This issue seems to be a resilient one and is getting harder to follow on different threads so I figured I'd bring it back up...
To answer Sal:
Popularity is only useful insofar as it produces a useful outcome. I could care less about Obama's popularity and his agenda if it means the powerful are above the law. To me that would undermine any other supposed "gains." If this administration has to suffer a blow to its popularity because it applies the law and seeks a just outcome, then it'd be a happy day.
I suspect this isn't happening, and that investigations are not taking place, not because Democrats are afraid of being seen as partisan, but because key Democrats are complicit. See Nancy Pelosi:
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I don't think you realize that I *completely* agree with you. I think the power of law is more important than Obama's agenda or pleasing the populace.
ReplyDeleteThe issue, though, is that you have to take it from a democratic, and from Obama's standpoint. When judging these decisions, you have to assume that his priorities are 100% correct. He disagrees with us about law being as important as... say healthcare. He may or may not be right, but by virtue of the democratic system, his priorities currently coincide with the nation's priorities. Whatever fun stuff he has on his agenda is a magnitude of greater importance than prosecuting the guilty of the previous administration.
The point I made earlier (and that you did not seem to disagree with) was that this prosecution could indeed compromise Obama's ability to carry out other parts, and thus it is in some ways a zero sum game. Thus, the decision has to be made against immediate prosecution.
I wish that Obama was more for the law, and I would have preferred to vote for a candidate who was indeed more like that. He is, however, who we have, and to respect the democratic system, we have to assume that his priorities are the correct priorities.
I have to assume no such thing! To respect the democratic system, we would do better to assume his priorities were suspect, because he is just one man! Where did you get your definition of democracy man? It sounds to me more like the classical definition of monarchy than anything else. It is the very antithesis of democracy to follow the leader as you have described.
ReplyDeleteI am not defining democracy, and I don't think it is really relevant, except insofar as to say that Obama is democratically elected, and that he has to watch for public opinion. When Obama was elected, we elected his agenda along with him. That's the way we roll in our elected presidency (or elected monarchy).
ReplyDeleteWhat we CAN complain about, is not his agenda, but if his agenda changes to something we did not elect him for, and how he carries out given agenda. Otherwise, we are simply challenging the system rather than assessing a decision or policy.
I disagree with virtually every sentence of that last post! To say that Obama was democratically elected is to assume we have a functioning democratic system, which I and many others wholeheartedly dispute. And to say that we elected an unmaleable agenda along with him is highly problematic, for one because that's not how any government actually works and two it's based on extremely undemocratic views of which I will not abide.
ReplyDeleteThe definition of democracy implicit in your argument is what I fundamentally take issue with. Just because some political scientists try to take the term democracy and define it as it's opposite because they don't like it, doesn't make their definition valid. That's the history of the definition you are using.
Sal,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Ian here. A democracy can only succeed through the involvement of its citizens in the political process, especially in a two-party system like ours.
Even as an Obama campaigner I absolutely reserve the right to not only complain about policy decisions I disagree with, but to actively organize/rally/protest/lobby against them. And those who voted against him have just as much a right as I. It's these very outlets for "unconventional democracy" - combined with the watchdog role our media is supposed to be playing - that are most essential to the function of our political system.
Constantly questioning Obama's agenda isn't a challenge to the system, it IS the system. That's how it works!
By all means, I agree with you guys. More authentic democracy would be great, and I'm very partial to that Irish system. I don't like the elected monarch idea that our country has espoused.
ReplyDeleteAgain though, I restate that questioning Obama's democratic credentials is out of scope. The point of the assumption is not to eat lies, but to set a baseline. The baseline is that Obama is elected democratically ENOUGH. When considering democracy here, it is only interesting to look at what is reasonable within the current system/setup/election.
Thus, if imperfect, Obama's support and by extension his agenda, in this country, is quantified by a couple things. 1) He was elected. 2) He has high approval ratings.
In some ways, the approval ratings system allows a maleable agenda to represent the will of the people.
How can Obama possibly have better democratic credentials WITHIN OUR CURRENT SYSTEM?
And Tom,
ReplyDeleteBy all means, I agree with you as well. My point is not that activism and expression opinions is bad. They are great.
If you want to judge the situation as a whole, you have to take it from the country's point of view. Obama, in our system, is a representation of our country. Thus, you have to follow his point of view and his agenda. Accusing him for having a different agenda is, again, out of scope since you are questioning our democratic system, and not his decision.
Sal, I think you're equating questioning an agenda with questioning legitimacy when they're not the same thing. I don't dispute Obama's democratic credentials. And I agree that the recent election and the soaring approval ratings give him a broad mandate.
ReplyDeleteHowever, by no means does it follow that every political decision he makes will represent "the will of the people." No president perfectly follows the policies they promised on the campaign trail, which are often vague enough anyways, and no presidency has ever been limited to confronting only those issues discussed. The prosecution issue is an example already of something that wasn’t even discussed during the election.
It's the citizen’s responsibility to watch and make sure that all elected officials act, and continues to act, in our best interests for the duration of their term in office. By questioning Obama’s agenda, Ian is not questioning the system but is participating in the democratic process that makes it work.
That doesn't mean I agree with Ian's accusations. I'm sure most Democrats don't want to pursue this because they genuinely see it as a distraction that will take away from their current agenda. And there's hardly any evidence to show "key Democrats were complicit" and that distorts the debate.
ReplyDeleteOnly four people in Congress were informed of the program and it's debatable how much they were actually told. Of those four, two were Democrats: Nancy Pelosi and Bob Graham. Graham has since retired.
There was very little they could have done to affect the decision. The greater issue here is that the Bush administration was legally required to inform 40 members of Congress, not 4.
A recent article in the Times detailed exactly how the administration subverted the law in this regard:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/opinion/13divoll.html
Not at all Tom. I am all for Ian and anyone else questioning Obama.
ReplyDeleteI think we may be looking at it from different angles. You may be discussing as to what is 'right', and I agree with your logic and moral structure here. I'm trying to say that Obama is doing what is his mandate. He is not failing his mandate, and he is doing it correctly.
I understand that people may disagree with specific aspects of Obama's agenda, while supporting his policy as a whole. That is a breakdown of the system of an elected representative, but I still say that you have to take it from the angle that our system plays at this moment. If Obama's one policy goes against public opinion, but all his other policies are in sync enough that he still has total support, it is still "democratic" (putting it in quotes for Ian) as per our system.
I'm most impressed by our Californian Governator regarding his stance on following the people's mandate. Far more than any other politician that I have read about... he goes out of his way to try to represent the people of California. He does referendums, and follows public opinions, as opposed to his own opinions. That is probably a much more ideal way for an elected representative to behave than for them to be this sort of elected king or elected duke (for a senator).
ReplyDelete