Bill Keller's Advice for Obama

President Obama is under water. His approval in the polls is low and sinking, his signature initiative is staggering from a combination of incompetence and sabotage, his foreign policy is a jumble. Congress is a Bermuda Triangle where the most elementary White House business disappears. The public is numbed and disgusted. Allies are theatrically furious about eavesdropping.

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It’s not that I want the president to think small; by all means, address the threat of climate catastrophe and push ahead on early childhood education. But he needs to get a few wins on the scoreboard.

  Bill Keller/NYT

And he cares? He can’t have another term. He’s been more right-wing than any Republican before George W., and the Democrats are now even publicly hawks and corporate shills. Why would he bother to make any moves? His goal would seem to be to just stay in office and retire with the claim to fame of being the first black president (even though he’s just as white genetically speaking, and about as white as you can get politically).

I have no doubt that the administration will get the (ACA) system working and that the program will ultimately prove popular. But the longer it takes, the more the president squanders the already meager public confidence that he can do anything right.

If after a few more weeks the assembled experts are still struggling to make the website work, maybe it’s time to redeploy some techies from the National Security Agency.

Which brings me to...

Fire James Clapper.

A no-brainer. The man lied to Congress, which is a felony.  Why is he still there?

Keller’s other suggestions are: Double down on immigration reform; Rebalance foreign policy (toward braking China); Forget the Grand Bargain (with Republicans on economics, particularly social spending and taxes) and go for “little bargains” (jobs and growth); and Nationalize the midterm elections:

He should miss no opportunity to portray the 2014 elections not as 435 House contests and 33 Senate races, but as a national referendum on our government dysfunction.

The message could be: “Divided government has brought us paralysis and crisis and made us a global laughingstock. Send me Democrats, and we’ll get things working again. Or at least, send me Republicans with a trace of pragmatism.”

Good luck finding those.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.