The Obama World Order
Michael Tomasky
New York Magazine
It’s a long-held piece of Washington conventional wisdom—and, unlike most long-held pieces of Washington conventional wisdom, this one actually happens to be true!—that Democratic presidents tend to be more interested in domestic policy, while Republicans like making foreign policy.
There are several reasons for this. The main one: Democrats have usually had far more ambitious domestic agendas. Meanwhile, foreign policy has taken up more oxygen in Republican politics ever since the dawn of the Cold War, when a tough line became one of the two or three central elements of the GOP Weltanschauung. Besides, a Democratic Congress has been the norm for most of that time, so Republican presidents got that foreign policy was the realm in which they had to worry far less about that meddlesome Congress. With certain asterisks here and there—the ill-traveled and internationally incurious George W. Bush was the main exception until a certain September morning—this division of labor has held true.
Now comes Barack Obama. It’s not that he isn’t engrossed in domestic policy, obviously. He’s announcing some new initiative every week. This week is supposed to be “energy week,” as the president puts more political capital behind cap-and-trade legislation. But we knew he’d do all that. It’s what Democratic presidents do, especially when they take office in the throes of economic crisis.
The biggest surprise of the early Obama era, though, has been the way he’s thrown himself into foreign policy. Here again one could well argue that he didn’t have much choice, given the number of messes he inherited and the new ones the world seems to have a habit of making, notably the simultaneously frightening and inspiring one in Iran, which Obama correctly calculated was not the right occasion for oratorical showboating. But he’s doing, or trying to do, more than clean up messes. His project is a new grand strategy that (in theory at least) reestablishes American moral authority in the world, uses it to build coalitions to settle disputes, and as a by-product makes the Democratic Party look a lot more like Harry Truman and a lot less like George McGovern.
(More here.)
New York Magazine
It’s a long-held piece of Washington conventional wisdom—and, unlike most long-held pieces of Washington conventional wisdom, this one actually happens to be true!—that Democratic presidents tend to be more interested in domestic policy, while Republicans like making foreign policy.
There are several reasons for this. The main one: Democrats have usually had far more ambitious domestic agendas. Meanwhile, foreign policy has taken up more oxygen in Republican politics ever since the dawn of the Cold War, when a tough line became one of the two or three central elements of the GOP Weltanschauung. Besides, a Democratic Congress has been the norm for most of that time, so Republican presidents got that foreign policy was the realm in which they had to worry far less about that meddlesome Congress. With certain asterisks here and there—the ill-traveled and internationally incurious George W. Bush was the main exception until a certain September morning—this division of labor has held true.
Now comes Barack Obama. It’s not that he isn’t engrossed in domestic policy, obviously. He’s announcing some new initiative every week. This week is supposed to be “energy week,” as the president puts more political capital behind cap-and-trade legislation. But we knew he’d do all that. It’s what Democratic presidents do, especially when they take office in the throes of economic crisis.
The biggest surprise of the early Obama era, though, has been the way he’s thrown himself into foreign policy. Here again one could well argue that he didn’t have much choice, given the number of messes he inherited and the new ones the world seems to have a habit of making, notably the simultaneously frightening and inspiring one in Iran, which Obama correctly calculated was not the right occasion for oratorical showboating. But he’s doing, or trying to do, more than clean up messes. His project is a new grand strategy that (in theory at least) reestablishes American moral authority in the world, uses it to build coalitions to settle disputes, and as a by-product makes the Democratic Party look a lot more like Harry Truman and a lot less like George McGovern.
(More here.)
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