One Year Later...

George Packer of the New Yorker makes some good points about Obama:

Part of Obama’s weakness has been this unwillingness or inability to say a few simple things passionately, which would let Americans know that he is on their side....

First is his distaste for political conflict. He came into office truly believing that Washington partisanship was a quarter or a third of the country’s problem (read “The Audacity of Hope”), and that he was the one who could carry us all beyond it. Before the month of January 2009 was over, it was clear to many congressional Democrats that the other party had absolutely no interest in cooperating and indeed saw its way back to power in unwavering intransigence. Somehow, the White House needed the rest of the year to figure it out, and even now I wonder whether Obama has completely abandoned the dream of post-partisanship, since successful people are loathe to give up on their most cherished ideas. This long hesitation gave the weakened Republicans a tactical advantage that gradually amounted to a second life. It made the Administration and Congress seem weak, divided, more focused on legislative process than on real problems. Drawing bright lines, making combative noises, and asking which side are you on can be a crude and often demagogic thing, but it creates an appearance of strength, and Americans like people who know their minds and are prepared to fight.

But the fundamental reason why the soaring emotions of the inauguration have soured just a year later goes beyond anything that Obama can do. The country is in deep trouble, not just with ten percent unemployment (though that accounts for a lot of unhappiness), but with chronic, long-term social and economic problems. Whatever responsibility George W. Bush and his Republican Party might bear is almost forgotten; in the age of the iPhone and cable news, that was half a century ago. These problems, which can be summed up as the decline of the American middle class, have been so resistant to solutions that the readiest and most reasonable stance is profound skepticism. It is so much harder politically to do something affirmative than to stand in the way and say it can’t be done. Obama has made his job all the more difficult by trying to do something—and in some cases succeeding—without offering much of a challenge to the people standing in the way. So he pays the price, and they do not.