Barack Obama, who had raised so much of hope in not just his own country but the rest of the world also with his message of change, is now fighting his own personal battle to keep his name from heading the list of the worst US Presidents. He entered the White House in 2008 after eight years of President Bush had pushed the US economy into depression that in turn ruined the world economy because of two disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
President Obama decided to be presidential on assuming his office. Hence he owned everything his predecessor left on his plate including the two wars although by that time, public opinion in the USA had already shifted against the wars because of the humungous costs, both financial and in terms of lives of US men/women in uniform lost. Instead, he, who, as a rookie Senator from Illinois from 2005 till he became the President, had opposed the wars, decided to send additional troops to Afghanistan and took time to end US involvement in Iraq thus allowing the economy to bleed further.
The President had other ideas in mind as the country's first African-American President for which he even set aside what most politicians would have done almost naturally: updating the nation on the poor state of the union he inherited. He thought his destiny was to carve for himself a name as one of the country's great presidents. His role model was President Abraham Lincoln who attained immortality for the way he united a nation torn by civil war through political bipartisanism. President Obama believed that bipartisanship was the need of the hour to unite the nation that President Bush had divided. He thus accepted bipartisanship as his guide to presidential glory.
He gave the key post in his cabinet, that of the Secretary of Defence, in his first term, to a Republican and it is a Republican again who holds that office in his present term. Till 2010, President Obama did not feel how serious was the opposition to his administration and to him personally because the Democrats held the majority in the Senate as well as the House. He began to see the true face of his opponents once the Republicans gained majority of the House in the November 2010 elections. They made it a policy to oppose the President to make it difficult for his administration to achieve and bills proposed by the White House were turned down routinely simply because they did not want to work with him.
President Obama wanted to make his name in the US history by bringing the country's 50 million poor, unprivileged and uninsured under an affordable heath insurance. He was able to enact the Affordable Care Act (ACA) while the Democrats held the House. The Republicans took the ACA to court and when the Supreme Court vacated the case in 2013, they refused to fund the federal government and stopped it for 11 days to impede the implementation of the ACA.
That effort failed and the ACA was implemented. The Republicans have now passed the resolution to take the President to court for not implementing parts of the ACA underlining so far their relationship with the President is concerned. To them, he is damned if he does and damned if he does not. The President, who had entered the White House with faith in bipartisanship as his guiding principle in politics, found to his dismay as he started his second term that his opponents were determined to condemn him to the list of the country's all-time worst presidents and had little intention of working with his administration. In fact, there are many who are now convinced that the Republicans are articulating the views of the country's large conservative base that has never felt comfortable with an African-American President in the White House with visions of becoming a great American president.
By their actions, the Republicans have trashed the vision of the founding fathers of the US Constitution of a government of checks and balances among the three branches of the government to encourage them to cooperate rather than dominate one another and enhance democracy and democratic ways of governance. The Republicans, by their deliberate policy not to work with the President, have pushed the President to fall upon his power to issue executive order to run the government bypassing the Congress because important issue of national interest related to the economy, taxation, immigration needed to be resolved.
President Obama's presidency has thus turned full circle, from bipartisanship in the Congress to according to the New York Times, "moving assertively and in private to fashion government policies by executive order on issues ranging from immigration to tax law". The White House has made it clear where the Congress is willing to work with the President, it would go there but where the Congress shows unreasonable opposition, it would depend on all means available to the President including executive order to move the administration's agenda along. In fact, lobbyists/pressure groups/stakeholders who were seen in the Congress not too long ago are now engaged with the White House for furthering the interests of those they represent. And for the White House, it is not issuing executive orders at will but through deliberations and consultations with the stakeholders.
Nevertheless, the president's opponents have been incensed by the use of executive orders. There was already a resolution by the House to take the President to court and the Republicans have now threatened to impeach him over the use of executive orders. The US presidents in the past used executive orders to move their administration along. President Bush issued 291 executive orders and President Bill Clinton 395 compared to President Obama's 184 to date. Past presidents Franklin D Roosevelt and Harry Truman issued many times more. Unfortunately, past presidents issued executive orders not to challenge the Congress. President Obama has been compelled to issue these orders because the Congress has decided not to let his administration work.
Obama is in no fear of impeachment yet as the Democrats hold the Senate. But the heat is increasing and present politics in Washington suggests for the first time that the US government as designed by the founding fathers where the Congress would make the laws and the President execute them, is falling apart. The fault lies in both but the Congress started the process of falling apart by refusing to work with the President, thus violating the spirit with which the founding fathers had written the Constitution. The President, who desperately wanted to work with the Congress in a spirit of Lincoln-inspired bipartisanship, challenged it out of need rather than design. With elections in the Congress due in November, the President's predicament could be worse if the Republicans are able to get the Senate while holding on to the House. He could then indeed face impeachment over the use of executive orders.
Meanwhile, the President's predicament has worsened with James Foley's beheading that occurred while he was on vacation. He played golf right after speaking to James Foley's mother and when it enraged even his supporters on issue of insensitivity, the President played golf again to prove a point to the ISIS that threats do not work with his administration that convinced only people still deeply devoted to him. The pressure on President Obama increased when David Cameron threatened war against the ISIS but he appeared confused and admitted that his administration had no policy on how to deal with the ISIS crisis. The President's confusion encouraged the resolve of the Republicans to make his tenure as difficult as possible. Even some Democrats have joined the Republicans against the President leading the media to describe the President Obama's current predicament with that of a deer suddenly caught before the headlights.
A tense fight is now underway between the White House and the Congress without any clear winner yet but the US style of conducting politics in a democratic way is being dented. The November Congress elections may provide the winner or the answer.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador.
Email: serajul7@gmail.com
Obama\\\'s predicament: Bipartisanship versus executive orders
M. Serajul Islam | Published: September 07, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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