"How long do you think it will take for the press to turn on Obama?" a friend asked.
"Eight years, if he's in that long," I told him. "Doesn't matter what
happens. Either they'll blame Bush or 'circumstances beyond Obama's
control' while writing articles about how heroically Obama handles
them." It's already started.
Take President-elect Barack Obama's campaign narrative: a) Bush/McCain
deregulation created our problems; b) the policies of President Clinton
brought success and shared prosperity, c) President Bush's tax cuts
unfairly enriched the rich, d) Obama intends to end posthaste the Iraq
war, which "never should have been authorized and never should have
been waged," and e) through Gitmo/unlawful wiretaps/illegal
interrogation procedures, Bush "shredded" the Constitution.
Let's review.
Ever heard of the Glass-Steagall Act? President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, whose New Deal policies Obama wants to mirror, signed it
into law to prevent commercial banks from engaging in investment
banking. Investment banking, the kind of work done by Wall Street
titans such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, raises money to
package and sell securities such as the now-discredited "toxic"
mortgage and mortgage-backed derivatives. Clinton, with the backing of
many Republicans, allowed the banking/investment wall to fall by
signing the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, repealing a large part of the
Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. This led to the business model of the
now-troubled and recently bailed-out Citigroup, a model impossible but
for the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
The Clinton administration, during its waning days, published a paper
called "The Clinton Presidency: Historic Economic Growth." It listed
among its achievements "Modernizing for the New Economy through
Technology and Consensus Deregulation."
Clinton denies -- correctly -- that his deregulation policies caused
the current financial meltdown. "I don't see that signing that bill had
anything to do with the current crisis," he said. "Indeed, one of the
things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it
has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much
smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill." Blaming
deregulation on the financial crisis ignores a whole chain of events,
most notably the decline in housing values. But that didn't stop
candidate Obama from screaming "deregulation," even though Clinton
deregulated the financial sector more than did Bush.
Candidate Obama maligned the Bush tax cuts for benefiting the rich. But
President-elect Obama now intends to retain all the tax cuts, keeping
the lower rates on the "rich" until they expire in 2011 -- a far cry
from his campaign promises.
What about Bush's "stupid" Iraq war?
Obama now wants Bush's secretary of defense, Robert Gates, to stay.
Huh? Gates supported the successful surge and the change in
counterinsurgent strategy. Sen. Obama opposed the surge, attempted to
stop it, and predicted failure. Candidate Obama promised to have combat
troops out within a year or 16 months of his administration, but
President Bush and the Iraqi government now tentatively agree to have
all troops out by 2011, a timetable unfathomable but for Bush's
courageous and ultimately successful decision to surge.
What about the Guantanamo Bay detainees, the "evil" interrogation techniques and "unlawful" wiretaps?
Obama -- actually faced with governing -- seems now to understand the
complex legal questions Bush grappled with. Gitmo contains some really,
really bad people, and Obama's security advisers now appreciate the
complex legal and logistical problems. Where to move the detainees?
Moving them onto American soil creates a possible target for terror
attacks. And what legal rights and procedures apply in moving the
detainees to America? As for the Bush surveillance program -- which
allegedly "shredded" the Constitution -- Team Obama signals an
intention to retain many, if not most, of these "dreaded" policies.
Eric Holder, Obama's choice for attorney general, served as deputy
attorney general in the Clinton administration. He agreed with Bush on
a very important policy -- one opposed by liberal icons like Al Gore.
Holder, in a 2002 interview, agreed that terrorists must be
interrogated so we can learn information on their cells or future
plans, and that the Geneva Conventions limited the amount of
information interrogators could get. Clearly they were not prisoners of
war, said Holder, and were, therefore, not covered by the protections
of the Geneva Conventions. However, argued Holder, if we want our own
prisoners treated well, we should treat the detainees very humanely and
in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions -- a position that
Bush ultimately came to.
So where does this leave us?
Bush wasn't so evil after all. And running for and governing as
president are two different things. But don't expect the Obama-loving
media to notice or care.
