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Barack Obama has perfected a three-step maneuver that could never even be attempted by a politician lacking his rhetorical skill or cool cynicism.
First: Denounce your presidential predecessor for a given policy, energizing your party’s base and capitalizing on his abiding unpopularity. Second: Pretend to have reversed that policy upon taking office with a symbolic act or high-profile statement. Third: Adopt a version of that same policy, knowing that it’s the only way to govern responsibly or believing that doing otherwise is too difficult. Repeat as necessary.
The latest instance of the three-step in action is the matter of presidential signing statements. The Left yowled about President George W. Bush’s signing statements, arguing that they demonstrated his essential lawlessness. There was nothing new about the statements, which have been issued by presidents since the 19th century. Presidents use them to indicate that a particular provision in a law might be unconstitutional, or to set out how the executive will interpret a provision to avoid any conflict with the Constitution.
Bush issued more signing statements than any other president, but — with a hostile Congress attempting to limit his war powers — he also was confronted with more legislation involving constitutionally contested ground. Obama promised change from Bush’s “abuse,” and the other day issued a headline-grabbing memorandum promising to limit the statements. Oh, blessed day!
Former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, casting a justifiably jaundiced eye on the memo, noted of signing statements: “This has been a standard practice going back decades. They’re going to do the same thing, whenever they feel like it.” It took a mere 48 hours for Obama to issue his first signing statement, in the words of the New York Times, “reserving a right to bypass dozens of provisions in a $410-billion government spending bill even as he signed it into law.”
Obama’s stipulations in the statement closely tracked those made by Bush. Amid the dramatic pose of change, essential continuity.
Obama is experiencing the natural transformation of any presidential candidate whose fanciful words meet the realities of power. In the 19th century, Thomas Jefferson ousted the Federalists in the “revolution of 1800.” As historian George C. Herring writes, “A champion of state power and congressional prerogatives in the Federalist era, in office he greatly enlarged the power of the central government and through personal persuasion and party discipline exercised firm control of Congress.”
Obama has executed versions of his three-step on terrorist surveillance and the Iraq War, and perhaps on Gitmo and interrogation (although the final disposition of those two is not clear). On congressional earmarks, Obama’s three-step was so obvious and clumsy he had to repeat Step 2 — making another promise to fight earmarks even as he accepted 8,500 of them in the omnibus spending bill.
Usually, Obama puts the emphasis on the second of his steps, to augment the difference with Bush. But in defending his economic policy recently after a reporter asked if it constituted socialism, Obama inadvertently highlighted the third step. He sought cover for his approach by pointing out that Bush had bailed out the banks and spent irresponsibly. Of course, that sounds awfully familiar.
On the economy, Obama is arguably giving us a massive dose of even more of the same — more money to banks and industry, more unsustainable entitlement spending, more deficit spending, more uncertainty about how to handle the toxic assets in the banks — with promises of higher taxes layered on top.
If the economy falters over the long term, this is continuity that people aren’t going to believe in. The ever-shrewd Newt Gingrich picked up on this potential vulnerability a few weeks ago in his speech to CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists. Gingrich excoriated what he characterized as Obama-Bush economic policies, in the ultimate putdown for the president of change. Obama had better execute his three-step with care.
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review.
© 2009 by King Features Syndicate