Taylor Branch's book, "The Clinton Tapes," which recounts a contentious interview President Clinton sat for with Rolling Stone:
[Clinton] said Rolling Stone's founder, Jan Wenner, had come to the White House with author William Greider, a former Washington Post editor whose books included a populist critique of the Federal Reserve banking system. They had agreed not to discuss NAFTA because of Greider's implacable opposition, and the president said all went fine until Greidier brandished a photograph of a destitute-looking American to mount a sudden, dramatic attack.... Greider confronted him saying here is one of the countless poor people who looked to you for leadership -- you were their last hope. Now they feel utterly disillusioned and abandoned. Can you look into this face and name one thing you have done to help? Or one principle you won't compromise ? One cause you will uphold? One belief you would die for?
The president said he had replied in kind. "I kind of went off on him," the president recalled. He told Greider that he had done things already that no other president would do. He had raised taxes on the rich and lowered them for the poor. He had introduce the AmeriCorps service program, which Rolling Stone had campaigned for, and established it into law. He was taking on the gun lobby and the tobacco lobby. He had proposed fair treatment for gay soldiers. He was fighting for national health care, and more, but liberals paid very little attention to these things because they were bitchy and cynical about politics. They resented Clinton for respecting the votes of conservatives or the opinions of moderates. They wanted him to behave like a dictator because they didn't really care about results in the world.... He said he had pointed at Greider to tell him the problem is you, Bill Greider. You are a faulty citizen. You don't mobilize or persuade, because you only worry about being doctrinaire and proud. You are betraying your own principles with self-righteousness.
(Emphasis supplied.) I think Greider was right to confront President Clinton - he wanted him to do more. Clinton wanted credit for the things he had done. Because that's what pols want. But what was really interesting to me is the fact that President Obama has not been able to do what Clinton did on one of the most important policy questions any President faces - setting tax policy.
It is an old refrain for me to bemoan how progressive wonk types fail to appreciate the manner in which tax policy dictates fiscal policy. It is their major blind spot in evaluating The Deal, Krugman not excluded.
But think about this - Barack Obama won a landslide in in 2008 had historic Democratic majorities in Congress, indeed a much more progressive Congress than Bill Clinton ever had, and he can not even restore the Clinton tax policy. Instead President Obama is continuing the tax policy of a President who was as repudiated as any since Nixon.
This failure is the signature moment of the Obama Presidency so far. Unless he can reverse that in 2012, I certainly will consider the Obama Presidency a failed Presidency. YMMV.
Speaking for me only
