SALON

Wednesday, Jan 20, 2010 8:01 PM UTC

A disturbing failure to lead

In the face of towering challenges, Obama's accomplishments have been mediocre

By

Topics: Obama's First Year, Barack Obama

Every new president sweeps in on a wave of promised change then disappoints his base when confronted by governing’s harsh reality. President Obama crested at such a high water mark that his plunge has been especially disheartening.

True, Obama faces so many enormous problems that he deserves some slack. Feminist Majority’s Ellie Smeal ticked off to me a dozen positive things he’s done for women and the AAUW congratulates him for forming the President’s Council on Women and Girls, nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Still, he’s failed to exercise three essential aspects of leadership, not so much by what he’s done as by how he has done it:

He’s resisted staking out a concrete, decisive agenda. The first responsibility of a leader is to create meaning, and the executive’s most important power is to set the agenda. Having seen President Clinton falter on healthcare by presenting a full-blown bill to Congress, Obama presented no bill; hence the committee-designed “camel.” Now, nobody’s happy.

He hasn’t asked for sacrifice in a tough time. Franklin D. Roosevelt recruited business leaders to work for a dollar a year creating ways to increase employment; Obama recruited business leaders, drawing full pay, whose ties to the failed financial industry make their solutions suspect. Though he’s likened to JFK, Obama hasn’t issued “ask not” challenges such as the Peace Corps or moon shot. There’s nobility in pulling together to solve big problems; leaders elevate our aspirations beyond our own personal needs. Obama did it during the primary with his speech on race. He should do it now.

He hasn’t tethered his actions to principles espoused during his campaign. At the netroots conference last summer, close advisor Valerie Jarrett made clear that if progressives wanted this president to expend political capital, even if he’d supported their pet policies in the campaign, they must mobilize visible support. True, advocates should activate their constituencies. But this “show me you can deliver support then we’ll act on our principles” message is calculation worthy of the most callous Chicago pol. With health reform, he’s delicately danced around whether he wanted or didn’t care about a public option. Was pandering to Olympia Snowe to get a faux bipartisan health bill fruitful? Hardly. She opposed it in the end, and the delay brought daily dimunition of his power. Similarly, his misbegotten “Common Ground” effort on abortion and jettisoning the Freedom of Choice Act, which he’d previously declared a top priority, squandered pro-choice goodwill. Have anti-choice Common Grounders helped pass the stimulus or health reform? No. Still, Obama threw women under the bus, by not vigorously opposing Stupak and Nelson antiabortion amendments.

Obama’s presidency is young. Perhaps he’ll grow in willingness to stake out his agenda and lead America to its higher self. I take to heart author Courtney Martin’s point that Obama is exercising leadership when he says citizens must lead ourselves by participating in the process not just during elections, but every day. 

Gloria Feldt is the former president of Planned Parenthood.

Gloria Feldt is the former president of Planned Parenthood. More Gloria Feldt.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 21 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations