on like this, he will not even be adequate, but will go down in history as one of the soi-disant leaders who not only failed to master a crisis, but failed to admit one existed.
The mess he claims he inherited from President George W. Bush (which was made in large part by Obama’s friends and his party) will be as nothing compared to the one he’ll pass on to his heirs.
Examiner Columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
