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THE SMART NEWS SOURCE | Feb 09 2012 23:15 | LAST UPDATED Feb 09 2012 23:15 |
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On that warm night exactly one year ago, the crowd in Grant Park, Chicago, cheered itself hoarse as Barack Obama, the president-elect of the United States, stepped on stage and announced that "change has come to America". Of course, they were cheering the passing of George Bush and the historic breakthrough of the first black president of the US. But the air was also heavy with imagining: the hordes in Grant Park, like those around the world punching the sky as they watched on TV, were picturing how different things might be with Obama in charge. Surely the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would soon become memories, along with Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, which the new president had promised to close. Iran would clasp the hand Obama planned to extend, while Israelis and Palestinians would heed the president’s promise to work for Middle East peace the moment he took office. The economy would soon be righted, the greed-merchants of Wall Street punished and tamed, and Obama would finally bring to the US what most other civilised nations take for granted: basic healthcare for all. Oh, and he would do what had to be done on climate change. One year on, it can feel as if that was all a foolish mirage. The US is still fighting two wars; Guantanamo remains open, with no clear plan for closure given that Congress has ruled that inmates cannot be moved to the US; Iran has not yet agreed to anything; Middle East peace looks as distant as ever; the US economy is still limping, with unemployment at about 10%; healthcare has provoked a congressional battle royal; and as for serious action on climate change, don't hold your breath. As if to dramatise the contrast, HBO television recently premiered a glossy documentary, By the People, recounting the excitement of Obama's 2008 odyssey. Over on the news channels, there was live coverage of the Democratic defeat in the governor's race in Virginia, offsetting the victory Obama won there a year ago, with a similar rebuff in New Jersey. But it would be as silly to read too much into off-year election results as it would be to think that none of the hopes of a year ago has materialised. In fact, Obama can point to a solid start. The war in Iraq is being wound down. The economy has stabilised, thanks to a $787-billion stimulus package. It may not have been enough; it may be taking too long to work. But it has helped, saving or creating more than 640 000 jobs, according to White House figures. And, with a minimum of fuss, he has put a liberal Hispanic woman on the Supreme Court. Still, this is not quite the degree of change people had in mind a year ago. Why has the big shift not happened? The first answer sounds like a cop-out: blame the system. We imagine the US presidency to be the most powerful office on Earth. But the reality is that, relatively speaking, the president has less direct power than a British prime minister. He has no command over Congress; he cannot whip his own party into line.  CONTINUES BELOW Obama may have been utterly sincere in his desire to transform US healthcare. But he was always at the mercy of a handful of senators whose votes make the difference between success and failure. It is one of the great paradoxes of the US system. A country that acts in so many ways like a revolutionary society is constituted to thwart all but the most incremental change. As Anna Quindlen wrote in a Newsweek essay "Yes he can [but he sure hasn't yet]": "What our system has meant ... is that very little of the big stuff gets done. It simply can't." Which is why universal healthcare has appeared on the to-do list of presidents going back as far as Teddy Roosevelt. Some fault Obama for failing to make good on his promise to heal the rift between red and blue states, to end the rancour that separates Republicans from Democrats. But here the blame surely rests on his opponents' shoulders. He has reached out countless times -- trying to woo Republicans by stuffing his stimulus package with tax cuts, for example -- but they have repeatedly rebuffed him. Obama faces an opposition that is shocking in its vitriol. Bowing down to the twin gods of Sarah Palin and the Fox News blowhard Glenn Beck, rightists have set about depicting him as a socialist, a Stalinist, a Nazi, a Muslim and a foreigner posing as a native-born US citizen. They are backed by serious corporate money, a cable TV and talk-radio fraternity unconstrained by any duty to the facts and a network of enablers in Congress. They are an implacable foe and have made Obama's promised bipartisanship impossible. Still, none of this should let him off the hook for his own errors. As a candidate, he let expectations rise unfeasibly high: he could only ever disappoint. More seriously, he has too often left a vacuum where his own vision should be. He left the details of healthcare up to Congress, where things became mired, forcing him to ride to the rescue. On Israel-Palestine he should never have issued a demand he wasn't ready to enforce. By insisting Israel freeze all settlements on the West Bank, only to back down, he has lost face in a region where face counts above all. So Obama marks the anniversary of his election contemplating things that have held him back. But despite it all, he can point to much that should hearten his supporters. His rolling seminar on Afghanistan suggests a president who is deliberate and thoughtful -- a welcome contrast to his predecessor. He can plausibly argue that the economy might come right sooner than we think. That healthcare Bill could be ready in less than a week. If Iran says yes to the current uranium enrichment deal he will secure a victory that might even justify that premature Nobel prize. Besides, Obama is not on the same timetable as journalists. He does not need to get it right after 100 days or one year. He just needs to get it right. And for that the deadline is not November 2009 -- but November 2012. -- © Guardian News & Media 2009 US Congress dithers over Bill International negotiators lost one of the key elements of a successful deal on global warming this week after the United States Congress ruled out passing a climate change law before 2010, write Suzanne Goldenberg and Damian Carrington. In the latest obstacle on the road to the United Nations summit in Copenhagen next month, Senate leaders ordered a five-week pause to review the costs of the legislation. The delay, which will propel a Senate vote on a climate change Bill into next year, frustrated a last-minute push by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to get the US to commit itself to cut emissions before Copenhagen. World leaders have repeatedly said US legislation is crucial to a deal on global warming. Merkel used an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday to urge the US to act on climate change, stating that success at Copenhagen rested on the willingness of all countries to accept binding reductions in carbon emissions. The first German leader ever to address both houses of Congress, Merkel said a deal was comparable in importance to the tearing down of the Berlin wall 20 years ago. "We need the readiness of all countries to accept internationally binding obligations," she said, to loud applause from Democrats. Republicans largely sat in silence. "In December, the world will look to us: the Europeans and the Americans. I am convinced once we ... show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements we will also be able to persuade China and India," she said. She also raised her concerns with President Barack Obama in a visit to the White House earlier in the day. He told reporters: "Chancellor Merkel has been an extraordinary leader on the issue of climate change. And the US, Germany and countries around the world are all beginning to recognise why it is so important that we work in common to stem the potential catastrophe that could result if we see global warming continuing unabated." But the appeals for urgent action were overridden by political concerns in the Senate, which formally began debate on a proposed climate change law last week. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change Bill in June. But the Senate version has been repeatedly delayed, first by the battle over healthcare reform and now by Republican demands for more time to study the proposals. In a move to stem the Republican protest and pacify Democratic critics, the Democrat leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, said he would ask the Environmental Protection Agency to review the potential costs of the bill. Opponents of the proposal argue that the target of a 20% cut in emissions by 2020 will be too costly for US businesses and families. -- ©Guardian News & Media 2009 TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE
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