President Obama: Year One

If it seems premature and injudicious to undertake a critical look at President Barack Obama’s daunting first year in office,%uFFFDjournalist-historian Jonathan Alter, author of the Franklin Roosevelt biography The Defining Moment,%uFFFDcomes with impressive credentials. In The Promise: President Obama,Year One (Simon & Schuster), he tackles the formidable task of trying to evaluate the most dynamically progressive yet temperamentally conservative young president in decades. Alter cautiously avoids obvious comparisons with Roosevelt. FDR’s%uFFFDlegacy has the advantage of being%uFFFDviewed through the softening glow of historical perspective, while the final outcome of Obama’s whirlwind of daring enterprisesthe stimulus, the health planare still pending, and, as Alter points out, not enjoying the greatest public confidence.

For Alter, Obama’s first year accomplishments include an unappreciated stimulus package, the auto bailouts, bank rescue and regulation, reaching out to the Muslim world, advancing nuclear nonproliferation, sending more troops to Afghanistan and%uFFFDa health plan that “repeatedly came back from the dead.” Alter%uFFFDpoints out%uFFFDthat the resurrected health care legislation had precedence in aborted or abandoned%uFFFDefforts by%uFFFDsuch notable predecessors%uFFFDas Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reaganmembers%uFFFDof%uFFFDthe same Republican Party that left no stone unturned in its efforts to undermine Obama’s legislation,%uFFFDusing media frenzy and public uncertainty to damn him as a Socialist running roughshod over the Constitution.

Although it is too early to tell, the passage of%uFFFDhealth care may%uFFFDbe the singular%uFFFDdefining step toward future greatness%uFFFDfor this president. Alter makes no secret of his sentiments, emphasizing the swift efficiency and sound judgment with which Obama set up his team prior to inauguration.

The author devotes a chapter to each%uFFFDmajor issue of Obama’s presidency, but the reader may find most interesting Alter’s view of the president’s “Zen temperament” along with his ever-apparent “first-class%uFFFDintellect.” But ease, poise and good cheer are not always sufficient. Obama’s cool temperament “could be perplexing. It had a mellow yet restless cast, a peculiar mix of calm, confidence and curiosity. If the effect could sometimes be too professorial and disconnected from human hurt, the package was nonetheless impressive,” Alter writes. “With his high-wattage smile,%uFFFDelegant carriage and a commanding baritone that could make his most ordinary utterances sound profound, Obama inhabited the role of president.”

The recurring health care debate would haunt Obama’s first year even before the tea party “uprisings.” Although the book is chock full of political maneuvering, Alter has a tendency to skim over legislative details. He does, however, hover over two interesting points. First, Obama’s decision to undertake health care%uFFFDwas his alone. He “felt lucky,” he said.%uFFFDHis chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, begged him not to do it. Economic advisers Larry Summers and Tim Geithner were unenthused. Secondly, in the face of impending defeat during the final vote, Obama was forced to face%uFFFDfriction within his own party,%uFFFDas the Democratic majority%uFFFDin the House and Senate bickered over the final format of the bill, appeared fearful of constituency%uFFFDbacklash back home or, as%uFFFDAlter suggests, simply flexed their ego muscles. The members of Congress tried to negotiate their votes in a “what’s-in-it-for-me?” context, requiring extra pushing,%uFFFDlargely from the formidable Nancy Pelosi. No Republicans backed the bill. Obama had%uFFFDlearned the hard way that even within his own party,%uFFFDpolitical%uFFFDself-interest trumps civility. Integrity, so important to his public perception, doesn’t come at an easy cost.