The
Perils
of
a
Pragmatic
President
With
a
contingent
worldview,
Obama
can
manage
but
not
lead
Y.
Stuart
Nam
April
4,
2011
In
his
televised
speech
on
Libya,1
Obama
upheld
a
grandiose
ideal
of
America
as
a
moral
savior
for
the
world,
an
image
Americans
of
the
Regan
era
loved
despite
its
mostly
contradictory
history.
But
this
time,
most
Americans
are
too
tired
to
be
inspired
by
Obama’s
idealism,
which
feels
awkwardly
out
of
place
today.
Removing
Gadhafi
might
be
in
the
legitimate
national
interest
–
and
maybe
even
a
noble
humanitarian
cause
–
of
America
and
its
European
allies.
But
if
this
is
indeed
the
case,
the
American
president
should
articulate
this
rationale
to
his
people
in
a
more
forthright
manner
rather
than
citing
ambiguous
moral
conscience
as
a
compelling
reason
for
military
intervention.
Failing
that,
Obama’s
harsh
criticism
of
Bush’s
wars
echoes
with
hypocrisy.
A
president
elected
largely
because
of
Americans’
yearning
to
end
the
wars,
Obama
ironically
intensified
one
and
started
a
third,
following
Bush
in
an
eerily
similar
rhetorical
fashion
(see
Michael
D.
Shear’s
“Echoes
of
Bush
in
Obama’s
Libya
Speech”2
).
Obama
denounced
Bush
for
his
Iraqi
invasion,
which
Bush
also
defended
under
a
similar
moral
pretext,
with
the
following
logical
retort:
“Why
invade
Iraq
and
not
North
Korea
or
Burma?
Why
intervene
in
Bosnia
and
not
Darfur?”
Obama’s
critics
in
turn
now
can
ask:
Why
attack
Libya
and
not
Yemen
or
Syria?
Why
intervene
in
Libya
(to
prevent
a
humanitarian
crisis
which
may
or
may
not
happen)
and
not
the
Ivory
Coast,
where
a
massacre
and
refugee
crisis
is
already
happening?3
The
larger
issue
for
Americans,
however,
is
not
the
cost
of
the
Libyan
intervention’s
potential
fallout
or
even
the
Obama
administration’s
lack
of
an
articulated
post-‐Bush
foreign
policy
vision.
What
mattes
more
for
the
future
of
America
is
Obama’s
only
principle
of
political
philosophy,
which
is
having
no
binding
policy
principle,
a
position
often
self-‐ described
as
“pragmatic”
by
Obama
himself
and
his
advisors.4
Amidst
the
earlier
Bush
tax
cut
debates
with
the
Republicans,
Obama
often
emphasized
that
“no
one
owns
a
monopoly
on
truth,”
quickly
offering
a
compromise
to
the
then-‐Congressional
minority
Republicans.5
In
response
to
questions
regarding
inconsistent
response
to
Libya
compared
to
other
areas
of
the
Middle
East
or
Africa,
his
senior
advisors
were
quoted
as
saying
that
they
did
not
care
about
the
appearance
of
policy
inconsistency.
“As
for
the
rest
of
the
Middle
East,
White
House
officials
say
the
president
will
respond
to
the
unfolding
events
on
a
country-‐by-‐country
basis,
and
will
resist
a
one-‐size-‐fits-‐all
American
policy,”
according
to
a
recent
New
York
Times
report.6
The
case-‐by-‐case
approach
is
nothing
new
in
the
history
of
American
foreign
policy
and
not
so
much
problematic
in
itself
as
a
flexible
response
mechanism
to
the
rapidly
changing
nature
of
varied
international
affairs.
No
president
ever
risked
vital
national
interests
for
the
sake
of
appearing
logically
consistent
on
the
world
stage,
either.
What
is
new,
and
important
to
note,
is
that
no
president
has
ever
openly
and
so
proudly
proclaimed
to
subscribe
to
no
policy
principle.
If
Obama
has
a
reputation
for
making
quick
compromises
and
politics
of
no
conviction
(at
least
among
liberals),
it’s
not
a
reflection
of
his
having
no
political
conviction;
it
is
simply
the
outcome
of
his
only
conviction,
which
is
a
principle
of
no
binding
conviction.
This
is
not
an
idle
exercise
of
conceptual
nitpicking;
it
has
profound
consequences
for
the
American
people
since
the
presidential
leadership
of
the
United
States
may
not
be
in
harmony
with
a
principle
of
having
no
principle.
The
idea
of
consistence,
and
its
importance
as
a
guiding
policy
principle,
for
the
United
States’
foreign
or
domestic
policy
is
not
a
mere
conceptual
virtue;
it
is
moral
bedrock
necessary
for
building
a
consensus
of
a
united
vision.
When
the
president’s
main
decision-‐ making
principle
can
be
described
only
as
a
‘pragmatic’
case-‐by-‐case
approach,
one
can
only
understand
it
as
political
expediency,
even
hypocritical.
With
a
passive
worldview
like
Obama’s,
the
president
may
only
react
to
a
given
situation
thrown
at
him
rather
than
leading
a
new
path
to
create
a
better
world.
Obama
is
an
intellectual
president.
An
idea
and
its
underlying
philosophy
matter
to
him.
He
is
one
of
the
most
well
educated
presidents
in
U.S.
history
and
even
taught
constitutional
law
at
a
prestigious
university
for
years.
His
books
clearly
reflect
the
intellectual
depth
of
a
thoughtful
author
with
a
political
philosophy
of
his
own.
Because
Obama
is
a
politician
with
an
impressive
intellectual
background,
astute
observers
of
Obama
may
agree
with
James
T.
Kloppenberg,
the
author
of
Reading
Obama,
in
his
assessment
that
“Obama
is
the
product
of
three
distinct
developments”
–
first,
the
history
of
American
democracy;
second,
the
American
philosophy
of
pragmatism,
proselytized
by
philosophers
like
William
James,
John
Dewey,
and
lately
Richard
Rorty;
third,
“the
intellectual
upheavals”
that
occurred
on
American
campuses
where
Obama
spent
the
two
decades
as
both
student
and
professor.7
Obama’s
supporters
may
subscribe
to
Kloppenberg’s
notion
that
Obama’s
tendency
of
quick
political
compromise
is
not
necessarily
a
reflection
of
political
expediency
but
rather
his
intellectual
faith
in
philosophical
pragmatism,
which
values
“what
seems
simply
practical”
at
any
given
time.8
Philosophical
pragmatism
is
both
an
intellectual
attitude
and
a
new
conception
of
truth,
born
in
America
as
a
therapeutic
reaction
to
the
main
tradition
of
European
philosophy.
It
is
American
philosophers’
original
contribution
to
the
Western
intellectual
dialogue;
but
it
is
not
a
systematic
political
philosophy
one
can
practice
as
a
politician
or
even
as
the
president.
Obama
seems
to
believe
that
one
always
should
be
willing
to
compromise,
which
is
inevitable
in
politics,
since
“nobody
owns
the
truth,”
a
credo
he
seems
to
have
derived
from
the
pragmatism
of
John
Dewey
or
Richard
Rorty;
a
more
correct
reading
of
their
pragmatism,
however,
is
that
truth
is
contingent
depending
on
your
perspective.
The
difference
is
not
philosophical
hair-‐splitting,
since
that
contingency
is
not
merely
dependent
upon
changing
circumstance
but
one’s
principled
perspective.
One’s
perspective,
or
a
principled
worldview,
also
may
change;
but
truth
is
nowhere
to
be
seen
if
one
does
not
have
a
principle
in
the
first
place.
Obama
seems
to
be
mistaken
in
that
his
perspective
needs
not
be
articulated
in
the
form
of
a
moral
principle
since
pragmatism’s
wisdom
teaches
him
that
truth
is
simply
pliant
depending
on
each
situation.
His
‘pragmatic’
attitude
also
translates
into
his
frequent
evasion
of
presidential
comments
on
the
controversial
but
important
issues
facing
the
nation
and
world.
Obama’s
political
worldview,
based
on
a
mistaken
philosophical
presumption,
has
manifested
into
unprincipled
politics
and
situational
ethics,
smacking
of
self-‐contradictions
or
even
hypocrisy.
This
explains
why
his
liberal
supporters,
and
probably
his
opponents
too,
are
at
times
puzzled
about
his
true
political
colors.
What
seemed
‘wise’
for
the
presidential
campaign’s
goal,
for
example,
is
no
longer
‘pragmatic’
for
his
presidential
politics,
whose
top
priority
at
the
moment
is
getting
re-‐ elected.
Obama
is
apparently
more
comfortable
reacting
rather
than
leading.
His
handling
of
the
Afghanistan
war,
financial
crisis
–
especially
addressing
its
(lack
thereof)
ethical
ramifications
for
the
country
–
and
a
series
of
Middle
East
challenges,
including
the
dormant-‐for-‐now
but
explosive
North
Korean
nuclear
threat,
has
been
merely
situation-‐reactive.
The
kind
of
wobbling
responses
we
have
seen
in
his
administration’s
handling
of
the
‘Arab
Spring’
therefore
should
be
expected.
House
Speaker
John
Boehner
correctly
lamented
that
Obama
had
not
shown
presidential
leadership
in
the
federal
deficit
debate
one
way
or
another.
One
can
say
Obama
has
been
too
busy
handing
one
crisis
after
another
and
even
succeeded
in
at
least
not
making
any
matter
worse.
But
that
is
not
an
appropriate
apology
for
the
office
he
aspired
to.
Crisis
of
epic
scale
is
common
for
the
American
presidency.
No
one
can
say
Bush’s
challenge
(9/11)
was
smaller
than
Obama’s
(the
financial
crisis).
Bush’s
problem
also
was
his
worldview,
which
was
dangerous
in
its
evangelical
black
and
white.
Obama
is
not
a
reckless
president.
He
has
every
quality
to
become
a
potentially
great
president,
remembered
for
much
more
than
being
the
first
black
person
to
win
the
office.
Great
leadership
requires
a
principled
vision
that
all
followers
can
unite
behind
with
hope
and
passion.
With
his
mistaken
pragmatism,
however,
I’m
afraid
Obama
will
end
up
managing
a
status
quo,
maybe
even
managing
it
well,
but
not
leading
the
polarized
country
and
chaotic
world
toward
a
much
better
future.
Y.
Stuart
Nam
is
an
author
and
former
journalist
living
in
the
San
Francisco
Bay
Area.
You
can
read
his
recent
columns
at
http://www.scribd.com/Stuart%20Nam.
Follow
his
tweets
@stuartnam.
1 http://www.scribd.com/doc/51804420/Obama-on-Libya-3-28-2011 2 http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/echoes-of-bush-in-obamas-libya-speech/ 3 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/world/africa/03ivory.html?hp 4 Obama often describes himself as “pragmatic” in the sense that he does not subscribe to a fixed set of policy principles often characterized in American political parlance as ideology or doctrine. One recent case was his interview with Bill O’Reilly on the night of the Super Bowl in which he characterized himself as “pragmatic” as opposed to an ideologue. 5 Another recent case was his remark at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 4, 2010 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast). 6 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/world/africa/30doctrine.html 7 <Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition>, James T. Kloppenberg, Princeton University Press, 2011. 8 Ibid at location 31 of 2637 of Kindle version.