The “flying expletive” school of government

posted at 8:08 pm on March 8, 2010 by Karl
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Hey, kids… it’s Howdy Doody Time at the White House:

David Axelrod was sitting at his desk on a recent afternoon — tie crooked, eyes droopy and looking more burdened than usual. He had just been watching some genius on MSNBC insist that he and President Obama’s other top aides were failing miserably and should be replaced.

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In an interview in his office, Mr. Axelrod was often defiant, saying he did not give a “flying” expletive “about what the peanut gallery thinks” and did not live for the approval “of the political community.”

I half-sympathize with the Ax (though only half). Beltway insiders — and the journos who depend on them as sources — are always eager to blame an administration’s woes on a failure to rely entirely on Beltway insiders. But Axelrod’s problem is clearly much bigger than that:

Mr. Axelrod said he accepts some blame for what he called “communication failures,” though he acknowledges bafflement that the administration’s efforts to stimulate the economy in a crisis, overhaul health care and prosecute two wars have been so routinely framed by opponents as the handiwork of a big-government, soft-on-terrorism, politics-of-the-past ideologue.

“For me, the question is, why haven’t we broken through more than we have?” Mr. Axelrod said. “Why haven’t we broken through?”

To the carpenter, every problem looks like a nail. To the astroturfing speechwriter, every problem is a failure to communicate.

Axelrod’s problem is that Pres. Obama has in fact pursued big government approaches to every domestic issue he sought to tackle. Obama may think that crony capitalism (e.g., his extension of the Wall Street bailout, taking over General Motors for the UAW, cutting deals with Big Pharma, etc.) represents some sort of compromise position to his ideal solutions, when it merely provides further proof that he is an ideologue in the first instance. In foreign policy, Obama is pressing to leave — and take credit for — a fragile victory in Iraq, but dithered over launching a “surge” in Afghanistan, tried to close Gitmo without a plan, may yet try terror masters like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court, and seriously considered launching political persecutions of the prior administration’s legal staff. The problem is not communications; it is reality.

In hopes of un-baffling the Ax, I note a common theme uniting the policies identified with Obama (as opposed to continuations of Bush policies). The stimulus is unpopular. The GM bailout is unpopular. ObamaCare is unpopular, yet Obama seems set on reconciliation — a process that works with popular bills, not unpopular ones. Closing Gitmo is unpopular. Civilian trials for unlawful combatants like KSM are unpopular. There may be a pattern here that explains the lack of majority support on almost very issue. Axelrod’s problem is not the “peanut gallery” or the “political community.” To the contrary, most of the political community is blaming Obama’s staffers and their tactics to avoid the fundamental problem — the public’s rejection of Obama’s agenda.

Axelrod may correctly view the Beltway as a bubble. But then how does one describe Obama’s inner circle, baffled over their situation, yet concluding the answer is to send the president out on yet another in a seemingly endless series of campaign-style events? As president, Bill Clinton was fond of the old saying defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result. These days, I’ll bet Bill is even fonder of that saying. So long as Obama and the Ax continue to not give a “flying expletive” what the public thinks (let alone likely voters), their administration and their party will remain in political peril.

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