Category: Politics

The American economy is still struggling. The stock market is soaring, the fat cats on Wall Street are happy again, but Main Street is still hurting with high unemployment. Jobs from manufacturing to IT to services have moved overseas and are not coming back anytime soon. Companies are continuing to cut back. The housing prices show no sign of recovery in the near future. The deficit is growing, the Republicans are back in power in Congress with their tried and failed tax-cut mantra.  In this bleak situation, what can a President tell the American people that can make them feel better? Will the American people take bad news for an answer? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding “No.”

What can a President deliver under these circumstances? What did President Obama divvy up? He started off by patting the backs of Vice-President Joe Biden and newly elected speaker of the house, John Boehner [who I thought might break down :-)] with some kind words about how you can “make it” in America provided you work hard.

From then on, it was a difficult but elegant dance where he would jump two steps to the right by calling for a spending freeze, and promptly jump four steps to the left calling for infrastructure improvements from high-speed rail to broadband penetration in US homes; then again three steps to the right saying he would veto any bill with earmarks, then five steps to the left warning against repealing the healthcare bill; then four steps to the right calling for medical malpractice reform and an end to illegal immigration; this ultimately lands him smack in the political center.  The net effect of this wonderful dance is that he had something in his speech for everyone. It was like Santa Claus showing up for Christmas and praising everyone to the skies, but with no real gifts for anyone. In the end, those who believed that President Obama had turned Centrist are now somewhat convinced of their assessment. Those on the left are relieved that he is still thinking of infrastructure spending. Those on the right are somewhat hopeful that he might be open to cutting spending. Even the infamous Tea party types got some deficit reduction served up for them. And oh, last but not the least, there was the inspirational stuff—the clean energy push, the Sputnik moment, competing and winning the future, and so on—and the parroting of his accomplishments thus far—Healthcare, START treaty, Tax-cuts, Don’t ask don’t tell etc..

In short, it was a carefully planned speech, delivered in characteristic Obama style.  But the oratorical impact of it was significantly diminished by the “lovey-dovey” Republican-Democrat seating arrangement. Nevertheless, the intent was to remain ambiguous, to obfuscate, and thereby continue to be flexible with wiggle room on pretty much every issue.  That goal was achieved to a tee. Although President Obama is painted by the right as a big spending liberal, he did nothing like Bill Clinton who, faced with a similar situation in 1994, declared in his State of the Union address that “the era of big government was over.” On the contrary, President Obama delivered a speech which attempted to appease all constituencies without telling the country what he actually stood for or was willing to fight for—the hallmark of a truly savvy, career politician.

America is all about being positive, optimistic, and exuding the perennial can-do spirit, even in the worst of times. Unfortunately, over the years, this otherwise noteworthy trait has devolved into one of sugar-coating and outright delusion about the reality. No President aspiring for re-election can ever stand up before the country and deliver news such as, “We are screwed. We need to do something drastic or we are dead.” To their credit, the Republican and the Tea party Express responses did precisely that, but they had nothing to offer besides tax cuts for the rich. Those on the left deeply believe that the government must significantly increase spending. But this has to come at the expense of an increased deficit and relies heavily on successful execution of government programs.

Ultimately, “the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook” simply can’t agree on the future course of action to rectify the current mess it finds itself in. So as America muddles along from issue to issue, legislation to legislation, crisis to crisis, bickering over tax-cut versus spending, from one state of the union to the next, questions about America’s future continue to persist.

A year has gone by since President Obama took the oath of office. After the extremes of the George Bush years and the unimpressive McCain-Sarah Palin campaign, Obama seemed like a breath of much-needed fresh air.  With a clever Internet savvy campaign, Obama positioned himself as the right transformational candidate to repair the  endless damage caused by Bush and his team. Despite being relatively unknown, he ran a truly inspirational campaign that captured the imagination of many, especially the young. One year into his presidency, much of that momentum appears to have been lost and many of his ardent supporters have reason to feel disappointed. True, he was dealt the most difficult challenges in recent times. But his approach and accomplishments to-date leave much to be desired and are quite inconsistent with the promise his campaign displayed.

While there are a host of issues on which to evaluate his performance, three of them are particularly insightful: the financial crisis, the Afghan War, and the Healthcare battle. There is no doubt that President Obama inherited a financial mess. A year later — with unemployment at over 10%  – Main Street is hurting, Wall Street is happier with a healthy Dow/Nasdaq and “fat-cat bankers” are once again receiving hefty bonuses. Several experts feel/felt that the stimulus wasn’t exactly sufficient and that the response to the crisis wasn’t exactly “bold enough.” The jury is still out on his response to the the financial mess, though in large part it is by and large a continuation of the policies that President Bush set in motion.

The biggest decision he has made so far is the one to expand the Afghan war effort. While he did say during the campaign that the Afghan war was the “right war,” most people (especially those on the left) believed (or hoped!) that President Obama was opposed to war in general. Unfortunately, after four months of analysis-paralysis (or dithering as Cheney called it), he arrived at the exact same conclusion as the Bush-Cheney team and chose to expand troops, the drone attacks, etc. To top it off, there is complete ambiguity regarding whether the troops would withdraw after 18 months from Afghanistan. Once again, a lost opportunity to make a bold break from the policies of the Bush era.

A President who was deeply opposed to war should have called in his generals on day one and told them without mincing words that he was personally opposed to the war and  convinced them of his rationale.  Asking a general if he wanted more troops is like asking a senior VP at IBM if he wanted more resources to continue to pursue his  next generation project which was already  well over budget, was still understaffed, and unlikely to deliver a successful product. Of course the generals don’t like to accept anything that even remotely smells of defeat. Certainly they are going to ask for a troop expansion!  In fact, General McCrystal went a step further and got away with a premature public pronouncement about the need for 40,000 additional troops. It was a pre-emptive strike against an inexperienced President.

It appears as though President Obama agonized over the decision for four months because he was deeply conscious of the negative implications of war and the weight of the responsibility that comes with such a decision given the potential deaths of young Americans. He had to weigh this against his assessment of the political implications of a withdrawal. With  the nation deeply divided , the Congressional elections looming on the horizon, and the fear that Democrats would once again be labeled as “weak on national defense” President Obama caved in to his generals’ requests, dumped his widely believed left leanings and embraced what he suspected would move him “safely” to the political center. On this issue, clearly President Obama’s political instincts got the better of his perceived ideology. Furthermore, he failed to make a convincing case for why the effort in Afghanistan should be persisted with. His “evil in the world” rhetoric sounded more like George Bush minus the conviction.

The Healthcare battle on the other hand is more stark. The President came into this clearly signifying that he was strongly in favor of universal healthcare. But the devil is in the details as always. When it came down to the contentious issue of the public option, the winds of ambiguity began to take over as is  fast becoming the norm with this administration. Is he for the public option? Will he sign if there is no public option? Does he care enough for the public option to push for it? With the recent senate defeat in MA, the healthcare bill appears to be in jeopardy with no end in sight.

A big part of being a good administrator is to prioritize and be selective about what to pursue, estimate how long something might take, and then execute effectively. On all  these three fronts he has clearly faltered in his first year in office. He first promised a healthcare bill in summer of 2009 and then before last Christmas, and now  it  is completely open ended – a sign that his administrative experience is still unproven and questionable. (closure of Guantanamo being another example).

Despite all his shortcomings and the difficulties facing the country, President Obama still appears to be the right man for the job, especially when compared to the other aspirants for the presidency. He continues to seem like a “cool guy” whose heart is in the right place.  His speeches – the language, the delivery, the style – are easily one of the best (since Bill Clinton) in recent times in American politics. His genuine and consistent attempt to reach out to the Muslim world (referred to as the “apology tour” by the GOP) has helped the world see America a little more favorably today than it did in the Bush-Cheney years. He seems to care deeply about societal inequalities and clearly aspires to do something about it. His first year in office confirms that he is a shrewd politician who knows how to gain power (time will tell if he knows how to retain it), but isn’t very good at using it (unlike his predecessor),  in spite of a Democratic majority in Congress.

Unlike Bush, Obama does not evoke extreme emotions, partly because of his ambiguity on various issues. He is so guarded (he used a teleprompter when addressing 6 year olds!) that even the late night comics seldom find material to joke about him. Despite the accusations of his critics on the right, he does not appear to have a strong ideological bias, enough to  make dramatic shifts in policy.  In fact, given a chance,  I suspect President Obama would prefer not to have an opinion on any issue (as is consistent with his voting record in the Illinois senate).  For the rest of his term, he needs  to overcome the apparent lack of boldness, sharpen his administrative skills and  clear the pervading air of ambiguity that has been a consistent phenomenon of his first year in office. After having rallied the country around cries of “yes we can” he needs to show us how he actually can over the next three years.

 

President Obama stormed the major networks over the weekend appearing on as many as five of them. Critics promptly termed it as over exposure.  There has been way too much “over the board rhetoric”, fear mongering and false propaganda (“Obama lies, grandma dies” among other outrageously false campaigns) on the right. President Obama and his team have done their best to go in for a campaign style run around the country to try and minimize the negative effects of their opponents’ campaign. But it appears that they figured it was best to have the President directly take his message to the people though the major networks. Given the President’s inherent ability to handle such interviews well it was a timely and well thought out strategy.

In this day and age, it is so easy to slip up in the media. President Obama did a phenomenal job of staying on message right through all the interviews. His ability to be clear and precise without ever once coming across as being evasive is truly commendable. On the downside these interviews quickly got boring and repetitive. As for the interviewers, none of them really came through with deeply insightful or particularly memorable questions (I think Letterman will do a better job).  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Racism, Afghanistan, and Healthcare are the hot current topics of interest.  Surely these media pundits could have devised something more creative to ask the President instead of the predictable questions. George Stephanopoulos I thought got a little too cute with a definition of the word “tax”.

President Obama certainly helped his cause by re-affirming his commitment to healthcare reform but its very unlikely that these interviews did little to convince any of his opponents. He could perhaps have been more forceful in calling out the negative propaganda like he did in his joint session of Congress. The Republican leadership has done little to squash the outrageous accusations from the right.  President Obama could have seized the moment to take a few shot at them. But he chose not to, but instead remain above the fray.

Despite President Obama’s sincere efforts, at this juncture it does appears as though he has to kiss goodbye to bi-partisanship and get his party fully on board to pass the healthcare bill, if he ever hopes to have one passed.

The healthcare debate across America seems to be reaching a crescendo. Angry town hall meetings and brilliant, pithy sound bites from the opposition (“Death panels”, “Kill Grandma” etc.) appears to have cornered President Obama. He could very well have refrained from stirring a public debate and stream rolled his plans relatively drama-free through the largely Democratic Congress (with some serious challenges in the Senate). But an inherent community organizer that he is, he chose to seek  bi-partisanship. His team did their homework and tred their best to avoid the mistakes of the Clinton administration. Rather than drive the plan (like Bill Clinton tried), they issued some broad guidelines and let Congress iron out the details. An interesting and different approach. Yet, today, the health care reform plans are in a state of crisis. If it fails to go through, the chances are that healthcare reform will never see the light of day for years to come.

His support for the “public option” will be the part of his speech that will be of most interest to anyone who has been closely following the debate. It is next to impossible for him to mollify all the sections of his party and still achieve bi-partisanship.  If he settles for Sen. Snowe‘s plan of a “trigger-based” public option, the left wing of the Democratic party is going to be deeply disappointed. On the other hand, this approach ensures that he and his team have their best shot of getting health care reform (for whatever its worth) passed with token Republican support, and ultimately claiming victory.

One speech can’t fix the healthcare woes of America. But it will be a good test of President Obama’s ability to forge consensus to whatever extent possible, and will provide some deeper insights into his political acumen. Clearly, the stakes are high for his party, for himself and the country as a whole. When in trouble (or when you are desperate as his critics would like to infer) you draw on your best skills. This explains why President Obama has chosen to do what he does best — give a good speech!

A stable opposition is critical to the functioning of any democracy.  Like it or not, the BJP is the face of India’s opposition today. The left is in complete disarray and what remains of it appears to be self-destructing (as in the case of Kerala). The regional parties for the most part have all been cut down to size in the recent election. In short, as of today, India has no credible opposition to speak off. So the sooner the BJP gets its act together the better for India’s democracy as a whole.

The BJP appears to have a leadership vaccum at present and little in terms of bench strength for credible future leadership to counter the steady rise of Mr. Rahul Gandhi. For all the criticism that has been leveled against Mr. Advani, the fact remains that he made the best attempt by far to move the BJP to the center of the political spectrum by making a conscious attempt to soften the party’s hard line image starting with his own.  While it might have been an opportunistic move, there is little doubt that it was the best strategic move the party has made in recent times. Unfortunately, for him he failed to carry the base of the party with him on this journey. Moreover, he lost a golden opportunity to further soften the party’s image by not taking a firm stand on the Varun Gandhi issue (Maneka Gandhi is now in the Jaswant Singh camp!), among other strategic blunders (personally attacking the PM, for instance).

To make matters worse, the loss in the recent election appears to have triggered public feuds between the visible faces of the party. There have been calls for the “RSS to take charge” and bring some order to the party. There is nothing worse that can happen to the BJP than to be faced with an open “RSS coup”. As India continues to crank out impressive growth rates, hard line right wing rhetoric is likely to resonate less and less with the masses. Even a blatant attack by terrorists on Mumbai failed to galvanize the BJP to a victory. In quieter, relatively prosperous times, the BJP has little hope of staging a comeback with an endemic hard line image. On the other hand,  some extreme events could  drive public sentiments to the far right and give the BJP some hope of a revival.  But counting out that would be like hoping for a miracle.

Where does the party go from here?  The BJP in its current avatar needs the RSS in order to survive.  At the same time, as things stand today there is little chance of ever returning to power without shedding its hard line “Hindutva” image and broadening its appeal to moderates and minorities.  The hard liners in the party are unlikely to ever shed their extreme positions on hot button issues. There is open infighting within the party.  Lastly, at 80+ Advani isn’t getting any younger .

Ironically, one avenue for the party might be to adopt a Congress-like split leadership with a younger, credible, centrist-leaning person with a mass base and acceptable to the party (especially the trouble-makers) as the face of the party with Advani playing a Sonia-like role! However, this is hard to imagine given Mr. Advani’s dominant role in the party over the years.  Besides, unfortunately, for the BJP, at present it does not look like such an individual exists among their ranks.

The other alternative of course, is to opt for the status quo i.e.  do nothing, hope that the noise dies down, and take things as they come. It will be interesting to see which of these paths the party chooses. With no presence to speak off in keys states, and two successive defeats in the Lok Sabha elections, and a deeply divided party, the BJP is clearly at a crossroads. At present, it appears that if the party does not seize this opportunity to re-invent itself it runs the serious risk of further marginalizing itself over the years.

The recent attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team was final confirmation that Pakistan is in a complete mess. The civilian government that has no clue about how and where to take the country.  (It does appear that Pakistan under Musharraf was more stable or at least seemed so from the outside?) Pakistan’s border area with Afghanistan has been virtually run over by terrorists. The opposition is desperate to destroy the Zaradari government given the recent court ruling against the Sharief brothers. The Pakistani government’s investigation against the mindless attack in Mumbai has neither appeased the Indians nor helped assuage the growing universal belief that Pakistan is the world’s leading breeding ground for terrorism.

After Australia, West Indies and more recently India withdrew plans to tour Pakistan, Sri Lanka gave Pakistan a chance to redeem itself and prove to the cricketing world that the country was safe at least for sports. To say that Pakistan blew this opportunity is an understatement. With this recent security lapse, cricket in Pakistan with visiting foreign teams is virtually dead for the foreseeable future. It is laughable to imagine Pakistan co-hosting the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Under these circumstances the Pakistan Board’s earlier decision to deny its players a chance to participate in the IPL league seems that much more silly and short sighted. The Government of India seems to have made the perfectly right choice by calling off the Pakistan tour. Its downright scary to imagine the the public reaction in India had its cricket team been attacked on Pakistan soil. What I find surprising though is the little that is being asked of the Sri Lankan government by its media. What was the Sri Lankan goverment thinking when it agreed to tour Pakistan?

India has been crying itself hoarse about Pakistan’s involvement in cross border terrorism and about terrorist camps across Pakistan. Lahore was considered one of the better and safer cities in Pakistan. A blatant attack on a touring team happening in one of the better cities of Pakistan is a sure sign of a worsening law and order situation across the country. Where does Pakistan go from here?  Well, a good start would be to stop being in denial and accept that the situation in Pakistan is dire, getting worse by the day and worthy of immediate attention of the world.  Next, Pakistan must kiss goodbye to the Kashmir issue at least until it can get its house in order. It must go the extra step of making peace with India by handing over the terrorists responsible for the Mumbai attacks to India and preventing further acts of cross-border terrorism. Most importantly, it must not hesitate to seek international assistance in dismantling terrorist camps across the country no matter how unpopular the step might be. The Obama administration has indicated its plan to pull out of Iraq. Meanwhile, it is critical for the US to simultaneously develop a sensible Pakistan strategy (perhaps in cooperation with India) before it is too late.

If you are wondering why Bush will be missed, check out David Letterman’s compilation of the best of his “Great Moments…” series.

Gotta feel for President Zardari. He lost his wife to a terrorist attack. He inherited a messy, bankrupt country packed with terrorists, and an unstable Afghanistan and a thriving arch-enemy India as its neighbors. And now following the despicable act of violence by Pakistani nationals who travelled to Mumbai Zardari now has to face the wrath of India. Under pressure from the US government Zardari seems to have relented and cracked down on the LeT. Now India wants the terrorists handed over. Many in Pakistan are bound to be upset with recent raids on the LeT. The terrorists are probably planning their revenge for these attacks, while the border states with Afghanistan are under severe threat of being run over by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Check out President Zardari’s piece in the NY Times. He says that the Pakistani Government has nothing to do with these “non-state actors” when its widely believed that these groups have thrived with support from the ISI.

Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks. But we caution against hasty judgments and inflammatory statements. As was demonstrated in Sunday’s raids, which resulted in the arrest of militants, Pakistan will take action against the non-state actors found within our territory, treating them as criminals, terrorists and murderers. Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims.

Then, he takes a “we are in this together” stance though he won’t possibly hand over any of the wanted terrorists to India. Begs the question, if Pakistan can share intelligence then can’t they turn over criminals too?

Terrorism is a regional as well as a global threat, and it needs to be battled collectively. We understand the domestic political considerations in India in the aftermath of Mumbai. Nevertheless, accusations of complicity on Pakistan’s part only complicate the already complex situation.

Nevertheless, a well-written article. A sign that Pakistan’s PR engine is alive and well. Besides Zardari deserves credit for attempting to reign in the LeT. If he can sustain this while continuing to remain in-charge (not to mention remain alive!), by keeping the Pak army at bay, and the ISI in-check, it will go a long way in improving relations with India. On the other hand, the general public in Pakistan would do well to openly condemn the attack on Mumbai like some Muslims in India.

Will Mr. Chidambaram respond with the Indian view?

p.s: Meanwhile, here is another very interesting piece on Pakistan’s struggles.