For whatever reason, my 250 words banged out in the 15 minutes between the end of the speech and my deadline did not make the cut for the print edition of the Des Moines Register, so here it is.
This was a strong speech. There were some real clunkers of course, the spending freeze most notably. No one, including Candidate Obama, believes that is a serious debt reducing measure. But overall, especially at the beginning and end it was very powerful, classic Obama. It will leave little doubt among anyone inclined to give the President any benefit of the doubt that he is sincere and dedicated to accomplishing the goals he sets out. But the larger question is, as one pundit put it, “Do you think speeches can change things?”
The answer is, they can help. They can give a boost of impetus. But that has to be followed up with some strong force if one is going to move the huge mass of cynicism and fecklessness that is the US Congress. So the question that I and many who want the President to succeed will be asking ourselves is: what is he willing to do to provide that necessary force? To date, Obama has been what many of us knew him to be all along: a smart, moderate politician. But now, with the forces of cynicism and self-interest so entrenched, we need him to be the idealistic master of political jujitsu that we saw in the campaign.
I fear that we are at a tipping point in our public lives in this country. That public trust in the ability of our elected officials has eroded to the point where the legitimacy of the government is increasingly called into question. If there is to be meaningful change, then the time is now. Comes the hour, comes the man. I just hope President Obama, can be the man Americans want him to be.
Aporopos of that last sentiment. Here is Andrew Sullivan yesterday:
“[W]hen the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American Constitution is such as to grow every day more and more encroaching. … The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality become the objects of ridicule and Johnadams scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society,” – John Adams, as cited by Jim Sleeper.
My foreboding sense is that America may have already passed the point of no return in terms of civil, constitutional governance.
I’ve been working over recently the idea that our institutions inability to deal with our problems is the meta-problem of our day. (See here and here.) When people’s faith wanes so much in their government to govern responsibly and responsively to the nation’s needs then the entire legitimacy of the government begins to be called into question. And that gets us into some very dangerous territory.
