President Obama coolly dodged a government shutdown this weekend and emerged from the political fray virtually untarnished, scoring another political victory with an unflappable, almost detached leadership style that, despite criticisms from the left and right, has allowed the president to seize the political middle by bringing compromise back into vogue. The president marked his victory Saturday by signing a temporary funding measure that will keep the government open until lawmakers can sign off on a final budget deal next week. He then drove across town to the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate with tourists the near miss of a shutdown that would have shuttered the memorials and other federal facilities and left 800,000 federal employees out of work.
“After weeks of long and difficult negotiations over our national budget,” Obama said in his weekly radio address Saturday, “leaders of both parties came together to avert a government shutdown, cut spending and invest in our future.”
Though he ultimately secured a compromise that avoided a repeat of the 1995 government shutdown, Obama’s hands-off style fueled criticisms that the president is repeatedly missing opportunities to lead.
Obama was absent for months from congressional negotiations over the current fiscal year’s budget, entering the fray only when a government shutdown was days away. Over the past week, he chastised both sides for their stubbornness and repeatedly called congressional leaders to the White House to wrangle over a deal.
As lawmakers were slinging mud over the airwaves, the White House was carefully portraying the president as involved — but not absorbed — in negotiations. As he did in legislative showdowns over health care and tax cuts, Obama maintained a distance from nitty-gritty of the negotiations, assuming the role of moderator, quietly massaging a compromise rather than loudly issuing demands. As the deadline approached, Obama called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, but was otherwise invisible in the process.
When a deal was struck, Obama praised both parties for their willingness to compromise, a term that official Washington has long equated with defeat but which Obama is reviving as the most important accomplishment.
“Like any compromise, this required everyone to give ground on issues that were important to them,” he said. “I certainly did.”
He readily reminded voters that averting a government shutdown wasn’t the first time his hands-off leadership sparked bipartisan agreement. In December, Obama hashed out an agreement with congressional Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts in a deal that he boasted “reflects ideas from both sides.”
“A few months ago, I was able to sign a tax cut for American families because both parties worked through their differences and found common ground,” Obama said. “Now, the same cooperation has made it possible for us to move forward with the biggest annual spending cut in history.”
Despite Obama’s successes, some fellow Democrats are grumbling that the president is too willing to give in and is abandoning traditional party constituencies as he moves to the political center in time for his 2012 reelection bid.
“This feels an awful lot like the tax cut deal,” Rep. Anthony D. Weiner, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter about the budget compromise. “I got a bad feeling.”
