SAIS McCain group praises Obama

August 20, 2009 | Observer Staff | Comments 0

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By Phil Kreck

Disappointed by loss, the SAIS McCain group has found satisfactory performance in President Obama. Despite disagreeing with many of his campaign promises, and having a strong preference for McCain in the election, the SAIS McCain group has, post-election, found many of Obama’s initial policies and actions to be adequate, if not desirable, in addressing our concerns on key issues.

First and foremost, it is impossible to ignore the energy and excitement that President Obama has brought to Washington and the country. This “national optimism” is a welcome relief after years of despondency, and it is especially important during our current economic trouble and while fighting an enemy whose objectives include undermining our national spirit and unity. Whether the pessimism was real or imagined, justified or self-exaggerated, or just a result of strategic propaganda, there is no doubt that hundreds of thousands of people were incredibly displeased with the last administration. True to form, our democratic system captured the national mood and the national vote, and we should all recognize and appreciate the relatively peaceful and effective transition from one party to the other.

President Obama’s decision to keep Secretary of Defense Gates is significant. No other single decision did more to ease the anxiety of security-minded conservatives and help us all breathe a sigh of relief. The President may have had any number of motivations for this decision—from appeasing certain conservatives, creating the image of bipartisanship, or sincerely recognizing the value of continuity in a time of war—but at the end of the day, Obama demonstrated great wisdom by keeping a former intelligence officer and counterterrorism expert in charge of our military while we fight two major wars and a global “test of wills” against a lethal and suicidal jihadist movement.

Closing Guantanamo Bay will likewise prove to be a positive decision, contingent on the new Administration’s pending plans to hold and prosecute Gitmo’s infamous detainees. Obama has recognized that there are more significant logistical and legal complexities to the problem than he either realized or admitted while campaigning; as a result, the prison may likely stay open longer than planned, to the dismay of his far-left supporters. A good read of the detainees’ biographies and résumés should make anyone think twice about releasing them back into the battlefields of the Middle East. Yet any reputable lawyer can explain the difficulties of prosecuting them in US criminal courts. (Few people realize that the former Administration attempted to release many of them, but that the detainee’s home countries rejected them—we suspect it wasn’t because they had too many parking tickets. Others who were released have already returned to their violent pasts.) For these reasons, the President’s proven intellect will hopefully help him to balance all aspects of this complex problem.

President Obama’s economic policies reflect the difficulties that any newly elected official must face – balancing the expectations created on the campaign trail with the pragmatic realities of governing. In his campaign, Obama sounded like a free-marketer’s nightmare, supporting farm subsidies, criticizing the windfall profits earned by oil companies, and extolling the virtues of unions. Yet from his transition and early weeks in office, Obama’s true economic inclinations are harder to perceive.

Obama’s economic policies suggest two trends that stoke the intrigue of most conservatives. First, he has decided to make the economy a priority for his Administration. Every morning, he receives a thirty-minute report on the economy from the Director of the National Economic Council. His unapologetic support for fiscal stimulus shows that he is committed to jump-starting economic growth and limiting the fallout of the current recession. Anecdotally, he has moved the entire staff of the Council of Economic Advisors, the President’s ad hoc in-house think-tank, from its remote location in downtown Washington, D.C. to the West Wing of the White House. Clearly, he has shown a renewed commitment to the economy.

Perhaps most importantly, Obama has chosen to surround himself with an all-star cast of economic advisors. The aforementioned Director of the NEC, Larry Summers, is a seasoned economic technocrat, spanning several Presidential Administrations since Reagan’s first term and administrative posts at Harvard University and the World Bank. His choice to head the Council of Economic Advisors, Christy Romer, is an economic historian with a deep understanding of the Great Depression. She recently co-wrote a paper arguing that higher taxes stymie economic growth. Timothy Geithner, Obama’s pick to lead the Treasury Department, is a youthful, intelligent, management-savvy economic regulator. The team surrounding President Obama is highly qualified and well respected by conservatives. Though we remain cautious and skeptical of how for liberal Obama can go in meeting conservative needs and desire, his presidency is certainly on the path of uniting the country around key issues in a bipartisan manner.

Phillip Kreck is a second year Strategic Studies candidate.

Filed Under: February 2009 • Opinion