By electing its first African American, bi-racial president, America redefined itself. Barack Obama’s singular achievement has been, and will be for the ages, his election, and his confirming re-election. The significance of this cannot be overestimated. It colors all aspects of Obama’s presidency, as it tends to be publicly ignored. Today, at Obama’s second inauguration, he will highlight his and our achievement, as he will take his oath of office on the bibles of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.

Of course, Obama is not just a pretty dark face. He has a moderate left of center political program. He is a principled centrist. He is trying to transform the American center, moving it to the left, informing commonsense, changing the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, re-inventing American political culture. This will clearly be on view in today’s speech.

Obama has changed how America is viewed in the larger world, as he has slowly but surely shifted American foreign policy, ending two wars, developing a more multilateral approach, reforming the American military in a way that is more directed to the challenges of the 21^st century. I should add: I am disappointed with some of this, particularly concerning drone warfare (more on this in a later piece). The President has finally established the principle of universal healthcare as a matter of American law, putting an end to a very unfortunate example of American exceptionalism. Another dark side of American life, the centrality of guns and gun violence in our daily lives, is now being forthrightly addressed by the President. His second term promises to address climate change in a way that has been foreclosed by the Republican opposition to this point. And he will almost certainly lead the country in a more tolerant and progressive approach to immigration and citizenship for undocumented Americans.

He has accomplished a big fuckin’ deal, as Vice President Biden declared in an unguarded moment following the passage of Obamacare (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and today has been underscored by one of Obama’s primary critics from the left, Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist and New York Times columnist.

But in my judgment it all exists in the context of the redefinition of what it means to be an American. He now represents the typical American. His is the face of America and many of those who felt excluded, and not only African Americans, now feel that they are full citizens.  Take a look at this open public letter from a gay family attending the ceremonies today.

Lincoln turned the “Declaration of Independence” into a sacred text, when he redefined it in the Gettysburg Address. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  He elevated the ideal of equality, reinterpreting the significance of the “Declaration,” turning equality into a central political value. In the same way, Obama has redefined the significance of the motto on the American seal E pluribus unum, “out of many one,” into a central commitment to the diversity of national origins, religious, commitments, racial and ethnic identities and sexual orientations, elevating diversity, a central empirical fact of American society, into a central normative commitment, to be celebrated and cultivated. I anticipate that the theme of equality and diversity will animate his speech.

Now I listen to the speech and respond:

Extraordinary. More than I could have hoped, though I expected a lot. Comprehensive, principled, visionary, clearly setting out a (left of center) path for the country, embedded within a history, distant and recently passed. There was a noteworthy opening, centered on equality and diversity in American history. He engaged the politics of the day – climate change (with striking prominence), Social Security and Medicare, immigration, and women and gay rights -along the way, but it was the central vision that I found most powerful.

The audience was large and enthusiastic, fervently waving the American flag, red, white and blue, with resulting purple waves of enthusiasm. And Obama worked with this, presenting his vision that would unite, the liberal blue and the conservative red, moving the country in a progressive and more inclusive direction. Obama’s words soared.

He concluded with a series of paragraphs repeating the phrase “we the people.”

“We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity…

“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity…

“We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war…

“We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law…

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

Obama addressed many policy issues, surprising instant pundits. But what was most noteworthy to me is that he did it by building upon and returning to his greatest accomplishment. It was a speech built upon the power of American diversity and outlined how this diversity will be used to address the pressing problems of the day, and as this happens, the United States stands as a city on a hill for others to observe and learn from. At least, this is the very ambitious promise of Obama’s second term.

When I wrote The Cynical Society, I was guided by two opposing propositions: that democracy was deeply ingrained in American everyday practice, and that cynicism was as well, presenting a major challenge. This dynamic between democracy and cynicism was clearly evident in the case of the recent Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of “Obamacare.” Chief Justice John Roberts demonstrated how individual action matters. He apparently acted in a principled fashion, defying cynical interpretation. In my judgment, he made a significant principled contribution to the health of the body politic, as well as to the health of many American bodies.

I had an inkling that this could happen in April:

“I worry that this [cynical] kind of attitude has even become the common currency of the Republican appointed justices of the Supreme Court, as they express Tea Party talking points about the health insurance mandates, with Justice Scalia pondering the forced consumption of broccoli and the like. But I have hope. It seems to me that it is quite possible that the Court, with Chief Justice Roberts’s leadership, will seek to make a solid decision based on the merits and not the politics of the case, in the shadows of the Citizens United decision and Bush v. Gore. The integrity of the court, its reputation as a judicial and not a political institution, may very well rule the day.

The way the Court handles this case is a good measure of the degree cynicism has penetrated our politics and culture. My guess is that the health care law, in whole but more likely in part, will be overturned in a political 5 – 4 decision, or if the Court wants to fight against cynical interpretation, attempting to reveal principled commitment, the decision will be 6 – 3 upholding the law, with Kennedy and Roberts, joining the liberals. If the law is overturned, from my partisan point of view, the chances for a decent life for millions will be challenged. But I also worry about what this says about the state of our political culture.”

I was close to predicting the outcome. I thought Roberts was key. I was pessimistic, but had some hope. My mistake was thinking that if he affirmed the constitutionality of the law that Justice Kennedy would follow Roberts.

The talking heads on cable and the print pundits of various political orientations are now mulling over the partisan significance of this. Particularly interesting is the split among conservatives. Elite conservative pundits, David Brooks, George Will, et al., see the principled conservative grounds of the Roberts decisions. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and company see betrayal. In the long run, the elite perceive a smart move in the grounding of Roberts’s opinions. Relying upon Congress’ taxing power and restricting the use of the commerce clause serves the conservative project. Right wing populists see treason to their cause. Generally speaking, Democrat and liberal judgments are parallel with those on the right. While most see victory and support for their cause, there is concern that the precedent has been set for future conservative judgments, building upon Roberts’s actions. Of course, there are also some on the anti-Obama left who read the decision as a diabolical indication that the two factions of the corporate elite are in lockstep, solidifying the final defeat of the single payer plan, promoting the interests of the insurance companies, limiting the power of the federal government to advance social justice.

I have my own partisan judgments. I think Obamacare is flawed but that it significantly moves in the direction of decency. Millions will have access to health care, use it and be healthier, as a result of this law. The principle of universal health care will become more broadly recognized as a right. And over time the flaws in the system will be addressed, resulting in a more efficient and effective health care system, with improved public health. The Supreme Court properly let stand one of the great accomplishments of President Obama.

But as a sociologist of political culture, beyond partisanship, I see another important advance: a small but significant blow against cynicism for the democratic side of the democracy–cynicism dynamic. Roberts appeared to do two things in his judgments by going along with the conservatives in his reading of the commerce clause and by going along with the more liberal justices in confirming the constitutionality of Obamacare. On the one hand, as in all proper court decisions, he confirmed his position with reference to the constitution and to previous judgments of the courts. This is certainly open to cynical interpretation. Whether it is original intent of the founders, or precedent, or in the reading of the facts of the case, the partisan will read the case in a partisan way often unintentionally. In fact, as the most basic sociology of knowledge teaches us, for example Mannheim’s, we all inevitably do this. But, on the other hand, by going against the partisan grain, Roberts confirmed the ideal that the law exists beyond political interests and calculation, beyond the immediate politics of the day.

Ironically, Roberts may have come to this position in a highly calculated, even cynical fashion. It is possible that he found the grounds to make a decision that both was true to his conservative commitments and enhances his court’s reputation. Did he actually cynically and hypocritically strike a blow against cynicism? Did he calculate that the reputation of his court beyond his conservative enclave is worth a little flexibility and act accordingly in his own interest? Is Roberts a hypocrite? If so, I say once again, two cheers for hypocrisy!

On a bright June 15th President Obama directed the Department of Homeland Security to use their prosecutorial discretion to discontinue the deportation of those young undocumented immigrants under the age of 30 who had arrived in the United States before they turned sixteen, had lived here for at least five years, had not been convicted of a crime, and had graduated from high school or are currently in school. The standing rhetorical trope was that these youngsters should not be punished for being brought to America “through no fault of their own.” While some complained that the president did not have the right to determine which laws should be enforced or that the policy turnabout was cynical, so close as it is to a hard-fought election, much of the response, including the reaction from many Republicans, was that the policy, if not the process, was right.

Again and again we heard the mantra that children should not be punished for acts that were not their fault. How could a three-year-old decide whether to live in Tampa or Tampico? How could a seventeen-year-old valedictorian decide to return “home” to Veracruz when her family lived in Santa Cruz? According to surveys, most supported the idea that it was fundamentally unfair to prosecute and persecute these children.

This rare bipartisan comity raised an underlying issue. Many things happen to children through no fault of their own. Do we as a society have the responsibility to respond to these generational fault lines? Most dramatic are the pernicious effects of poverty. Just as some children are brought across the border in violation of immigration laws, other children are born into home-grown poverty through no fault of their own. Or they are brought up in familial environments of violence, drugs, neglect, and abuse. Does society have any responsibility in ameliorating the damage?

Perhaps we claim that these are fundamentally different matters. In the case of undocumented children, we are merely deciding that, if they pass our moral hurdles, they be left alone. This seems like a sturdy libertarian solution on which liberals and conservatives can find common ground. No resources are being transferred, and money is saved by the non-enforcement of not-very-enforceable immigration laws.

If we take seriously the rhetoric of “no fault” in poverty or other abusive realms, we would be forced to do more than to turn our backs and shade our eyes. Children go hungry and are badly clothed through no fault of their own. But as a society, we let those inequalities remain, because it would mean sharing the wealth and shifting the burden.

My examples are ones that point to the failures of parents. Parents have responsibilities at which they often fail. But what about education? Some children receive an excellent education, and other children through no fault of their own attend deeply inadequate schools. They no more chose to live in depressed neighborhoods than other children chose to cross the border. But here we proclaim the value of neighborhood schools without recognizing educational justice. With health care the issue is similar. Children do not choose to receive inadequate care, while residing in medical deserts. Parents bare responsibility, but the government must insure access to quality care.

The reality is that there are many domains in which we must consider the “no fault” argument, but often it is those with fault who are protected. When Wall Street investment houses teetered and banks swayed, it was hard to claim that these too-big-to-fail investments needed to be rescued for errors that occurred through no fault of their own. It was precisely their fault, but their bonuses and options and suites were preserved. A case could be made that the failure of these institutions would have had sharp reverberations throughout the economy, harming those who were not at fault, but why did saving the financial service industry first and foremost involve protecting those who were loaded with fault and with personal resources to cushion their own fall.

These bailouts were showered while each school day children attended crumbling schools received inadequate health care, and lived in deep poverty for which they had no responsibility.

There is much to admire in the President’s call to protect immigrant children from deportation, and there is praise to be allocated to Republicans like Senator Marco Rubio who recognize the fundamental rightness of the policy. But, given the rhetoric of the policy justification, who is to speak for other children who suffer through no fault of their own, while elites at fault find that forgiveness is easy and free.

The new Obama campaign video, “The Road We’ve Traveled,” is a compelling piece of political expression. It’s not art. It’s not news. It’s a form of effective political speech. The Obama campaign calls the video a documentary, and that it is: a documentary advocating a partisan position that is meant to rally supporters, and convince opponents and the undecided.

Partisan Republicans have criticized the video for being propaganda: a serious charge coming from people who often label President Obama, a moderate left of center Democrat, as a socialist, and speak ominously about the end of America as we have known it if the President were to be reelected. Mitt Romney, more lightly, perhaps in fact revealing that he is a moderate, dismissed the video as an infomercial. I understand the Republican objections. They see a political move and are trying to counter it by suggesting it should be dismissed and not watched.

Less understandable is the performance yesterday of CNN talk show host, Piers Morgan, who aggressively criticized Davis Guggenheim, the director of the film, for not balancing its advocacy with any criticisms of the President. This baffles me. Just because the video is the creation of an award winning filmmaker doesn’t mean that his political expression in this work should be measured by the same standards as his art. Guggenheim, as he tried to explain last night in his interview with Morgan, is politically committed and the work on the video is his way of being politically active.

When I go to the movies, read a novel or see an art exhibit, I think it is important to distinguished between art and politics. Works that have noble messages do not necessarily make fine art. As Malgorzata Bakalarz examined in her last post, there is a difference between good and politically important art. On the other hand, and this is central here, it is just as important to not mistake political expression with art, or with news. The Obama campaign and Guggenheim do not do this. They are advocating, something important in democratic life, attempting to convince, not manipulate.

If, indeed, “The Road We’ve Traveled” were presented as news with state funding, it would be correctly understood as propaganda. If it pretended that it was presenting unbiased information with private funding, instead of an argument with campaign funding, it would be accurate to describe it as an infomercial. Republican labeling “The Road We’ve Traveled” as propaganda and an infomercial is an attempt to turn the viewer away from the video, to not see it at all, or to not seriously consider the argument. As I said this is understandable, but it is also cynical, a move to dismiss an argument in order not to confront it.

I think the argument is compelling. It makes one major move, which I find quite convincing. It presents an overview of the accomplishments of Obama’s first term, drawing back from the messages of day-to-day political bickering and the calculations of who is up and who is down. Key achievements of the Obama administration in the voice of key members of the team and its supporters are presented. Adverting a financial collapse, saving the auto industry, health care reform, killing Osama bin Laden, withdrawal from the war in Iraq, restoring science to its rightful place, education and student loan reforms, consumer protection, ending “don’t ask don’t tell,” working to reduce foreign oil imports, passing legislation to insure equal pay for equal work for women, restoring the view of America and Americans in the eyes of the world. All of this is mentioned and explored, placed in the historical and comparative context. It is underscored that Obama took major risks in pursuing many of these policies, including his steadfastness not only in the operation against Bin Laden (this is a bit too gung ho for me), but also in the passing of the health care legislation. The video is artfully produced. I especially found the use of still black and white photos moving. It monumentalized decisions, highlighting the agency of Obama, when this is often lost in the noise of daily accounts. In sum, the video made a strong argument for achievement.

Of course, many will contest the argument. Partisan Republicans, true-believing conservatives, will not be convinced. But I think two groups may be moved by the video. Those to the left of Obama who have been dismissive of his presidency, who have accepted the story that he has not been resolute in supporting progressive causes. The video argues from the left from beginning to end (with the exception of the killing of Bin Laden). But I also think that the film appeals to the center and even to conservatives. It makes the argument for health care reform, an unbiased military, economic recovery and the rest in a way that appeals to common American sense.

The film expresses what I have long understood as Obama’s stance: in the center, attempting to move the center left. It’s power reveals that this is not only the project, promised by Barack Obama in the 2008 election. It is the achievement of the first term of the Obama Presidency, thus making a cogent and strong argument for re-election. It is the hope of the campaign that the video will go viral. If it does, it would reveal the way serious political argument still lives. “The Road We’ve Traveled” is not propaganda nor is it an infomercial. It is serious political argument in the age of the Internet.

Some thirty years ago the legislature of the state of Minnesota, where I was teaching at time, decided to enact a seat-belt law. If memory serves, Congress had made the distribution of highway funds dependent upon such a revision of vehicular safety standards. Driving without seatbelts transformed accidents into fatal crashes and fender-benders into emergency room visits. Minnesota drivers and front seat passengers were to wear a lapbelt. (At first there was no fine, only a merry warning from a state trooper).

We considered this law in my undergraduate social theory class, considering the right and the responsibility of a government to restrain the freedom to choose. One of my treasured students, let us call this jeune femme fighter for liberté Marianne, informed us that she used to wear a seatbelt while driving, but as a result of the legislation, she no longer did. She sat athwart her steering wheel as an act of protest. For her, the core of freedom was to say “I won’t” to what she considered state intrusion, and there was much that she considered intrusive. While it might be a suitable coda to announce that I last saw her on a gurney, her survival paid for by fellow citizens, as far as I know she is still on the road. But principled libertarians like Marianne demand that we question the uncertain divide between community and liberty. Some of our fellow citizens instinctively reject any collective mandate.

I recall Marianne when I consider the travails of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in their desires to defend a mandate for health care. Mandate is from the Latin mandatum, commission or order. As the opponents of mandated health care, whether in the Bay State or from coast to coast complain, a mandate orders citizens to purchase health insurance – with exceptions for those who cannot afford it – or to pay a fine. (A subtle constitutional debate concerns whether states can do what is prohibited to the Feds). The irony is that a single payer system is clearly constitutional. It would not require citizens to purchase a product, but rather it would tax them for yet another government benefit. I imagine that those who object to a mandate to purchase health care would be no more jovial had the cost been swiped from their paycheck.

The visceral opposition of so many Republicans to insuring that all Americans have access to health care: Romneycare or Obamacare, as one will, is a puzzle. For the fact of the matter is that when the government determines that the promotion of the common welfare is required – a moving target as conceptions of rights alter – we determine how that collective good will be provided and who will be responsible for its cost.

The social democratic solution is for the state to be the tax collector of the commonweal, and the distributor of shared mercies to all. As Andrew Jackson put the matter: “There are no necessary evils in government. . . . If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.” In other words, if the State would shower medical care on rich and poor, a thousand robust flowers would bloom. One system for all, watered by an efficient and wise regime.

Wishful thinking, perhaps. In contrast is the mandate, bolstering a marketplace in which citizens and their employers select among competing health plans. Some measure of competition is preserved. Given the desire to preserve choice, corporate investment, and private enterprise, this was – and still is – a fundamentally Republican plan showing deference to free-market principles in a society in which prior to national health care the Feds were already picking up over 45% of health care costs. Even Ann Coulter agrees, writing “Three Cheers for Romneycare!” and noting that the Heritage Foundation helped design Romneycare. Perhaps not libertarian, but conservative.

Forcing everyone to purchase health care involves forcing everyone to purchase health care, as Marianne would intuit. And perhaps she would be willing to give up her doctors in order to breathe the rarified air of freedom. However, if deliberately considered, the primary victims of this scheme are young people willing to bet on invulnerability. There would have been logic to the Occupy Wall Street kids opposing mandatory coverage. But why should the middle-aged, middle-class, entrenched Tea Party boosters be so opposed to the mandate to continue to purchase what they have purchased all along. They are the very people who would not consider being without health care themselves. Marianne has reached midlife.

There are reasons to be skeptical of market-based mandated healthcare: suspicions from left and from right. Are all health plans – and, thus, all medical care – equal. Will the accountants of the market call the tune? Even though the mantra of the mandate has dominated opposition on the right, surely one could fret about the over-regulation of the market. Do public bureaucrats know better than private bureaucrats? Will no frills plans be pushed from the market? Will government regulators permit too much care (contraception) or too little (end of life care, aka death panels)?

Yet, these concerns are separate from mandates themselves. Should the government insist that we purchase what most of us purchase anyhow? Perhaps not, but if we recognize the necessity of universal health care, the alternative is a single-payer system. No mandate, just taxes. And taxes are as inevitable as death itself.

As Will Milberg anticipated, President Obama gave a speech last night that did not just involve political positioning. It was a serious Address to a Joint Session of Congress about our economic problems, proposing significant solutions. The address was also politically astute, and will be consequential. Obama was on his game again, revealing the method to his madness.

His game is not properly appreciated, as I have argued already here. He has a long term strategy, and doesn’t allow short term tactics to get in the way. He additionally understands that politics is not only about ends, but also means.

Many of his supporters and critics from the left, including me, have been seriously concerned about how he handled himself in the debt ceiling crisis. He apparently compromised too readily, negotiated weakly, another instance of a recurring pattern. In the first stimulus, healthcare reform, and the lame duck budget agreement, it seemed that he settled for less, could have got more, was too soft. But, of course, this is not for sure. I find that my friends who supported Hillary Clinton look at me, as an early and committed Obama supporter, differently now and express more open skepticism about Obama these days. But I think, as was revealed last night, that Obama’s failures have been greatly exaggerated. (Today only about political economic issues)

A worldwide depression was averted. The principle of universal health care for all Americans is now part of our law, the most significant extension of what T. H. Marshall called social citizenship since the New Deal. And, a completely unnecessary American induced global crisis did not occur. None of this was pretty. The President had to gain the support of conservative Democrats (so called moderates) and Republicans for these achievements. But it was consequential. In my judgment, despite complete, and not really loyal, Republican opposition to every move he has made, he has governed effectively, steering the ship of state in the right direction, despite extremely difficult challenges.

And during his political battles, he has maintained a civil respect for his opponents, never treating them as enemies, his soft touch, which is greatly criticized by the base. From serious economic critics, such as Paul Krugman, to his African-American celebrity critics, such as Tavis Smiley and Cornell West, there is a sense that he has not fought hard enough.  But hard is not always the most effective. This was revealed last night.

His speech was part of his overall strategy to address the primary economic challenge of our day and to do so without abandoning a commitment to social justice. There is a broad consensus among economists and serious policy analysts that the American economy requires two things: short term stimulus and long term deficit control, and that a key to this long term goal is controlling the costs of health care in America. Sober, politically wise analysts also recognize that pursuit of perfect solutions should not get in the way of politically possible solutions. It’s better to move in the right direction than to not move at all, or to move in the wrong direction. This requires that people who don’t agree on everything to manage to act together on some things. It requires compromise, persistent effort. Obama is on to this. He does it as a matter of principle, not simply as a tactic. He clearly wants to find a common ground. Every move he makes he tries to include Republicans and their ideas, conservative as well as liberal Democrats. He is a principled centrist.

But last night he revealed that he is not pursuing a center just because he likes to be in the middle. As I have maintained before, he is a centrist working to move the center left. He understands the conservative criticism of statism, but still thinks the state has an important role to play. He is centrally focused on social justice, as he works to make a concern for social justice a matter of centrist concern.

The speech presented his American Jobs Act, a bill that utilizes the two primary means to address the great danger of a double-dip recession that Milberg highlighted in his post: payroll tax cuts for employees and employers, and an increase in infrastructure investment. There was also special focus in the speech and in the proposed legislation on those who are suffering most directly from the recession: the unemployed, the poor and the young.

And he managed to do this by proposing actions that have all had bipartisan support in the past. He is identifying a center, which will enable common action.

“Every proposal I’ve laid out tonight is the kind that’s been supported by Democrats and Republicans in the past.  Every proposal I’ve laid out tonight will be paid for.  And every proposal is designed to meet the urgent needs of our people and our communities.”

But he is still committed to central principles:

“But what we can’t do — what I will not do — is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades.  (Applause.)  I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety.  I reject the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients.  I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy. “

Things are adding up. Stimulus, health care, deficit control, more stimulus. He is building on his past, even if flawed achievements. He is pushing hard for a big stimulus package. It is a package that the Republicans can refuse, but at their peril. He has taken the initiative.

I started to write this post at 37,000 feet, between New York and Paris, flying to see my grandson, Ludovic, and his parents Michel and Brina (my daughter). Preoccupied by the private purpose of my visit, I tried to think about recent public events and their meaning. I was looking forward to private pleasures, working on public matters.

My trip is very much a family affair, no lectures, no meetings planned with colleagues. I am not even sure we will see any sites: Paris without the Eifel Tower or the Louvre, maybe a hardware store or two as Brina and Michael are in the middle of some serious home renovations.

But as I hurtled through the sky over the Atlantic, I wondered about how the private is linked to the public, aware of the fact that generally the French and Americans, and more particularly the French and American media, have dealt with this in very different ways, revealed in recent scandals.

Americans are more likely to look for the truth of the public by examining the private. The French are more convinced that private matters are not public issues. Both have important insights and blind spots, apparent in this week’s news and in the discussions here at DC.

Gary Alan Fine welcomed the candidacy of Tim Pawlenty. Fine, who enjoys what he calls pungent political discourse of the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, also recognizes the importance of serious political debate, seeing this possibility in Pawlenty. But there was another such candidate presenting serious alternatives to the Democrat’s positions, with a record of accomplishment. Many informed Republican partisans thought Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana would be an even more significant candidate. But the twice married to the same woman politician with an apparently complicated private life, chose not to run. His family, specifically his daughters, vetoed his run. Fear of public exposure of what should remain private deprived the Republicans of a candidate. Public debate and contestation has been diminished by the apparent confusion of public and private virtues.

Fine also likes scandals and humorously thanks Dominque Strauss-Kahn for providing the latest, one that radically underlines the problem of absolutely distinguishing public from private. But DSK’s scandal is particularly serious. He is charged with a most serious crime, and the French reaction to the news has been quite instructive.

First, there was denial, linked with a variety of conspiracy theories. Then, there was outrage, not directed at DSK, but at the NYC police for the perp walk. Next, there was some realization that Strauss Kahn might not just be a womanizer, but a sexual predator. This led to a series of revelations about silence, and reflections that some things left in the shadows should see the light of day, some private matters need to be exposed, and are matters of public concern, and that a general sensibility that strongly distinguishes public and private may systematically impede this.

More about the specifics of the Strauss-Kahn controversy, I hope, next week from Daniel Dayan. But for now a quick observation from Brina and Michel’s kitchen table: Talking to them, and reading the news, upon our arrival, I am convinced that the difference between the French and the American media approach to public and private will not be so great in the future.

Tim Rosenkranz’s report on Habermas’s latest public intervention also is about the relationship between public and private, in a slightly different sense of these terms. Habermas fears that the private opinion registered in “pubic opinion polling” leads to political leadership with short horizons and undermines the political significance of elections. Politicians driven by the quick shifts of public mood can’t develop serious solutions to pressing problems and these aren’t properly debated as part of the election process. While I wouldn’t categorically dismiss polling, Habermas, with Rosenkranz’s final note, shows that there are dangers, which are evident in the U.S.

A prime example: any move to address the crisis in our healthcare system leads to partisan attacks, and necessary change becomes extremely difficult. This problem has persisted for a century. “Obamacare,” a reform that resembles Republican proposals and programs in the recent past, including Mitt Romney’s great accomplishment as Governor of Massachusetts, is attacked as socialist and as pulling the plug on grandma, scaring many in the vulnerable public. The Republican program to privatize Medicare into a kind of Obamacare for the elderly is likewise attacked, becoming a key to the rising prospects for the Democrats in Congress in the next elections. The polls inform the politicians and are directed and interpreted for partisan purposes. Commitment to serious solutions to pressing problems becomes next to impossible. This is the measure of the accomplishment of health care reform thus far, which is likely to become as popular as Medicare, it seems to me, once it is fully enacted. I think this will be a story with a happy ending.

The same problem is evident in American policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, where there are few signs of a happy ending. President Obama openly, i.e. in public, said the obvious. Any peace deal starts with the 1967 borders between Israel and the Palestinians, with mutually agreed upon land swaps. Gershon Shafir this week strongly supported this move, and suggested that a door was opened and that its now time to walk through, to actually endorse or at least not vote against a U.N. resolution recognizing an independent Palestinian state. I tend to agree with Shafir, with a strong sense that the only way Israel will survive in the long run is through a negotiated settlement pushed forward by outside parties, especially the U.S. But this is highly unlikely given the Republican attacks on even the modest step Obama took, and given the impact this is likely to have on public opinion as measured by the polls.

Just when it would be good to be bold, the American leadership will follow the polls. The politicians will hold to inflexible positions, concerned that they may be defined as being “anti-Israel.” This is a matter in which the question of who owns the polls is very important, indicated by IrisDr’s report on her experience with a group calling itself the Republican – Jewish Coalition. Obama’s sustained pro-Israel policy (for better and for worse) can be undermined by such attacks, perhaps insuring that a reasonable peace won’t be achieved. Instead of serious public deliberation about these matters by responsible parties, there are politics directed to satisfy the prejudices of private individuals and their personal fears and opinions (named public opinion).

The French are learning that the distinction between public and private is hard to sustain, and that it’s a good thing too. Sometimes it is important to critically evaluate private matters in order to make sound public decisions. The individual moral character of a political leader matters.

But we need to make a distinction between passing individual private opinions, even when collected in a public opinion poll, and legitimate public decisions and deliberations that are connected to elections and concerted political action.

The public – private distinction: we cannot live thoroughly with it, can’t live democratically without it.

It has always been the case that the politics of America is a blend of cynicism and real democratic deliberation. I wrote about this extensively in my book, The Cynical Society.  There are the sound bytes and the serious modes of deliberation.  There are the media circuses and the deliberative chambers. And, there are slogans and extended reasonable arguments. But the proportions of the blend changes.  During the election, Obama used serious persuasion more effectively than his opponents and his predecessors as a political tool.  He consistently did this, most strikingly in his famous race speech in Philadelphia.   A provocative compilation of the words of his minister Reverend Jeremiah Wright was used to insinuate that Obama was an angry Black man, a reverse racist.  He responded with a carefully reasoned speech, addressing the problems and promise for racial understanding.

He has tried during his Presidency to do the same.  This has led to aggressive attacks by his opponents.  They attack not only in substance, but also in form, as he insists upon reasoned deliberate debate, his opponents flee from reason.  Many have wondered whether his cool reasoned response to this has been wise.  His critics within his Party, his fellow progressives, are most interesting in this regard.

There has been a concern that Obama has not been tough enough.  That he has been too open to an opposition that has been unbending.  He has offered respect and cooperation, while they have vilified and demonized him.  And when his opposition does not demonize, it refuses to condemn or distance itself from those who do.  The response to Obama is strongly ideological, irrational and demagogic, even though there are no substantive reasons why it must be this way.  It is not the case that the liberal position is necessarily principled, rational and deliberative, while the conservative one is not, but this is the shape of the political culture at this time.  The contest between Obama and the Democrats and the opposition is not only a matter of competing substantive policy positions, it is also a competition between the force of arguments and the force of manipulations.

I have to be careful here.  I am not just a disinterested observer, I realize.  I strongly support Obama on matters of race and American identity, on reform of the economy and the health care system, on the environment and mostly on foreign policy.  But I recognize that his position is a partisan one and it should be opposed by alternative partisan positions in a democratic polity.  My concern is that the opposition is not serious, but it may be effective.

On the other hand, although Obama’s partisan position is serious, but it may not be effective.  My concern has less to do with the politics of the moment, more to do with the culture of the Republic.  I think that the crucial issue here is not Obama’s success or failure or the opposition’s success or failure.  Rather, the primary democratic challenge is whether it is possible to go beyond cynical politics.  Obama’s electoral campaign was quite successful in this regard.  The nature of the partisan conflict during his Presidency has not clearly followed the same pattern.

I think he continues to pursue his political ends in a reasonable and open way, as both his opponents and his critics on the left are willing to flee reason and responsibility for the problems of our times.

The health care debate pitted the current administration against some familiar feeling foes. Though President Obama doesn’t seem to have expected it, the Republican-attack machine that distracted and embarrassed the Clinton administration is up to its old tricks. Using minute and displaced facts as well as fishing-boat whoppers to dissuade and disillusion an already frighted public, conservative lawmakers challenge this administration to fight back in kind–or risk losing the battle altogether.

Cynicism versus democracy the battle continues almost every day during the Obama Presidency.  There was a serious debate to have on economic policy and health care reform, for example.  There was a broad consensus that aggressive government action was necessary at the height of the financial crisis.  Even the leading conservative economists understood that aggressive action was necessary. (link) But there have been reasonable debates about the shape of the action, (link) and after its success, there has been a debate about what actions should follow. (link) Yet, the tone of the opposition has not generally followed this course of criticism and opposition.  Instead there have been the accusations of socialism and fascism.

On health care reform, there were crazy assertions of death panels and even a Republican senator who was engaged in a bipartisan effort at reform, warned about “pulling the plug on Grandma.” And thus serious conservatives wanting to engage in a serious debate about the issue found it impossible to do so. (link)

In the face of this gap, Obama actively acted as if he had faced a reasonable opposition for a long time, despite the evidence to the contrary, to the consternation of many of his supporters.  He has faced the same sort of Republican attack machine that the Clintons did, and he has not prepared to meet it head on.  As Paul Krugman put it “So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t named Clinton, as if they keep expecting the nonsense to just go away.” (link)

But Krugman and many others who voice similar criticisms don’t recognize that there is a political cultural dilemma here.  If Obama and his supporters respond in kind, they may win the substantive battle, while weakening the power of civil discussion and careful reasoned argument in public life in the process (one of his strong points).  But if they time the response adequately, showing that all efforts were made to sustain bi partisanship without compromising principle, making clear reasonable arguments for their positions, and patiently questioning the factual truth of their critics more outrageous assertions, they could win both the substantive battle and the formal one.

They could battle and present a clear alternative to modern cynical politics.  Thus the contrast between the Obama Town Hall meetings about health care reform and the behavior of his critics in the Town Hall meeting of Congress members may in the end persuade the political leadership and the general public both on the issue and on the way to best do politics.  But this is far from certain.  An empowered opposition emerged, utilizing a new base of power.  There is the Tea Party and its use of what I call the politics of small things. More about this in future posts.