The President’s Disappearing Bully Pulpit and the Watering Down of Obama’s Agenda of Hope

By Brigitte L. Nacos

This long, hot summer in the American Northeast is not unique. There have been long, hot summers before. But the frequency of days with above normal temperatures and the melting ice in the arctic region are far from normal. Europe experiences and suffers through a record hot summer and in countries where few have air conditioned homes or cars. Yet, the persistent drum beat of the unholy alliance between the conservative and corporate interests has once again derailed the president’s and the Democratic majority’s agenda of hope as the energy bill became the latest casualty of the Republican Tea Party’s war against meaningful change. Instead of fighting to take the first big step towards renewable energy and the creation of many jobs in a green energy sector not prone to outsourcing, Senate Democrats abandoned the energy bill that their colleagues in the House had passed.

While I applaud New York Times columnist Tom Friedman’s strong support for green energy and independence from oil-producing foreign countries, I am not putting most of the blame on a by and large disinterested public. Instead, I fault President Obama and his fellow-partisans in Congress who once again abandoned the right policy and surrendered to the attack dogs of the Republican Tea Party and their drill sergeants Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and like-minded talk show ideologues of the far right.

To be sure, in a democracy the support of the public is crucial in policy-making. And here the president comes in: It takes a president who is willing to use the presidential bully pulpit to enlist public support. That’s precisely what the great communicators Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan did repeatedly and successfully: they used the presidential platform to “go public” and to persuade the American public to support their respective policy agendas.

But Barack Obama who was articulate and charismatic and persuasive as presidential candidate—in short a great communicator—is strangely reluctant to use the bully pulpit to further the agenda of hope and change that won him the victory in the fall of 2008. Instead, he, his White House, and his administration lean over backwards to enlist the support of a reactionary Republican Tea Party crowd that says “no” to everything except more shock and awe in the so-called “war against terrorism.”

Yes, there were some successes in Obama’s first twenty months, namely, the health reform and the recent bank reform. But both were significantly watered down by the minority as was the bill for the latest extension of unemployment benefits that was stripped of stimulus funds for small businesses and other common sense provisions.

A president and a White House seemingly afraid of and reacting to the politics of division and the distortions of the opposition party will not change the current political climate to their advantage.

That would take a strong, activist president who uses his superb communication skills in the presidential bully pulpit.