Douthat: Don't Blame Obama on Health Care

Conservative columnist Ross Douthat of The New York Times makes a valid point on our inflated expectations of the Presidency as revealed by the health care debate.

To the disciples of this cult, the president is the government. “He is a soul nourisher,” Healy writes, “a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns and spiritual malaise.” Anything that happens on his watch happens because of him. And just as important, anything that doesn’t happen can be pinned entirely on his mistakes. President Obama has been turning these quasi-messianic expectations to his advantage since he first entered national politics. But that doesn’t make them any less unrealistic.

Douthat goes a bit partisan for my taste in his explanation of why the President is struggling to implement his health care plans.

In reality, the health care wrestling match is less a test of Mr. Obama’s political genius than it is a test of the Democratic Party’s ability to govern. This is not the Reagan era, when power in Washington was divided, and every important vote required the president to leverage his popularity to build trans-party coalitions. Fox News and Sarah Palin have soapboxes, but they don’t have veto power. Mr. Obama could be a cipher, a nonentity, a Millard Fillmore or a Franklin Pierce, and his party would still have the power to pass sweeping legislation without a single Republican vote.

Douthat makes a valid point that if health care reform fails, it will be on the Democrats. However, he fails to take into account that our system of government is structurally resistant to sweeping institutional change. Look how Bush administration initiatives to reform Social Security and immigration policy crashed and burned despite Bush's post-reelection "political capital" and GOP Congressional majorities. Bush made mistakes in pushing those reforms just as Obama has on health care. However, the separation of powers built into our democracy requires that coalitions of diverse interests be assembled and employed to bring about meaningful change. That is a challenge for both parties, not just the Democrats.

--Ballard Burgher