David Bernstein writes:
I’m disappointed in Obama, too. I expected him to be a liberal. I expected to disagree with him on most issues. But I hoped that either good government (“goo-goo”) liberalism or raw political calculus (like the Republicans in 1995) would lead him to keep some of his non-ideological promises, like on earmarks, transparency, and so on. I even hoped, consistent with his promise of a net spending cut, that he’d show more fiscal responsibility than Bush did, which isn’t hard to do; surely there are government programs out there that don’t serve liberal ideological ends and could be cut. He lost whatever good will or benefit-of-the-doubt I was inclined to give him by neglecting, backtracking, or going back on his word on all these issues.
The Obama administration has treated Obama’s promise of changing the way business is done in DC as a distraction from his legislative agenda. I suspect they’ll come to regret that perspective.
I agree, but I’d add a more important example. I expected that he would keep his central national-security pledge, to prosecute the war in Afghanistan. Like the others that Bernstein mentions, that pledge is being abandoned due to domestic political calculations. In the long run, failure in Afghanistan will hurt us much more than his failure to establish transparency and reform earmarks.
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