FDR WAS A GOVERNOR...:

He's No FDR: Barack Obama’s shrinking presidency. (Fred Barnes, March 8, 2010, Weekly Standard)

President Obama spent seven hours last week acting like a committee chairman, not a president. Rather than preside over the nationally televised health care “summit” of Democratic and Republican members of Congress, Obama was a participant. He big-footed Democrats and responded to Republican statements himself. He talked and talked and talked, considerably more than anyone else and for a total of two hours. When Obama delivered a concluding monologue, the TV cameras panned to a drowsy and bored group of senators and House members, the Republicans especially.

Did Obama lower the presidency to the level of mere legislator? Perhaps. But I think Obama’s behavior at the summit answers a separate question, one that’s lingered since he was elected more than 15 months ago. Is Obama the new FDR? The answer is no.

If Franklin Delano Roosevelt were president today, the summit never would have happened. As the top priority on his agenda, liberal health care reform would have been enacted already. For Obama, the summit was a last-gasp attempt to revive his moribund legislation. More than likely, it will fail.

The reason is tied to what is probably the greatest difference between FDR and Obama. Roosevelt took command of Washington. Obama hasn’t. “FDR became the father of the modern presidency by moving the Chief Executive to the center of the American political universe,” John Yoo writes in his new book on presidential power, Crisis and Command. “Roosevelt’s revolution radically shifted the balance of power among the three branches of government.”

Obama has weakened the presidency and strengthened the power of Congress—a shift in the other direction.

...the UR was a legislator who never even managed to pass a bill. He's exactly the sort of ineffectual president his prior career suggested he'd be be. Even worse for him, there's no Axis to save his presidency, the way FDR's was saved by WWII.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 27, 2010 10:06 AM