Norm Ornstein: Obama Can't Be The Green Lantern

[flpoljunkie]

The Most Enduring Myth About the Presidency
The Green Lantern theory just won't go away.

By Norm Ornstein
April 22,2104

The LBJ Library recently held a multiday program to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, and by all accounts, the program was stirring and stimulating, up to and including President Obama's speech.

But there was one downside: the reactivation of one of the most enduring memes and myths about the presidency, and especially the Obama presidency. Like Rasputin (or Whac-A-Mole,) it keeps coming back even after it has been bludgeoned and obliterated by facts and logic. I feel compelled to whack this mole once more.

The meme is what Matthew Yglesias, writing in 2006, referred to as "the Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics," and has been refined by Greg Sargent and Brendan Nyhan into the Green Lantern Theory of the presidency. In a nutshell, it attributes heroic powers to a president—if only he would use them. And the holders of this theory have turned it into the meme that if only Obama used his power of persuasion, he could have the kind of success that LBJ enjoyed with the Great Society, that Bill Clinton enjoyed in his alliance with Newt Gingrich that gave us welfare reform and fiscal success, that Ronald Reagan had with Dan Rostenkowski and Bill Bradley to get tax reform, and so on.

If only Obama had dealt with Congress the way LBJ did—persuading, cajoling, threatening, and sweet-talking members to attain his goals—his presidency would not be on the ropes and he would be a hero. If only Obama would schmooze with lawmakers the way Bill Clinton did, he would have much greater success. If only Obama would work with Republicans and not try to steamroll them, he could be a hero and have a fiscal deal that would solve the long-term debt problem.

more, and well worth reading...

http://www.nationaljournal.com/washington-inside-out/the-most-enduring-myth-about-the-presidency-20140422

[busterbrown]

1. They just hate everything he stands for..

His color certainly doesn’t help, either does his intelligence, compassion and empathy..
His wife and children, beautiful inside and out give them even more reasons to dislike him.

Because? He has taken the last concept/reason off the shelf of racism... Privilege!!!!

[DFW]

2. It's amazing to read the comments

Norm isn't called "Washington's most quoted pundit" for nothing. He doesn't really have a "side" he's on, and to work at AEI and keep your sanity, you need a thick skin. When his analysis reads like something Republicans might agree with, he's "insightful." When it doesn't, the champions of ignorance come out in droves. I notice one of them pasted the same comment something like 15 times.

Norm also happens to be one of the funniest guys I know, and some day I just WISH he would come back and blow the right wing comments to pieces. But that would involve acknowledging them, and for someone as busy as he is, I just can't see him sacrificing his time in that manner.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

3. Norm hasn't said anything new. Many of us, including myself, have been screaming this about Obama

for many years now.

"If only Obama behaved like FDR"

"If only Obama behaved like LBJ and shoved senators in the corner, hovering over them, threatening them...blah blah blah..."

It's a meme that drives me insane, not only because it's historically incorrect; it's constitutionally *and politically* impossible for him to do.

I can't wait until this president writes his memoirs and addresses all these people who think they know what he ought to do and should have done and how he should have acted and...shoulda, woulda, coulda...

Most of us don't know shit about how government works; the nuances of politics; the significance of history; the fact that LBJ was working with a 67% majority of Democrats, not to mention a sizeable portion of level-headed Republicans from the North and western states willing to support civil rights and other policies that liberal Democrats also supported.

Sigh...

But everyone thinks they know how this negro in the White House ought to act and what he ought to do. They know so much better than he does. That goes for BOTH the political left and right. It's this obnoxious self righteousness that totally disgusts me. Really, I've never seen anything so off-putting, so offensive, so disgusting in all my life. Never before have I ever witnessed a person treated in such a disrespectful way!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. +1000

Well spoken

[dhill926]

6. I second your +1,000...

[WhiteTara]

5. They mean if only President Obama

were white southern like LBJ.

The president all but got on his knees to beg them to create one team for America and they spit in his face.

[Blue_Tires]

7. He has some great points...

sadly they'll fly right over the heads of half the goddamned posters on this site...

[sendero]

8. We don't expect that..

.... there will never be another JFK or LBJ, we get that. I'd be satisfied if Obama would simply do what he said he was going to do, what he generally says so forcefully, convincingly and often eloquently.

It doesn't mean he would be successful every time, but the pattern is pretty clear. His campaign promises mean nothing at all.

Now you could say "well that is true of almost all politicians" and I'd be hard pressed to disagree. That's why I don't trust or respect any of them.

[craigmatic]

9. I take issue with the Bill Clinton bullshit. He didn't persuade anybody. He totally changed his

positions on everything. I'd rather Obama did nothing than cave in like Clinton did.