If President Obama wants to change the negative narrative threatening to overcome his presidency, he should start by letting George W. Bush off the hook.
The president has several related problems. First, Obama has become, incredibly, an ineffective communicator. This weakness strikes at the heart of his persona. He was billed as a communicator, and it is as a communicator that he has failed. He is omnipresent, but he is saying nothing new, and the country is beginning to ignore him.
Second, he lost the reputation he had during the campaign for being the one adult in a roomful of petulant children. He was elected, in large part, to provide a level head and be above the fray. Instead, he has waded in with both feet.
He has been particularly partisan and childish in the way he has blamed his predecessor for a variety of national ills. Even now, nearly two years after his election, Obama often invokes the specter of the unpopular Bush to take the blame, as he did at a fundraiser in Atlanta early this month. This is convenient, and it is a mistake.
The president could alleviate both of his problems by giving a televised speech where he would say, in an echo of his campaign rhetoric, that in this current crisis, “We are the ones we are waiting for.” He could say that the time for blaming Bush has passed, and from here on, we solve our own problems and stand by our own results.
Obama would not have to disavow his earlier rhetoric. The president could and would stand by his constant indictment of the Bush administration. Obama has repeatedly said that the former president’s handling of the economy caused our current troubles. He could allude to this then move on.
Nor would he have to take the blame. He could simply say: “The time for blame is behind us,” and implicitly relegate the blame to Bush.
The speech would also cleverly reset our current situation, in a politically beneficial way. By creating an artificial midpoint, the president would divide his first term into a clear “before and after.” Since everything on the before side went fairly badly, at least when it comes to politics, there is no real downside to this division.
And if the news gets better on the economy, as it certainly will at some point, the president’s gesture toward Bush would look both magnanimous and effective. He would get the credit for changing the national mood. It has been some time since he has done so.
This “Grow Up Speech” would also arrest a certain trend in American politics away from a “buck stops here” attitude and toward childish histrionics when things don’t go our way.
By unfairly blaming Bush at every opportunity, President Obama has allowed a culture of victimhood to fester, a culture that casts about wildly for someone, anyone, to blame. The negative effects of this culture are widely visible, from the halfhearted apologies of public figures caught in scandal, to the cacophony of blame that passes for congressional rhetoric, and beyond to the absence of responsibility that causes many of our social ills.
Bush is still unpopular, certainly. Polls show it, and the president and his advisors surely feel like they lose nothing by continuing to blame him. But polls cannot often predict the effects of large shifts in the popular mind. A bold move toward responsibility would send a good message to the public. It would be a fair gesture to a president who has been a model of dignity and restraint since leaving office, even in the face of constant and personal disparagement.
It just might also be great politics.
Reach the reporter at wmunsil@asu.edu.
