This weekend, the Los Angeles Times reports that aides to President Barack Obama has told representatives of liberal organizations “that they might need to scale back their expectations.” When though, since the 2008 election, have the expectations of liberal organizations been scaled up? Even before Obama was inaugurated, liberals were lectured that they would have to lower their expectations of Obama. Obama’s aides said that, in order for Obama to be successful, the President would have to seek common ground with the Republicans.
We can see how well that strategy worked. The Republicans wouldn’t compromise, and so Obama kept on softening his positions, and the Republicans kept on pushing harder anyway. In the 2010 election, the Democrats in Congress who compromised most were the most likely to lose.
President Obama doesn’t seem to have learned the lesson of his failure so far. The Los Angeles Times says that Obama “bristles at suggestions that he is caving in to the GOP.” Obama has announced that he’s found “a whole host of ways to compromise”. Bristle away, Mr. President, but you’re caving in.
This isn’t just a matter of politics. There are real consequences of Obama’s lack of backbone.
Among those who are dealing with the consequences of Barack Obama’s weakness are endangered species. Just this week, Obama denied protection to 251 endangered species. Obama’s indifference to the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act isn’t something new, though, that just developed since the Democrats lost seats in this year’s congressional elections.
Bill Clinton, on average, established protections for 65 endangered species every year he was President. Barack Obama, however, has only protected an average of of 26 endangered species per year so far.
That difference is remarkable because Bill Clinton wasn’t a great liberal. He was aligned with the Democratic Leadership Council, the equivalent of the right wing Blue Dog Democrats in the 1990s. For Obama to be so far behind Clinton’s environmental record is especially discouraging, given his declarations that we can expect his positions to soften even more in the remaining years of his term in office.
Yep, there’s that lack of leadership on the environment cropping up again. How long before humanity is on the endangered species list?
I’m sorry, but no. This is really not a great way to be judging a president. Do you really think he has complete control over all environmental policy? He’s the president, not the king. And number of species protected isn’t really much of a way to judge things at all. I know this is an old article. But seriously. No.