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What He Said
David Brooks on Obama’s governing style:
The election revolved around passionate rallies. The Obama White House revolves around a culture of debate. He leads long, analytic discussions, which bring competing arguments to the fore. He sometimes seems to preside over the arguments like a judge settling a lawsuit.
His policies are often a balance as he tries to accommodate different points of view. He doesn’t generally issue edicts. In matters foreign and domestic, he seems to spend a lot of time coaxing people along. His governing style, in short, is biased toward complexity.
That’s one of the main reasons I voted for the man — and will probably do so again.
Be sure to read the rest of Brooks’ column; it’s well worth your time. Note, in particular, his summary of the “four fictions” of presidential campaigns.
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7 Responses to “What He Said”
A far cry from the conservative method of opening a debate:
http://bit.ly/fxv3G
(satire)
Republi-CAN party. I like it!
“His policies are often a balance as he tries to accommodate different points of view.”
This is a major problem. A leader ought know who he is: what his principles are. When a leader listens to competing arguments, he notes which argument or which parts of the arguments most represent his principles. A leader then leads in the direction in which his principles point. A leader does not “accomodate different points of view.” The nation didn't intend to elect a “Mediator in Chief”.
Usually the other side has a point. If you ignore their points, in favor of looking strong or resolute, you screw up. That was Bush's problem. A lot of the predictions the opposition made in the run up to the Iraq war came true. If he had bothered to listen, to accomodate those different points of view, he wouldn't have made so many mistakes and nearly lost that war.
Good Brooks column.
I get your point. And yet
I said nothing about “looking strong or resolute”. I spoke about being principled.
Imo, it's more likely that GWB looked at all sides and then made a decision, as opposed to an accommodation. The allegations about intractability are 1) part normal carping about a decision maker's choices, and 2) part political ploy which was massively amplified by media.
Re “Usually the other side has a point”. If there are truly two sides to an argument, usually one side is going to better represent your principles. Why would you accommodate an argument which does not represent your principles? If both sides represent your principles: is it really an argument with two sides, or is it a breakdown of communication in which everyone is on the same side?
There's a famous saying: “It's my decision, and I made it.” Brooks' article amounts to this allegation re Pres. Obama: “It's my decision, and I mediated an accommodation.” Maybe Brooks is wrong. If he's correct, this is not a good thing.
Mediating between different positions is not the same thing as having no principles to guide the mediation process. Obama has strong core values – center-left for the most part. But his application of them requires the sort of mediating between complex drivers of policy. Perhaps the civil judge metaphor was a bad one by Brooks because it implies that Obama is 100% impartial when he is far from it. But Obama's willingness to privilege reason over ideological assumption, cynicism or arrogance is a welcome sign of mature leadership.
In fact, this is why I supported him from the start. The rallies and the “hope” talk was fun. But I was always impressed by him in the way Andrew Sullivan was impressed by him – his temperamentally conservative approach to decision-making grafted on to a center-left ideology (which Sullivan did not share but I do).