No really. That's the argument.
Obama's first year fell apart in large part because he didn't follow his chief of staff's advice on crucial matters. Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter.If I'm reading this correctly, Milbank is saying "So if Obama had followed Rahm's advice and basically thrown the Dirty F'ckin Hippies under the bus immediately and then had gone straight to the Republicans and asked them how they wanted him to govern, we'd be having a great time right now."
Obama chose the profane former Clinton adviser for a reason. Where the president is airy and idealistic, Rahm is earthy and calculating. One thinks big; the other, a former House Democratic Caucus chair, understands the congressional mind, in which small stuff counts for more than broad strokes.
Obama's problem is that his other confidants -- particularly Valerie Jarrett and Robert Gibbs, and, to a lesser extent, David Axelrod -- are part of the Cult of Obama. In love with the president, they believe he is a transformational figure who needn't dirty his hands in politics.
The president would have been better off heeding Emanuel's counsel. For example, Emanuel bitterly opposed former White House counsel Greg Craig's effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, arguing that it wasn't politically feasible. Obama overruled Emanuel, the deadline wasn't met, and Republicans pounced on the president and the Democrats for trying to bring terrorists to U.S. prisons. Likewise, Emanuel fought fiercely against Attorney General Eric Holder's plan to send Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York for a trial. Emanuel lost, and the result was another political fiasco.
Obama's greatest mistake was failing to listen to Emanuel on health care. Early on, Emanuel argued for a smaller bill with popular items, such as expanding health coverage for children and young adults, that could win some Republican support. He opposed the public option as a needless distraction.
The president disregarded that strategy and sided with Capitol Hill liberals who hoped to ram a larger, less popular bill through Congress with Democratic votes only. The result was, as the world now knows, disastrous.
Had it gone Emanuel's way, a politically popular health-care bill would have passed long ago, leaving plenty of time for other attractive priorities, such as efforts to make college more affordable. We would have seen a continuation of the momentum of the first half of 2009, when Obama followed Emanuel's strategy and got 11 substantive bills on his desk before the August recess.
First, what Milbank is really saying is "If Obama had only followed my advice..." Let's get that out of the way right now.
Second, Milbank believes that Rahmbo should be in charge. He doesn't have a high opinion of any of Obama's other inner circle members, and he has an even lower opinion of the President for listening to them, and not Rahm (and by extension, Dana Milbank.)
Third, even after the Clinton years, we still have Villagers who believe that Democratic Presidents will be rewarded by doing what the GOP tells them they should be doing. Clinton wasn't impeached or anything despite tacking to the right after 1994 enough to win re-election in 1996. The GOP isn't going to make that mistake again. And by "mistake" I mean "allow a Democratic President to be re-elected".
Fourth, a "smaller bill with popular items, such as expanding health coverage for children and young adults, that could win some Republican support" is a laughable concept that does not exist. No popular health care reform bill that a Democratic President and Congress could have taken credit for would ever be embraced by a Republican. Period.
Is Milbank really this dense? Has he been paying any attention at all to the CPAC conference? Do you think the Tea Party movement would have gone away with a GOP health care bill? Do you think they wouldn't be screaming "Socialist" and demanding the long-form birth certificate and posting pictures of Obama as a witch doctor on the internet?
Denial is an interesting mechanism. But in the end, it always comes down to the Villagers complaining that Democrats aren't Republican enough.
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My comment at WaPo:
Excellent hippie-punching, Dickwhisperer.
BUT... if the health care bill had not been so controversail, would Brown have won in Massachusetts? And if not, wouldn't the Dems now be in a better position? The question is how much does any governing party have to compromise to get things accomplished. Now, if the Dems are going to take a let's compromise with the GOP approach, then Milbank is correct - and is also correct that Obama has not done a good job managing this style of governing. But, if the Dems are going to take the approach that they have huge majorities in both houses and a popular President, then they can govern differently, without the need for significant compromise. Unfortunately, they haven't done that either, until now.
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