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If I Were President, I’d Be A Dictator
Jonathan Chait illuminates the gap between what the President would do if he was an autocrat and what he can do limited by Congressional procedure, a distinction lost on some frustrated progressive pundits.
Few people follow the arcana of Congressional debate. They attribute all political outcomes to the president, and thus when the outcome is unsatisfactory, the reason must be a failure of presidential willpower.
Rachel Maddow offered a perfect example of the phenomenon the other night. She delivered her fantasy version of the speech President Obama should have given. It was filled with unequivocal liberal rhetoric. I was struck by this portion, explaining how she would pass an energy bill:
The United States Senate will pass an energy bill. This year. The Senate version of the bill will not expand offshore drilling. The earlier targets in that bill for energy efficiency and for renewable energy-sources
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Popularity: 8% [?]
Today In Charts
Support for allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the military is highest among moderates (85%), liberals (82%), those who seldom or never attend church (80%), and 18- to 29-year-olds (79%).
The public opinion environment does suggest widespread support for repealing the policy. The majority of Americans in all key demographic groups, including conservatives (53%), Republicans (60%), and weekly churchgoers (57%), say they favor allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military. These views are hardly changed from what Gallup reported last year, with all three conservative-leaning groups remaining more favorable toward openly gay service members than they were in 2004.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Will The Obama Bump Increase U.S. Power?
He sure hopes it does
Yesterday Andrew Sullivan argued that the bump in global approval America has enjoyed since President Obama’s election will make pursuit of its goals abroad easier.
[E]specially in trying to defuse as well as defeat Jihadist terror, this kind of profound change could serve America’s interests well. The idea that a better reputation abroad is meaningless uplift is foolish. It helps the US leverage its power to greater ends. The more popular the US is, the likelier it is to have a positive impact on other countries’ leaders.
Foreign Policy’s Daniel Drezner disagrees:
I do wonder just how much leverage this kind of soft power carries with it. Consider the ability of the U.S. to enact multilateral economic sanctions. The Bush administration, at the
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Popularity: 1% [?]
Kagan As Bridge-Builder
This is the Supreme Court nominee you want if you’re a president eager to preserve political capital in the confirmation process. Harvard Law’s Charles Fried, a solicitor general in the second Reagan administration and a longtime Federalist Society crowd-pleaser:
In February 2005 the student branch of the Federalist Society (a group founded in the early ’80s to explore and promote conservative and libertarian perspectives on the law) held its national jamboree at Harvard Law School. At the banquet in a downtown hotel, Kagan rose to speak the host institutions’ words of greeting to the thousand or so federalists assembled from every corner of the country. She was greeted by a long and raucous ovation. With a broad grin and her unmistakable Upper West Side twang, the former Clinton White House official responded: “You are not my people.” This brought the dark-suited crowd of federalist students to their feet in a roar of affectionate approval.
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Popularity: 1% [?]
A ‘Mutual Disappointment’
Der Spiegel meditates on the apparently unsteady personal and political relationship between President Obama and the German Chancellor:
Her approach doesn’t work with Obama. He isn’t part of the generation of charming older men, and he has a very direct, almost brusque, way of making policy. He doesn’t waste much time on small talk, his day is tightly scheduled, and he makes sure that his counterparts know this. He also has little concern for protocol. During a meeting in Dresden, he surprised Merkel by asking her why she was opposed to Turkey being admitted to the European Union. The topic was not on the agenda.
A similar situation is inconceivable for Merkel. She would negotiate Main Street to death, and the combatants would eventually lay down their arms, half satisfied and half dazed. Not even during the election campaign, the classic dueling scenario in politics,
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Popularity: 1% [?]
