Predict the Obama Presidency

[JSojourner]

I've been asking myself this question a lot lately.  Excellent idea for a thread, though responses are understandably predictable.  Including my own.

I think Barack Obama will be a very good President.  Of course, very good Presidents don't always get re-elected.  (I note, expecting a storm of protest from my fellow Democrats, that George H.W. Bush was a good, maybe a very good, President.  Doesn't take away any respect I have for Clinton...it just affirms the fact that I can point to the H.W. administration and see lots of good stuff going on domestically and internationally.)

So -- what will Obama do that I will like?

I think he'll keep us on track to get out of Iraq and, most importantly, dramatically step up the war in Afghanistan.  I sure hope bin Laden is killed (or dead already).  Because that man is a waste of oxygen...and I say that about very, very few people.  But even if he doesn't get bin Laden, if he succeeds in righting the Afghan ship and helping install a reasonably tolerant Muslim government...as The Decider correctly intended to do in the beginning...we will be well on the road to improvement.  It's complicated, no doubt.  The poppy is a big part of the problem and how we handle that will go a long way to antagonizing or energizing the Afghan people.

I think Obama will succeed in getting our marginal foes to take a breath for a minute.  I don't know about the "foaming at the mouth" sort of Muslim extremists.  I'm still unsure of the North Koreans, thought I sincerely applaud recent Bush administration successes on that front.  But Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria...countries like that?  I think Obama will give them and us some breathing space.  Too, without sacrificing American independance, I expect him to successfully restore some, at least, of the good will we enjoyed with our allies after the 9-11 attacks.  They are not gonna give us a "do-over".  But if they see we are willing to respectfully listen to...and, at least some of the time, follow their advice....that's going to help.  In no small part because, sometimes Canada is right.  Simple as that.  :-)

Economically, I believe the bleeding will stop during the Obama administration.  But I hope we recognize that both Democratic and Republican voices and ideas are in the mix here.  Obama must, and I believe will, seek out Republican and Independent ideas and solutions.  There's no doubt, uber-partisan Republicans will say he's our version of George W. Bush -- plugging his ears and shutting out all but the synchophants -- if he doesn't do everything they want.  But let's be real.  If Obama heeds Hank Paulson on somethings...or if he turns Dick Lugar loose on a problem, there will be no shortage of Democrats whining about how he is selling out to big business or the military industrial complex.  But I expect him to govern mostly from the left, with more than token cooperation with the center.  This is not an incurious, "my way or the highway" sort of man.  And I think that's a good thing for our country.

I am fairly confident that -- to the extent he is fiscally able -- Obama will try to spark job creation and economic growth by attending to grossly neglected infrastructure.  I only hope he will do this with an openness to the new, and not just the old.  I'm all for highway projects.  But high speed, energy-efficient rail can be practical and successful if done correctly. 

I guess my highest hope for Obama -- and the most tenuous one -- centers around what national conversations we have.  About race, reproductive choice, sexuality and human rights, immigration, energy and firearms.  Among other things.  My highest hope is that he will stimulate, encourage and facilitate entirely new conversations...using paradigms that go beyond stale, old standards of left and right.  Let's begin a national conversation about abortion rights and let's invite anti-choice liberals and pro-choice conservatives to the table.  Let's find what we can agree on.  Ending most abortions can ONLY be a good thing.  There are ways to do that without criminalizing abortion and punishing women who are often in crisis. 

Finally, I hope Obama will - (and I have absolutely no idea if he will or if any candidate would, because frankly, none of them seem to care very much) -- put this country to work on the crucial issue of clean water and safe industrial emmissions.  There should NEVER be a repeat of the disasters we have witnessed in places like Anniston, Alabama. 

http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/Jones/anniston.htm

I'm not talking about something as simple as reparations.  One of the reasons I detest the reparation idea is that it's so superficial.  Money makes it all go away.  Bah.  I want to find ways for companies -- even chemical companies -- to make money, employ people AND put little or no toxins into the air and water.  That's one thing liberals and conservatives seem to agree on -- "It can't be done."  Liberals say that's why we need to shut these places down for good.  Conservatives say that's why we need to accept the risk and let them run as they please.  I am hoping Obama will say, "You bet it can be done.  And I am counting on Republicans and Democrats to show us all HOW."  Ah, but will he?  Time will tell...and on this one, I rather doubt it.

[JSojourner]

JS, you are just such a hopeless optimist. I suspect you are a believing Christian, as a wild guess. This stuff about conversations and the like, to reach some golden mean of wisdom, just isn't the way things are done. What is realistic, is that Obama will be in a policy strait jacket, as his more rabid supporters bite at his heels. His real challenge will be to persuade his true believers that there is no there, there.

I do believe that Obama will be determined not to be a failed president, and he has the discipline and smarts to avoid that, if he has the courage to anger his base. We  shall see.

I hope so, Torie.  More or less, anyway. 

I am a believing Christian...I was a nutter for a long time, but shed that nonsense about 20 years ago.  That story's been told elsewhere.  I've a deep, abiding respect for Atheists, Agnostics and religious folk who don't see things my way.  Except those who define themselves on the basis of who and what they hate, rather than who and what they love.

This rap about national conversations isn't silly, I don't think.  It's uncomfortable sometimes.  Sometimes, it goes horribly sour.  But it does get us places.  Civil Rights is a good example.  The conversations were just whispers in the 30's and 40's...a few good people, preaching to the choir.  But the talk continued.  I am not saying new national conversations can do away with left and right completely.  Or even that they should.  Just that different voices can start to be heard.  And compromises, healthy ones, can be reached.

In 1998, President Clinton endorsed legislation authored by Tom Daschle that would have dramatically reduced the number of abortions in this country.  The package contained elements abortion rights opponents thought amounted to compromise...and elements pro-choice folk considered too restrictive.  I, for one, didn't like that more abortions would be criminalized.  We've had that talk...I think that's an exercise in futility.  But still...even the National Right to Life grudgingly admitted that there would have been about 300 thousand fewer abortions had the Daschle Amendment become law.  It failed.

And I believe it failed because the only voices heard were those of Eleanor Smeal on the left, saying it was too restrictive...and James Dobson on the right, saying it was too permissive.  Would that more Americans had heard Gordon Smith and Tom Daschle! 

I'm just saying -- it's how we have these conversations that matters.  And who we listen to and put out in front.  Rather than rely on a nutter to publicly decry abortion, consider advancing the message of arch-liberal Nat Hentoff...who also happens to be a rock-ribbed anti-choice guy.  Before we call on another angry, "it's just a blob of tissue" feminist to call for unfettered access to abortion, let's think about listening to a basically conservative guy, Tom Ridge, who happens to have some sympathy for the reality that the genie is now out of the bottle.

I think this can happen.  Will it?  Oh, I agree...it would be the hardest, most difficult task for us all.  Clean-burning, plentiful energy and finding a cure for cancer are probably easier -- if we put our mind to it.  (and we should)  Still, there's something awfully attractive about mutual respect, civility and finding higher, if not common, ground.

[JSojourner]

So, what kind of Presidency do you think he'll have?

I'm interested both in what his supporters expect from his and what his detractors fear from him.

#7) hopefully get rid of that ban on partial-birth abortions

You know, try as hard as I might, I have never been able to understand the affinity of some of the Left for the notion of riping a living human being who has a pretty decent chance of being self-sustaining, out of the body of another who is quite obviously pregnant at this point, cracking open thier skull and sucking out their brain, all while the infant is kicking and screaming. 

Perhaps you could enlighten me. 

Have you ever seen one of these performed?

Yes, at least a videotaped presentation.  These are typically, though not always I gather, performed on fetuses that are afflicted with anencephaly.  In short, the baby's brain grows in-utero, outside the closed skull.  Children born like this can live into young adulthood...if they undergo multiple surgeries.  As I understand it, they are always -- not just most of the time, but always -- complete vegetables.  Even so, the parents can still choose to have the baby.  Or have it, and abandon it to the state.  They aren't forced to undergo any kind of abortion procedure.

Still, I would gladly support a ban on partial birth abortion if it is ever performed when non-anencephalous fetuses are involved.  And presuming anyone could agree on a legally appropriate punishment for violators.