The name of the game is the finger game...

The Times has an A1 story coming out tomorrow about "fingers pointing" at David Axelrod for the President's perceived communications failures. I guess we've turned the page from the clutch of stories blaming Rahm Emanuel for the alleged failure to maintain Camelot, which in its turn succeeded roughly a year's worth of stories blaming Timothy Geithner.


This predictable sequence reminds me of a dimly remembered shock from early childhood. In an afterschool program for (I think, roughly) 5 year olds, our little group generally had one member designated, whether by common consent or the acclamation of a self-appointed opinion leader or two, "the dummy."  I seem to recall accepting it as part of the natural order of things that someone held this honorific, and that it wasn't me. Until the day when a beefy loudmouth announced to a standing circle, "X isn't the dummy any more!" He pointed at me. "He is! In soccer, before you can throw the ball in bounds, he's kicked it out of bounds!"

My memory is that this charge was completely fabricated (or imagined). Whether I vigorously defended myself, stood gaping in stunned silence, or managed something in between I can't recall. I'm pretty sure that the title didn't stick for more than a minute or two. I wish I could say that I'd stood up for a prior or subsequent designated dummy, but I can't recall that either.  All I know is that the story comes to mind whenever the scapegoating finger makes its mindless progress through a series of public figures.

As for the administration's alleged failures of communication, strategy and policy: of course there are many. At the same time, the unemployment rate is 9.7% and the President's approval rating hovers at 50%. Reagan's approval rating at the one year mark was essentially identical -- 49% -- after a year in which unemployment had climbed from 7.5% to 8.5%  By December 1982, unemployment had spiked to 10.8% and Reagan hit his polling nadir, 35%.  Bottom line: the administration's "failures" as assessed by public opinion are almost entirely a function of the economy Obama inherited. That will not be true forever, but it's true now. And luck will play a large part in future fluctuations -- if not, ultimately, in his performance over the long haul, and future generations' perceptions of it.

Plouffe offers political clarity on health care reform

It's amazing how two-sided statements by Obama, Pelosi and Axelrod about the way forward on health care reform have been to date. Obama has managed to suggest simultaneously that piecemeal health care reforms can't work and that he's receptive to a scaled-back bill; Axelrod has done the same. Pelosi has been subtler, suggesting that she doesn't have the votes this moment to pass the Senate bill and work fixes by reconciliation, but that she wants them.

Into this haze comes a ray of clarity (in a Wash Post op-ed) from David Plouffe, newly brought aboard to lead White House political operations. Here's the first plank of the platform he sketches out for Democrats:

-- Pass a meaningful health insurance reform package without delay. Americans' health and our nation's long-term fiscal health depend on it. I know that the short-term politics are bad. It's a good plan that's become a demonized caricature. But politically speaking, if we do not pass it, the GOP will continue attacking the plan as if we did anyway, and voters will have no ability to measure its upside. If we do pass it, dozens of protections and benefits take effect this year. Parents won't have to worry their children will be denied coverage just because they have a preexisting condition. Workers won't have to worry that their coverage will be dropped because they get sick. Seniors will feel relief from prescription costs. Only if the plan becomes law will the American people see that all the scary things Sarah Palin and others have predicted -- such as the so-called death panels -- were baseless. We own the bill and the health-care votes. We need to get some of the upside. (P.S.: Health care is a jobs creator.)

Here's hoping that Plouffe is speaking with what will be Obama's voice.  The political logic is incontrovertible, and that's Plouffe's bailiwick. As for the long-term policy imperative, no one understands it better than Obama.

UPDATE (from the Dept. of taking credit for the sunrise): further down Plouffe's column, there's this fighting sentiment:

Instead of fearing what may happen, let's prove that we have more than just the brains to govern -- that we have the guts to govern.

That chimes with a bit of xpostfactoid-ese, highlighted in The Daily Dish on Jan. 19:

"We have one party that has not got the brains to govern. Will we now learn for certain that we have another party that hasn't got the guts?

 And of course, The Dish does have its readers:

As for what Obama reads online, his advisers said he looks for offbeat blogs and news stories, tracking down firsthand reporting and seeking out writers with opinions about his policies. Obama was particularly interested in Atlantic Online's Andrew Sullivan's tweeting of the Iranian elections last year, said an aide, who requested anonymity to discuss what influences the president.