CARTER, NOT POLK:

A Test for Obama's View of a One-Term Presidency (HELENE COOPER, 8/10/11, NY Times)

It was a year and a half ago when President Obama told Diane Sawyer of ABC News in an interview that he would rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.

Now, coming off one of his worst weeks since taking office, Mr. Obama is nearing a decision on whether he really meant that. Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that could help the economy mend over the long term, even if that means damaging his chances for re-election? [...]

"The problem for Obama is that right now, the United States is either at a precipice or has fallen off it," said David Rothkopf, a Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration. "If he is true to his commitment to rather be a good one-term president, then this is the character test. In some respects, this is the 3 a.m. phone call."

Mr. Obama, Mr. Rothkopf argues, has to focus in the next 18 months on getting the economy back on track for the long haul, even if that means pushing for politically unpalatable budget cuts, including real -- but hugely unpopular -- reductions in entitlement programs and the military, in exchange for a "grand bargain" in which the cuts would come in exchange for significant job-creating stimulus and increased tax revenues.

He seems too small a man to even imagine that he can effect events, like Jimmy Carter, who described the malaise accurately, but left it to Ronald Reagan to dispel the miasma.

Posted by oj at August 10, 2011 5:08 PM
Tweet   

Follow @brothersjudd