Obama On and Off Base

My object is to defend Barack Obama against attacks on him by what has been his liberal constituency. Again and again he is accused of timidity and excessive caution for not fighting for their agenda. The assumption is that his agenda and theirs coincide, and that he lacks the courage and force to fight for its enactment. Could it be that he simply differs from his critics about policy and strategy and that it may even take a kind of courage to resist the pressure of his liberal base? It is the habit of his critics to invoke liberal heroes of the past—Lincoln, FDR, and even LBJ as models for what a bold presidency can achieve—and contrast their performances with the timorousness of Obama's. ("Be afraid, be very afraid," Paul Krugman mocks Obama when he takes a tack that does not conform to what Krugman believes should and can be done.) Anyone who has read the history of the Lincoln and Roosevelt administrations has to be struck with the unfairness of the contrast. Their presidencies proceeded through fits and starts, hesitations and uncertainties. Rarely did they avoid making compromises to achieve results. Either unread in that history or willfully ignoring it, Obama's critics express dismay and disbelief at every failure, every inconsistency, apparent and real, in his performance.