What the bully pulpit will and won't do

[NJMaverick]

Many people either are confused or to further an anti-Obama agenda do not understand what a President can do with a bully pulpit. What the President can do is set the national agenda. For example President Obama used the BP to set up and pass the stimulus, healthcare reform and Wall Street reform.
What the bully pulpit can't do is turn a tea bagger congressman or congresswoman sane, make a Republican congress person cooperate for the good of the nation or make a blue dog Democrat liberal.
If you hear people speak about the President lacking courage or conviction to use the BP to get certain items pass the person either doesn't understand politics or is trying to do something less than honest.

[SeattleGirl]

They seem to think Obama is The President in the Bubble who can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and the Teapublicans and Blue Dogs don't have any influence on how things are.

[RoyGBiv]

The more rational critics who comment on Obama's lack of use of the so-called bully pulpit are primarily remembering the way Reagan used it. Faced with a Congress who wouldn't do what he wanted, he went into campaign mode for those issues and ended up scaring the pants off congresspeople looking at reelection campaigns. He was very good at this, if nothing else.

The extreme and irrational left doesn't really have a clue what they're criticizing. They're just pulling words and phrases out of the air that others have used and are using them as a bludgeon. A great lot of these people have no political memory, much less experience prior to 2001 and are fairly ignorant of what they're saying.

Others offering the criticism have more merit behind their commentaries. The fact of the matter is, the President has taken his message about the debt-ceiling deal directly to the people in a way he has with almost no other issue. It's the thing that has kept his approval numbers from falling completely in the toilet even as the general feeling toward anyone involved has plummeted. It will also be the only thing that might save him come November. He's already campaigning.

There are things he could have campaigned harder on in the past. The main one that comes to my mind is the stimulus package that was put together. Americans as a whole continue to be woefully ill informed about the stimulus, what it did, and why it should have been larger and less based on tax cuts. No one in the administration even tried to do a good job of explaining it. And, in the end, the stimulus did what it could do based on its size, but it could have done so much more had it been larger and better constructed, which then would have had the effect of lessening the impact of the Republican arguments today. So, the criticism, which I find completely reasonable, is that if the President had been doing then what he is doing now, what's happening now might not be happening.

[NJMaverick]

(07-31-2011 05:56 PM)RoyGBiv Wrote:  The more rational critics who comment on Obama's lack of use of the so-called bully pulpit are primarily remembering the way Reagan used it. Faced with a Congress who wouldn't do what he wanted, he went into campaign mode for those issues and ended up scaring the pants off congresspeople looking at reelection campaigns. He was very good at this, if nothing else.

The extreme and irrational left doesn't really have a clue what they're criticizing. They're just pulling words and phrases out of the air that others have used and are using them as a bludgeon. A great lot of these people have no political memory, much less experience prior to 2001 and are fairly ignorant of what they're saying.

Others offering the criticism have more merit behind their commentaries. The fact of the matter is, the President has taken his message about the debt-ceiling deal directly to the people in a way he has with almost no other issue. It's the thing that has kept his approval numbers from falling completely in the toilet even as the general feeling toward anyone involved has plummeted. It will also be the only thing that might save him come November. He's already campaigning.

There are things he could have campaigned harder on in the past. The main one that comes to my mind is the stimulus package that was put together. Americans as a whole continue to be woefully ill informed about the stimulus, what it did, and why it should have been larger and less based on tax cuts. No one in the administration even tried to do a good job of explaining it. And, in the end, the stimulus did what it could do based on its size, but it could have done so much more had it been larger and better constructed, which then would have had the effect of lessening the impact of the Republican arguments today. So, the criticism, which I find completely reasonable, is that if the President had been doing then what he is doing now, what's happening now might not be happening.

It was the wave of conservatism that Reagan rode, not the bully pulpit

[RoyGBiv]

(08-01-2011 06:23 AM)NJMaverick Wrote:  It was the wave of conservatism that Reagan rode, not the bully pulpit

The Reagan used what is commonly called "the bully pulpit" to strong arm Congress into doing what he wanted done is not controversial. He is famous in part for "taking his case to the American people" when Congress was reluctant to move. And that is what pundits are thinking about when they criticize Obama for not having done the same in the past.

[Treestar]

The very name of it annoys me, as if bullying is a good thing.

And then any time it is used, it is then said to be just hot air, no action.

[RoyGBiv]

(07-31-2011 06:01 PM)Treestar Wrote:  The very name of it annoys me, as if bullying is a good thing.

And then any time it is used, it is then said to be just hot air, no action.

I agree with you there.

I tend to think of it as in-office campaigning and using the tools available to a high-profile office to get it done.

[NJMaverick]

(07-31-2011 06:01 PM)Treestar Wrote:  The very name of it annoys me, as if bullying is a good thing.

And then any time it is used, it is then said to be just hot air, no action.

Actually the term bully was the archaic definition of the word. Instead of a bully preying on the weak it refers to a fine person.

[Treestar]

Oh wow, that's interesting. As in "bully for you?"

Yet the leftbaggers aren't thinking that way, IMH Guess.