| Hope! Change! |
[May. 10th, 2010|11:57 pm]
Scott
|
From Reddit: Same old, same old: Obama Pentagon gives $500M 'no bid' contract to Halliburton. But then be sure to read some of the very enlightening comments on the matter.
I keep seeing this same trope: "Bush did X, we expected Obama to change X, he didn't, therefore Obama is an evil pro-establishment figure who was lying about all that change stuff to trick voters."
And there are some controversial things that Bush did and Obama is continuing. Obama hasn't fully closed Guantanamo Bay yet. He hasn't immediately taken all troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. He still has lots of current or former lobbyists in high government positions.
There are two explanations: either Obama, Bush, and all previous presidents were evil in the exact same way; or there are compelling reasons behind the things they do that can't be gleaned from watching five minutes of TV news a day.
The first explanation is pretty unconvincing. It's possible that both Obama and Bush are evil, but it's less likely that they're both evil in the exact same way. What specific variet of evil would make Obama refuse to close Guantanamo Bay? Desire for cheap political advantage? But voters either support Guantanamo or oppose it; if it is politically advantageous not to close Guantanamo and he was after cheap political advantage, why would he have campaigned to close it in the general election? In fact, why would he become more interested in taking the politically advantageous position after he was elected when he doesn't need political advantage as much?
One could say that power corrupts, but why is refusing to close Guantanamo a more corrupt action than closing it? Not "why is not closing Guantanamo morally wrong?", but why is it the sort of morally wrong thing you'd be tempted to take if you were corrupted by power?
It's possible that Obama secretly believed in these sorts of things all along and lied in order to get elected, but this would require a conspiracy of amazing proportions - a person who fits every single Democratic demographic - black, well-educated, socially aware, from a liberal state - secretly being a Republican and managing to live all his life as a model Democratic politician without anyone finding out, all on the off chance he'd become President one day. Frankly, if he did that, he deserves the Presidency.
Most of these actions don't gain Obama anything. From a political point of view, they just get his supporters angry without really appeasing the Republicans (who are going to hate him anyway). So I pretty much support the second hypothesis - that there were good reasons for Bush's policies in a lot of these areas, and Obama's figured it out.
For example, it turns out it's really hard to find people to fill government positions who have never been lobbyists. Obama himself gives the example that a doctor who runs an organization trying to get the government to put tighter restrictions on tobacco advertising to kids is legally a "lobbyist", because he's a person trying to influence the government to do something - but this is exactly the kind of person Obama wanted in his administration. More generally, a lot of the very experienced people with experience of government and public policy issues end up as lobbyists, and those are exactly the sort of person you need in an administration.
I'm not sure Obama's choice to include them was correct - just that it's more complicated than "Oh no, Obama turned evil!"
The more pressing question, then, is why did Obama promise to exclude lobbyists when he knew this would be a bad idea he couldn't follow through with?
Maybe he didn't know. Maybe that's the sort of thing you don't find out until you try it, or the sort of thing where you hear about other people not being able to do it but think you wouldn't have the same problem.
But I think it's more likely that Obama, and all the other public figures who do the same, just thought the voters would be too stupid to understand reality. If someone asks "Are you going to keep giving no-bid contracts to Halliburton", standing up there and discoursing on the finer points of military supply economics isn't going to get you elected. Saying "No, I condemn the horrible people who do that sort of thing!" is going to get you elected. So maybe a hypocritical president is actually the best we can hope for. Somebody who has the sense to lie to voters to get elected, and then do what actually makes sense once in office. The alternative - someone who actually goes through with all er promises - would be too horrible to contemplate.
The other possibility is that this is just me being sorta autistic about the whole thing, and everyone else understands that in Hansonian terms, elections are Far and policy is Near. Elections are the time you're supposed to say rousing slogans that signal your good qualities, and then when you get in office you use common sense. So "I will never let lobbyists into my administration!" is just a ritual of signalling that you're honest, and then once you get in office, you let lobbyists into your administration for all the same reasons everyone else did. |
|
