Rove writes in WSJ today that he sees in Obama a stylish politician who enjoys the theatrics of policy but not the substance - I believe a long time ago, when he was still battling Hillary in the primaries, that I predicted that such a style would dominate Obama's presidency - I saw a man who likes the show but would avoid unpleasant details and a man who would be reluctant to make necessary but unpopular decisions for that reason - he's quite happy to throw billions of dollars into a dubious stimulus package because that's popular, that's in his big government/people will love me comfort zone, but meet the 'no easy answers' banking crisis head on? No way. Afghanistan? He had two clear options: draw down and narrowly focus on extremists; beef up and commit to a long term engagement that included Pakistan. What does he do? Settles on a safe half in, half out option that will probably just end up kicking the problem down the road. Iran? Talk, talk, talk - he expects Israel to play ball, but Israel sees that for what it is: we compromise on Iran so that he doesn't have to make the tough decision. [doesn't his seeming intention to wrestle the daunting health care beast to the ground work against this trend? Well... tough one: health care reform is a big liberal, big goverment wet dream and he would be granted sainthood should he pull that off - so fits his profile there - still, quite a daunting task...]
I fully admit that a cautious approach can sometimes be the best - one would be a pigheaded fool not to admit that - but caution borne out of a fear of being unpopular or a reluctance to make difficult decisions? Eventually that will lead to problems...
