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Newsweek: What Obama Is Missing Is His Own Dick Cheney

by Meenal Vamburkar | 4:08 pm, July 7th, 2010

» 11 comments

Like the presidents before him (and surely those that will follow), President Barack Obama has been on the receiving end of a wide array of critiques and assessments about his success or failure–and even more advice about what approach Obama should take. Following this trend, Newsweek is pointing out a missing piece in the prolific presidency: Obama is clearly in need of own Dick Cheney.

The piece, by Ravi Somaiya, argues that Obama’s policy and pragmatism is not the problem. His problem is politics and marketing:

Obama and his staff have proven policy chops but are terrible at politics—they cannot, or will not, sell their ideas, especially in a sharp-elbowed partisan climate. It is a bizarre political universe in which the passage of health-care reform is actually being used to campaign against Democratic politicians.

The remark about his policy is a matter of political perspective and opinion. But Somaiya makes a good point when he says that his administration has had trouble selling ideas to the country’s citizens. He certainly hasn’t been able to sell ideas to Republicans. And whether we like it or not, this country runs on marketing.

Furthermore, there’s quite a bit of irony about this. Somaiya points out part of it:

It happens because the administration leaves a vacuum for Sarah Palin and other Republicans to fill with disinformation on Facebook or Twitter. From the perspective of political craftsmanship, if arguing that your health-care policy won’t kill grandmothers becomes a TV talking point, you have utterly failed to sell that policy.

In a sense, the death panels epitomized the Obama administrations inability to effectively market its agenda. Healthcare was a huge priority for the president throughout his campaign and he made it clear that he would do everything in his power to push through legislation. While this message got him elected, his healthcare plan had low support from the country’s citizens and no support from the GOP. Much of the rest of the world could not understand why America wouldn’t want healthcare reform–but within the country, the topic only incited the terms “death panels” and “socialist.”

Moreover, Somaiya points out that Palin and the GOP have spread misinformation through social media. Fancy that! The candidate who had an unprecedented Internet campaign is now seeing backlash from the same medium. The same method that essentially won Barack Obama the election is now weakening his actual administration.

But is a Dick Cheney counterpart the solution? Somaiya argues:

The need for a shameless political consigliere in the Obama White House is counterintuitive because the Obama campaign was particularly effective in 2008 by avoiding the perception of being a hard-nosed political operation. But like his presidency, that victory was characterized by meticulous planning and a reliance on its leader’s charisma. Instead of trying to set the agenda on the trail, Obama was consistently forced to mop up situations with searing speeches. He is still reactive, not proactive.

Some might argue that Obama already has a Dick Cheney: Rahm Emanuel. But while Emanuel is a force to be reckoned with, he is not powerful in the way Cheney was. The idea of Somaiya’s post has merit, but it’s a probably a good idea to keep the characterization of the former vice president out of the Oval Office.

Steamboater

“While this message got him elected, his healthcare plan had low support from the country’s citizens … ”

Obama had a mandate for healthcare reform and with a public option, but after he won the presidency, public option became dirty words. He hid in the White House al llast summer when the GOP ran it into the ground and hardly addressed a public option after, but when he did, it was only in reply to the media and not very often at that and always in passing reference. He sucked up to Lieberman and his ilk and played this phoney game of bipartisanship, and still does, when he didn’t have anyone to play with. It makes you think that during the primaries Obama was all handlers with no substance. He’s been an ineffectual president who prefers taking half measures instead a decisive president who takes to the bully pulpit before he’s pushed to do so, as he did with healthcare reform and then it was too late to save it from getting watered down and without a public option. To cave into the pharmaceutical companies’ demands and at the outset when he didn’t have to and agree to deny the import of cheaper meds was the work of a fool. His handing in effect veto power over to the military, where they’ll poll equality and then submit a report of that poll to Obama on the repeal of DADT is outrageously deficient. If the report is negative, we’ll get a watered down version and then it will be stalled for years. As it is, any repeal still has a long time to go before it kicks in. and the meanwhile. Gays will continue to get tossed out of the military. That “fierce advocate of Gay rights” should have suspended DADT with a Stop/ Loss Order a long time ago yet he didn’t have the spine or commitment to do it. He could have done it too and gotten a lot of support, even from republican voters because all polls show the overwhelming majority of americans want DADT repealed and not all are democrats.

Then you get his ratcheting up the war in Afghanistan, which everyone knew he would do when Obama ran during the primaries. Hope though kept his campaign alive and his gave him his win, and a lot of us hoped once he became president he would see this quagmire as it really is and not upthe ante there. Some though were so enamored of hope that they failed to question Obama’s judgement and gave him a free pass and continue to do so.
lanquihue

Newsweek: “…the administration leaves a vacuum for Sarah Palin and other Republicans to fill with disinformation on Facebook or Twitter.”

And yet, with virtually the entire media less Fox News promoting Obama’s and the democrat agenda and mocking the right at every opportunity, they still have crappy approval ratings and will be wiped in November. People didn’t vote for this charlatan because they agreed with his agenda, most didn’t even know what it was. Half the people who voted for him did so because he was different and McCain’s a douche. Now they don’t have jobs.
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

The easy joke would be that the headline could lose its last word and still be true, plus the underlying concept would remain unchanged.

Otherwise, though only tangentially related to the post and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but considering several recent hires and now Ravi landing on Newsweek, I have to wonder if media’s solution for the blogosphere is to simply position a recruiter outside of Gawker HQ.

Of course now that Ravi’s there, I’m adding another blog to my reader. So if nothing else, the strategy works.
lazzzlo

Or in a very facetious way….one VP is scary because he swears, another one shoots people in the face.

If you want to be a leader, then lead…don’t use other people as examples.

Leaders lead.
libra blue

@Magister, “The easy joke would be that the headline could lose its last word and still be true, plus the underlying concept would remain unchanged.”

That is exactly what I thought when I read it!
BatBoy

What the people of the United States is missing is a President!

We got a good Community Organizer though!

He does know how to “Shake Down” a company!
NORBIT Jr.

It was reported that there was a real controversy over at Newsweek on whether or not to remove the name “Cheney” from the Title……..
stevor

Biden is Obummer’s “insurance policy”. Who, in their right mind, would “take out” Obummer when Biden would become president and Pelosi would become vice-president?
Then again, who in their right mind would vote for Obummer/Biden in the first place?
CarmanK

President Obama doesn’t need a Dick Cheney within a 100 miles of him. Dick Cheney is a sleaze and a liar. He is an opportunist and a war criminal, and he was the brains for W’s team, until W woke up 7 and 1/2 years too late.
What Obama needs is a politically savvy spokesperson who can out in front of issues and drive his public message. I think Tim Kaine is too blande for the job as DNC chair, they need someone like Howard Dean. At any rate, I think the President and Joe Biden are a good leadership team for the country and we are all better off, with them doing their jobs.
T REX

I agree…………… the GOP baggers are in for a surprise come November……they have no “viable” candidates. the dems won’t lose as many seats as the baggers think.
as far as obama needing a “dick” cheney……well torture didnt accmplish anything.
Integr8d

Obama dropped the public option because the public option was a liberal goal. Obama is not a liberal. Obama is a Progressive; A corporate Progressive.