It was amusing to see Today’s Matt Lauer suggesting on Thursday that Barack Obama had failed to achieve change in Washington (nine days into his presidency!) because the House GOP voted against the stimulus bill:
You say it’s the third inning, but let me say that sentence over again. The bill passes the House, but not one Republican votes yes. If you were one of those two million people standing out in the cold on the Mall last Tuesday listening to the president’s inaugural address, or one of the tens of millions watching it at home, how could you not be waking up this morning thinking there’s no change, this is Washington as usual?
That said, however, I’m sympathetic to the idea that Obama’s claims to transcend partisanship are as hollow and unlikely to succeed as those of George W. Bush.
Ironically, the response to Lauer’s question from White House spokesman Robert Gibbs echoed the White House’s “changing the tone” rhetoric almost precisely:
Mr. GIBBS: Well, look, Matt, the president knows that it’s going to take longer than a few days to change the way Washington works. You saw pictures of the president going up to Capitol Hill, and his hand will continue to be extended to any and all people that want to work with him. I’ll tell you, what I worry about most of all are the people that have heard over the past few days, that work for Boeing or Home Depot or Microsoft or Starbucks, that they’re going to be losing their job this year. That’s what the president thinks about every day when he works with Democrats and Republicans to get a plan that will help put them back to work. That’s what he’ll continue to do today.
Here’s White House spokesman Ari Fleischer doing the same rap in a January 2001 briefing:
QUESTION: Let me ask it another way then. Is the president-elect surprised that the Ashcroft nomination has created such a stir, or whatever label you want to put on it?
FLEISCHER: I’d be hard pressed to say that he’s surprised. I think he understands how Washington can get sometimes. It’s one of the reasons he wants to change the tone in Washington.
QUESTION: Wouldn’t you say that it’s good for you?
(CROSSTALK)
FLEISCHER: I’m sorry?
QUESTION: Wouldn’t you say that it’s good for you, energizing your conservative base? And it allows some people to deplore the partisanship.
FLEISCHER: No. I think one of the things that President-elect Bush is going to do when he comes here and is sworn in is, not look at things with the usual prism that Washington looks at things–is it good for me, is it good for the other guys, will this help gin up the base, will this help somebody raise money.
He said that one of the lessons of this election, the close election that we’ve had, is that people need to put the national interest ahead of the partisan interest. And he’s going to endeavor to contribute to that in the things he does and says, and we hope that others will follow.
And I think we also–also, it’s going to take time. He can’t just come here overnight and change Washington. That is never going to happen. But he will endeavor to do so over the course of time.
Like Bush, Obama’s efforts to “change the way Washington works” will fail. Indeed, as I wrote back in March 2007, Obama’s rhetoric is not only unrealistic but potentially offensive to democratic norms:
Instead, most of Obama’s appeal comes down to his call for a new politics that is less cynical and polarized — a vain hope. Bill Clinton and many other politicians have called for such a change, and none have succeeded. The underlying structural forces that promote polarization are unlikely to relent. And more importantly, polarization is a two-sided phenomenon. Calling for depolarization once you are president is, in practice, a call for the opposition to go along with your initiatives — as in President Bush’s call to “change the tone” (see All the President’s Spin for more). It’s an absurd promise that no candidate can deliver on (though Bush briefly claimed victory at “changing the tone” when his sky-high post-9/11 approval ratings silenced the Democratic opposition).
Let’s hope Obama doesn’t use this rhetoric as a cudgel against the opposition like Bush did after 9/11.