Obama shows pragmatic side as president

Mimi Hall

Obama shows pragmatic side as president

By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON It had been less than a week since Saturday Night Live had lampooned him as a do-nothing president when Barack Obama was awakened this month with the news that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary" and inspirational leadership.

Even he acknowledged he didn't deserve "to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures" who have won the prize. "I will accept this award as a call to action," he said.

It has been almost a year since the American people issued their own call to action at the polls, heeding Obama's message that he would boldly change the way government — and by extension, the country — works.

Nine months after he took office, however, his actions show that the steady way he ran his campaign may have said more about what kind of a president he would be than his message of change.

"He may be even more pragmatic than Bill Clinton, which has surprised me," American University presidential scholar Allan Lichtman says. "He's basically moved to the position that, 'I'll take whatever I can get.' I thought he'd be more of a crusading, turning-point president. Is this the next liberal renaissance or not?"

Obama's style, on issues from health care to Afghanistan, is raising questions across the partisan divide about whether the work of his presidency — or just the fact that he's the nation's first African-American president — will be historic.

"I think people forget when transformational moments come, they don't come easily or fast," says Bruce Miroff, a political science professor at the State University of New York-Albany. "The story's not written yet."

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Republicans say the country's impatient. "What has President Obama actually accomplished?" Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele asked when Obama won the Nobel Prize.

NBC's late-night Saturday comedy crew, best known during the campaign for its portrayal of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, gave him a tough review in early October. "When you look at my record, it's very clear what I've done so far," actor Fred Armisen, playing Obama, intoned. "And that is ... nothing. Nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it."

Armisen ticked off Obama's promises on issues from Guantanamo Bay to gays in the military and said he's failed to accomplish anything on them.

David Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser in the White House, has his own list and ticks off accomplishments on education, energy, health care, credit card reform and more.

"He's the victim of the expectations people have set for him," Axelrod says. But, "I don't think anyone can accuse him of a poverty of ambition when it comes to getting things done."

Axelrod adds that there shouldn't be any surprise about Obama's governing style. "That's been the history of his career," he says. "He's not an ideologue. He's a pragmatic leader who believes that real progress is more valuable than symbolic efforts."

Faltering bipartisanship

To that end, Obama has emphasized consensus building — with mixed results.

Early on, he hosted cocktail parties and invited Republicans over to the White House in an effort to pass an economic stimulus plan with broad support from Republicans as well as the Democrats who control both houses of Congress. His efforts failed. The $787 billion legislation was approved in February without a Republican vote in the House and only three in the Senate.

In recent months, Obama has labored to win bipartisan support for his health care legislation — again, to little effect.

"He did run with the promise that he would be bipartisan, and Lord knows, he tried," says Roger Hickey of the liberal group Campaign for America's Future.

Republicans say they opposed Obama's costly stimulus plan and health care proposal because the country can't afford to keep spending at a dizzying rate.

"He's turning this into a freebie society," says Rich Bond, former Republican Party chairman.

Moderating expectations

There's plenty of debate about whether that management style works to his advantage when it comes to getting things done.

On health care, Bond says the White House has repeatedly "vacillated" on whether a "public option" to provide government-run insurance as a choice for those who need it should be included in the plan. Obama has said that he supports a public option, but when asked whether he'll veto a plan without it, his aides won't say.

Vanderbilt University presidential historian Erwin Hargrove, however, says Obama's pragmatic style may be the only way to get legislation passed.

The White House also has drawn lessons from the last Democratic administration. When then-president Bill Clinton tried to dictate health care policy, he fell flat. If Obama "came out of the stalls as a ripsnorter, I don't think it would have worked," Hargrove says, "even though that's what the liberals wanted him to do."

Obama's deliberative nature also has given critics ammunition to accuse him of being indecisive.

That's been particularly true on Afghanistan. Obama has spent weeks developing a new strategy on Afghanistan, eight years into a war that hasn't gone well.

Former vice president Dick Cheney, a constant critic on national security issues, says Obama is "dithering" on whether to follow the advice of his military commanders and send tens of thousands more troops into the troubled region.

Princeton University presidential scholar Fred Greenstein says Obama tends to act "almost like a nerdish micromanager, someone constantly interested in the moving parts."

The White House says Obama is determined to make the right decision — not a quick decision. "His attitude on matters as grave as war is you ought to take your time," Axelrod says.

It may be too early to say whether Obama's deliberative nature will be an asset or a liability. "Seems to me that's been his pattern going back over time," Hargrove says. During the campaign, Obama "was lagging and lagging and lagging, and he came from behind. ... I don't know if it's a cognitive style or a political strategy. I think maybe it's both."