Having failed in his efforts to be the new FDR or the liberal Reagan, Barack Obama has settled for reconfiguring himself as the new Harry S. Truman, the reigning political saint of lost causes to whom all possible losers appeal. Every politician in trouble channels Truman, but President Obama now wants to channel his strategy. He is running against a do-nothing GOP Congress, going so far as to propose legislation with little chance of succeeding so that he can blame them when it fails. This and other small things (such as the Cold War) did work for Harry, but whether it can be transposed to the situation of the current incumbent is an open question, and the reasons for this would be these:
» Republicans in 2010 lost a few Senate races (thanks, Sharron Angle!), leaving Democrats in control, whereas Truman had an entire GOP Congress to deal with. Except for Bush 43 from 2003 to 2006, every Republican president since 1932 has faced opposition from one house of Congress, and often from both. Nixon, Ford and Bush 41 always faced two hostile houses of Congress, as did Reagan and George Bush the younger in the final two years of their terms. It didn’t do Reagan much harm, and Bush managed to save his surge in Iraq against fierce opposition. Competent people manage to deal with these problems. The entire executive branch under Obama’s control, and a six-seat edge in the Senate, and he still thinks he’s helpless? Please.
» Republicans in the House passed a budget and a passel of bills that were axed in the Senate, and if passed would have faced vetoes. Does that sound like ‘do-nothing’ behavior? Maybe those plans would have fixed the economy. They can argue that Obama is obstructing them.
» The things Obama wants passed are reruns of things he passed years ago, which didn’t do much besides waste money.
» A case can be made that the midterm elections in 2010 were actually a mandate to obstruct Obama. Voters were enraged by what Obama did when he was unobstructed, and want his signature measure repealed.
» Finally, Republicans have a plan of their own, which is to run against Obama’s Congress of 2009-2010. Far from being a do-nothing Congress, that was the Congress that did far too much.
It ran up a staggering list of progressive “achievements” that voters detested, and did nothing to help the economy. In retrospect, they wish most of those bills had been obstructed. If Truman couldn’t pass his domestic agenda, he at least didn’t do things people hated.
There are other differences between Harry and Barry as well. Harry ended World War II, for which voters were grateful. He used the atom bomb on Japan, obviating an invasion of the Japanese homeland and saving the lives of millions of innocents (among them the heroes of “Unbroken,” by Laura Hillenbrand, who were prisoners of war in Japan). He was one of the great foreign policy presidents, establishing in only two years the tools and protocols by which, over the course of four decades, the Cold War was finally won.
Barry extended the protocols Bush had established, much as Ike and John Kennedy carried on those set by Harry. But Ike and Kennedy backed them from the beginning. Obama fought those that he later supported. Advantage to Harry on that.
Barry, you’ll never be Harry S. Truman. Better move on to Plan C.
Examiner Columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
