Will Barack be a “Goo Goo”?
Progressives supporting the President-elect may be asking themselves just what Barack must do to begin reclaiming American i
deals–including, of course, a fair economic system–from the depredations of the past eight years. Here are some ideas from Paul Krugman: “Times have changed. In 1996, President Bill Clinton, under siege from the right, declared that ‘the era of big government is over.’ But President-elect Barack Obama, riding a wave of revulsion over what conservatism has wrought, has said that he wants to ‘make government cool again.’ . . . Before Mr. Obama can make government cool, however, he has to make it good. Indeed, he has to be a goo-goo. . . . Goo-goo, in case you’re wondering, is a century-old term for “good government” types, reformers opposed to corruption and patronage. Franklin Roosevelt was a goo-goo extraordinaire. He simultaneously made government much bigger and much cleaner. Mr. Obama needs to do the same thing. . . . Needless to say, the Bush administration offers a spectacular example of non-goo-gooism. But the Bushies didn’t have to worry about governing well and honestly. Even when they failed on the job (as they so often did), they could claim that very failure as vindication of their anti-government ideology, a demonstration that the public sector can’t do anything right. . . . The Obama administration, on the other hand, will find itself in a position very much like that facing the New Deal in the 1930s. To read Krugman’s important suggestions click here. Krugman’s suggestions are worth considering.
Two additional elements for a successful Obama presidency might also be considered. First, the 44th president must avoid symbolic mistakes such as inviting Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. The essential mistake in this choice, as I have written earlier, is the message it sends to an
oppressed, mistreated gay and lesbian community. Reverend Warren’s good works are insufficient to justify this choice just as it would be insufficient to point to the good works of a rabid segregationists during the Jim Crow era. Indeed, in once sense, opposing homosexuality is worse than racism. Racists are committed to keeping blacks subordinate. Homophobes want gay and lesbians to go away. Symbols matter especially in this case because the message it sends rejects the existence of a particular minority community. (Oh yes, it’s not a rejection of gays and lesbians it’s just a rejection of the trivial matter of their sexuality.) On balance, however, African Americans have been systematically treated worse than any other ethnic group with the possible exception of Native Americans. Second, the new president needs to hear genuine progressive voices. His cabinet is completely devoid of a single progressive voice, for instance, a voice like Paul Wellstone’s. Obama needs to consult progressive perspectives in fixing the economy as well as in dealing with the other enormous problems the Bush administration bequeathed to the nation.
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