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.

As a rule, we do not post on weekends. But because of the rapidly approaching hurricane and the likelihood of a power outage, I offer today these thoughts inspired by Michael Corey’s last Deliberately Considered post, celebrating the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the Washington Mall, and by Cornel West’s op.ed. piece criticizing the Memorial and Barack Obama in yesterday’s New York Times. -Jeff

I am not a big fan of Cornel West. I liked and learned from his book The American Evasion of Philosophy, but most of his other books and articles involve, in my judgment, little more then posturing and preaching to the converted (I in the main am one of them). He does not take seriously the challenges political life presents. As he shouts slogans, cheers and denounces, I am not sure that he persuades. His and Travis Smiley’s ongoing criticism of President Obama seem to me to be first personal, then political, more the work of celebrity critics than critical intellectuals. That said, I think West’s op.ed. piece has a point, though not as it is directed against Obama and against the importance of symbolism.

“The age of Obama has fallen tragically short of fulfilling King’s prophetic legacy…

As the talk show host Tavis Smiley and I have said in our national tour against poverty, the recent budget deal is only the latest phase of a 30-year, top-down, one-sided war against the poor and working people in the name of a morally bankrupt policy of deregulating markets, lowering taxes and cutting spending for those already socially neglected and economically abandoned. Our two main political parties, each beholden to big money, offer merely alternative versions of oligarchic rule.”

This is unserious. The two parties are very different, and Obama has clearly been trying to address the needs of the socially and economically abandoned in his battle against the Republicans and so called moderate Democrats in Congress: on healthcare policy, financial regulation and jobs. A debt default would not only have hurt Wall Street and Main Street businesses. It would have profoundly affected the poor and working people for whom West and Smiley claim to be speaking. Perhaps, Obama doesn’t negotiate in the most effective way. Perhaps, he has given in more than was required. But to assert that the two parties “offer merely alternative versions of oligarchic rule,” is to ignore crucial realistic differences.

Certainly Obama is not a revolutionary, as West imagines he should be, following his particular vision of the King legacy. But, the office of the President is not where social revolutionaries are likely to be found. Revolutions and their revolutionaries, as West, Obama, King and I would agree, are usually elsewhere, particularly in the sustained actions of social movements. They push Presidents, as Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement pushed Lyndon Baines Johnson, and President Kennedy before him.

West blames Obama for one important social movement, The Tea Party. The most eloquent of politicians, in West’s judgment, has failed in his primary story telling responsibility.

“The absence of a King-worthy narrative to reinvigorate poor and working people has enabled right-wing populists to seize the moment with credible claims about government corruption and ridiculous claims about tax cuts’ stimulating growth. This right-wing threat is a catastrophic response to King’s four catastrophes; its agenda would lead to hellish conditions for most Americans.”

Yet, the Tea Party is a radical response to the narrative of inclusion and opportunity that Obama forcefully has presented in his campaign and during his Presidency. The consequential fight against the Tea Party narrative cannot come primarily from the President, as I have analyzed in an earlier post. The fight has had to come from a social movement. Strong opponents of the Tea Party, like West, need to take the movement seriously and need to go beyond the leftist sentiment that whines about Obama’s failings. A movement has to directly oppose the Tea Party and push for different social values, a movement such as the one that seems to be developing since the pro worker confrontations in Madison, Wisconsin and beyond.

Here I agree with West that “extensive community and media organizing; civil disobedience; and life and death confrontations with the powers that be” are necessary. I just don’t understand why he imagines this as being something directed against Obama. It should, rather, push him on specific issues, and work against his significant opponents. Clearly, he is likely to bend in favorable ways, while the Republican alternative political leaders will likely continue to resist social change with all the power of the Tea Party behind them.

I also don’t get West’s concern about the symbolism of the new King memorial in DC. He seems to think that there is a choice between symbolism and substance and thinks that King was on substance’s side.

“King weeps from his grave. He never confused substance with symbolism. He never conflated a flesh and blood sacrifice with a stone and mortar edifice. We rightly celebrate his substance and sacrifice because he loved us all so deeply. Let us not remain satisfied with symbolism because we too often fear the challenge he embraced.”

Yet, King used symbols brilliantly, especially in his speeches, to achieve substantial goals. The monument doesn’t stand against substance, but contributes to the vocabulary of the alternative narrative that West calls for.

Words etched in stone, on the Washington Mall, at the symbolic center of the American Republic, as Michael Corey describes in his last post, provide the opportunity and inspiration for critical discussion such as West’s. He uses the symbolism of the inauguration of the monument to present his criticisms, but denies the importance of the symbol, revealing a limited self-awareness.

In the future, I am rather certain, there will be demonstrations, moving from the Lincoln Memorial, to the King Memorial, perhaps with activity as well at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Indeed, a walk around these places and discussion about the walk will enact and describe the alterative narrative to the Tea Party, as it most certainly will be inspired by King’s vision. And when President Obama takes part in the hurricane postponed official dedication of the monument in a few weeks, I won’t be surprised if he presents a compelling version of this narrative.