Although I think the "100 Days" measuring stick is ridiculous, I think we may miss the biggest accomplishment the Obama Administration's first three months have wrought: that we now live in an exciting time... the future.
Yes, the biggest change, I'm starting to notice, is that we no longer live or speak politics in the present tense, but in a fascinating, conditional future tense - "If healthcare reform happens" or "when this economic crisis is over...."
In some ways, it's a very canny move - The Obama Administration gets credit for what it might do, what may happen... but can't be criticized too heavily since, you know, nothing's actually happened yet. Instead of arguing passionately over things actually done - like, you know, torture or something - we argue over shadows: whether to have commissions or criminal charges brought. Whether or not we should have a "public plan" in a healthcare reform that doesn't actually exist yet.
It's life almost on the same plane as (for most of us) reading the Neiman Marcus Christmas Wish Book - If I had a million dollars, I'd buy his and hers planes for me and potential future wife. And then argue about how to decorate it. And yes, it's quite entertaining... but also, not very real.
This was brought home to me over the weekend when The New York Times offered a lead editorial on Sunday about the bank "stress tests" meant to evaluate solvency. You might expect the Times to be talking about actual developments so far in looking at the banks... but instead:
Regulators have released information about how the tests were done, but it does not appear detailed enough for independent analysts to verify the results.
If they are credible, the stress tests will finally provide the information the government needs to deal forcefully with the banking mess — assuming the White House also has the will to do what is needed.
When the stress tests were announced in February, the plan called for giving weak banks six months to raise private capital. If they could not, the government would provide it, taking in exchange a potentially big ownership stake.
If the capital shortfalls are severe, however, it is all but certain that private capital will not be forthcoming. The government should act quickly to plug the holes. That will mean asking an angry Congress — and an angry public — for more money. The Obama administration is not eager to do that. But it will have a better chance if the results of the stress tests and their implications are fully disclosed and explained.
The administration should use the money to recapitalize the banks. And it should take temporary control if that infusion results in a majority stake.
...
See all the "ifs" (emphasis mine)? The Times doesn't actually review the bank situation as we know it - indeed they can't even describe the past except in conditional terms ("when the test were announced...if they could not...") - and they don't actually criticize the Obama Administration (or the Federal Reserve) for failing to provide enough information to begin to evaluate the stress test scenarios (as, one might recall, we were promised more than a month ago). No, they let us know that IF the stress tests are rigorous, and IF we do the right things... well, then we MIGHT have solved the banking crisis.
How's that for reassuring?
It would be one thing, um, if this were isolated... but it seems to be how we think these days - if we turn a corner on the financial crisis... if we get healthcare reform... if we can reform the credit card industry... if we do something about education. If and if and if and if... everything's fine; or at least... it will be. If.
If a picture paints a thousand words... we can't seem to paint one about how things actually are; or actually admit that... well, not much has actually happened. And herein lies a critique of The Obama Administration that hasn't quite taken hold yet: for all the talk about bold plans and brave ideas... we have very little to show in the way of actual change, actual reform, or any real action on all those multiple "key issues" that we're told are so crucial.
Indeed, one reason we haven't come up with a solid critique of the Obama team yet, I think, is that the conditional tense has infected the opposition as well; rather than admit that the Obama Administration might not be the "Socialist" bogeyman they've created, conservatives, too speak of what's to come rather than what is, arguing against tax increases that haven't been proposed, spending increases that are largely theoretical, and foreign policy decisions that haven't been made. And it's indicative, still, of the disarray the right has in becoming an effective oppositional force: until they, too, can stop talking about "ifs" and focus on the present with a credible alternative... they've got nothing.
And so do we. The one thing we can point to as proof that the Obama folks haven't quite amounted to all that was promised is really the Stimulus package, which continues, in its way, to be the biggest conditional development of them all: its potential success as a response to the recession, is just what many economists predicted - way off in the distance, and probably kind of small. That's a different reality then what we were promised, lots of specific numbers of just how many jobs would be saved, how many projects would be started... we count chickens before they hatch, these days, and merrily go along, preparing to feed them.
Perhaps this really is proof that the Obama folks have met and mastered the challenge of their campaign slogan - Change You Can Believe In, as it turns out, is Change That Hasn't Happened Yet... But Could Happen, If Everything Goes Okay. (And for pure snark, perhaps now is not the time to note that real doer of the Obama Administration appears to be... Hillary Clinton). It's the best kind of change, really... it's those his and her airplanes you don't have, but still kind of want. Real change would have consequences. And real change, ultimatley is more feared than wanted.
In 100 days, of course, it's unfair to expect too much; unfair, really, to continue to use a measuring stick that made sense, essentially, only for Franklin Roosevelt. But that's beside the point about how to evaluate the Obama Administration and set reasonable expectations. Given that he follows a spectacularly failed Presidency, perhaps it's unsurprising that we accept merely the hints and suggestions of someone who, if nothing else, won't do what George W. Bush did. But...er, if we expect to make some identifiable progress, then we will at some point have to stop thinking in terms of the theoretical future... and live in the actual present. And talk in the present tense... not the future one.
"for all the talk about bold plans and brave ideas... we have very little to show in the way of actual change, actual reform, or any real action on all those multiple "key issues" that we're told are so crucial. "
You beat me to it! It's the campaign all over again!
Posted by: Leigh | April 27, 2009 at 01:13 PM