Does Libya Success Vindicate Obama’s Leadership or Clinton’s?

The other day I tweeted:

“Love Traister’s writing http://t.co/GPYXI1X but it misses key #leadership lesson: executive responsibility C gets, O doesn’t.”

I was immediately flooded with retweets and comments both there and on my Facebook page. Some disagreed but most concurred–strongly. As I see a preponderance of the comments on the Times post do.

Have you read this article? What are your thoughts?

In case you didn’t see it yet, the article referenced is a New York Times Magazine piece speculating “What Would Hillary Clinton Have Done?”  by one of my favorite feminist writers, Rebecca Traister. The intent of the article was to suggest people stop speculating, whereupon she speculates that there would have been little difference because the two candidates were both center-right in political philosophy.

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I have to disagree strongly with my friend Traister this time. Full disclosure: she interviewed me and quoted me extensively in her book Big Girls Don’t Cry, which analyzes Clinton’s run for the presidency and chronicles Traister’s own slow shift from supporting Obama to Clinton as she considered the gender, racial, and socio-political implications of her voting choices.

So when I received the Politico Arena question, the answer came easily. Their query was: Is President Obama vindicated on Libya?

The answer to the question, it seems to me, is rooted in the same missing piece of analysis as that in Traister’s article. Executive leadership requires setting an agenda, having a strongly articulated point of view and teaching/arguing/inspiring/politicking/leading the people and then the Congress to it.

That is something Clinton understands because of her time in the White House and lengthier experience in national political leadership in general. These toughened her up for the fray. It taught her valuable lessons in how to use diplomacy in the service of an authentic agenda. It’s a quality that can surely be learned, but Obama seems to shrink from the executive role rather than embracing it. His emphasis on “the deal” and penchant for striking pre-emptive bargains against himself have seriously diminished his leadership stature. More troubling, it has given the Republicans way more campaign fodder than they deserve–bereft as they are of caring about anything beyond lining their own cronies’ pockets so they can hold onto their threadbare political power.

I do think getting Qadhafi out of power is a net positive for Obama (though one could argue even here that Clinton is the strength behind the president’s victory). But until he gives America a new economic vision and jobs agenda, I’m afraid the benefit to his presidency will be short lived.

 

 

3 Comments

  1. Jodi Lustig on August 23, 2011 at 11:53 am

    I couldn’t agree more. It’s one thing to face the practical realities of governing in a system that (happily) requires consensus and compromise. It’s another to act as if the only option is to lay down an ultimatum and then step aside to see what happens. It gives too much power to those who’d like us to believe that every issue can be reduced to an all-or-nothing, my way or the highway, binary. I like to think of this as Clinton’s victory in part because I am still unapologetically biased, but also because I can’t help feeling that the sight of a woman carrying out an African-American’s foreign policy initiatives is inspiring.

  2. Gloria Feldt on August 23, 2011 at 2:12 pm

    Thanks for the comment, Jodi. I want Obama to succeed as a leader. It’s incredibly important for the nation and especially for economic recovery and women’s rights that he do so. I keep hoping the leadership message will get through. Someone said in a Facebook comment to this post that the victory in Libya is a victory for both because they work as a team. That’s true, but he’s darn lucky to have her as Secretary of State.

    Incidentally, I recall Madeleine Albright observing that for anyone born after 1995, it might be hard to imagine that a man could ever aspire to be Secretary of State.

  3. Facebook comments on August 23, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    Some comments re Traister piece:

    Jan Rodak I heard Pat Buchanan say she would have “gone into Iran.” I don’t know if he is just confused, or has a serious case of wishful thinking going on.

    Debra Boehlke I agree completely, Gloria!

    Nina Miller I like what this blogger had to say about Traister: http://falstaff-falstaff.blogspot.com/2011/08/knocking-down-straw-woman.html
    Falstaff: Knocking down a straw woman
    falstaff-falstaff.blogspot.com

    Nina Miller Key bit: “The point isn’t that one would obviously have triumphed where the other failed. The point is that there’s every reason to believe that one would have tried, and there is ample evidence that other never did.”

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