Obama finds his inner Harry Truman - In a Michigan factory his rhetoric became unusually combative, as he attacked Congress repeatedly for blocking his economic agenda: "There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win"

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The New Republic
The Truman Show
By Jonathan Cohn
August 16, 2011


The Truman Show


Some excerpts :

It looks like President Obama really has found his inner Harry Truman, at least for the moment. On Thursday, Obama travelled to Holland, Michigan, to speak at a factory that manufactures batteries for electric cars. And, at least by Obama’s standards, the rhetoric was unusually combative, as he attacked Congress repeatedly for blocking his economic agenda: "There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win," Obama said.

The substantive focus was different, too. He spent a lot of time talking about the need to reduce deficits, as he always does, but he also spent a lot of time talking about jobs and the need to create more of them. He asked the audience to call their lawmakers, and demand they pass bills to finance road construction and to extend a payroll tax holiday. Then he told the audience to expect more White House proposals, all focusing on unemployment. "I’m going to keep after every idea and every serious proposal to help us grow this economy," Obama said, "until everybody who wants a job can find one."

On Monday, at a town hall in Minnesota, Obama invoked the same themes and then, during the question-and-answer session, did something that politicians of national stature rarely do anymore. He defended the idea of government:

You’ll hear a lot of folks, by the way, say that government is broken. Well, government and politics are two different things. Government is our troops who are fighting on our behalf in Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s government. Government are also those FEMA folks when there’s a flood or a drought or some emergency who come out and are helping people out. That’s government. Government is Social Security. Government are teachers in the classroom. Government are our firefighters and our police officers, and the folks who keep our water clean and our air clean to breathe, and our agricultural workers. And when you go to a national park, and those folks in the hats -- that’s government.

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One of the articles, by John Harwood in the New York Times, reports that Obama rejected and then revised an early draft of that Michigan speech because it wasn’t sufficiently tough on the Republicans. The other, by E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post, predicts Obama will act like Truman famously did at the end of his first term, demanding that Congress take action on his jobs agenda -- and attacking them if they won't. Although Dionne doesn’t identify a specific source for those musings, senior administration officials have been using the analogy for at least the last week or so.

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