What is President Obama’s single greatest asset? What’s his greatest liability?
Copyright © 2008 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
What is President Obama’s single greatest asset? What’s his greatest liability?
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monday 4/27Jeffrey Goldberg/
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Copyright © 2008 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
His intellect, experience, and command of English cause people to voluntarily yield authority to him. His greatest asset is that he is a natural leader; his greatest liability is that he is a natural leader.
His greatest asset: communication skills. He is a gifted politician with a remarkable ability to present himself and his positions to publics in the U.S. and abroad.
His greatest liability: his propensity to place immediate popularity ahead of the long term consequences of his policies. e.g.
a) the appearance of doing something about the economy over the aggregation of enormous power and debt in government,
b) the immediate popularity of closing Guantanamo and prohibiting "torture" over concern for national security.
I think in a true sense, only time is going to tell us that. But I think his calm approach and reassuring approach to the nation has been very helpful, and I think his reaching out to the rest of the world, from every poll I've seen, listening to Democrats and Republicans, when we're talking as friends and not partisans, I think everyone acknowledges that it has changed perception of the U.S. in the world: his international reach has been excellent. On the domestic side, I think time will only tell on all the financial packages. He's probably been the most activist first hundred days I've seen in forty years.
As far as concerns, the few things that I've raised some eyebrows about, and again I don't have all the details, but the handling of the declassified information and how that will be dealt with -- I think that if it becomes an issue of whether or not laws were broken, and people held to legal standards, that's one thing. If it becomes a political issue I think that will be a mistake...
The way he conducts himself and his demeanor, and his explanation of problems is excellent. I think he tries to do it on the basis of fact and reasoning and listening, and there are disagreements, even I have a few, but I think that the American public and I do appreciate that approach.
Response obtained via telephone 4/28/09