He’s got a plan, and don’t you forget it.
One of the more curious things about President Obama’s big economic speech yesterday, and this is admittedly cynical observation, is why the president decided to so dramatically change the subject of the public conversation from his handling of pirates back to his handling of the economy.
He, in effect, pre-empted an ongoing good news story with a bad news one, replacing a tale of American strength with one of American weakness. This is decisively counter to the traditional practice of modern political stage management.
But as Nietzsche is rumored to have said, “a man without a plan is not a man.” The president understands the value of having a plan and making sure people know about it—even if they don’t understand or agree with all the specifics. And in his 46-minute speech, there were a lot of specifics: Obama repeated his concerns about income disparity and the rising cost of health care. He talked about reforming the entitlement program. He lamented the dominance of the financial services sector in the economy and urged a renewed commitment to the teaching of science and engineering in American schools and colleges.
"For so long, we have placed at the top of our pinnacle folks who can manipulate numbers and engage in complex financial calculations. And that's good, we need some of that," Obama said, to some laughter, "But you know what we can really use is some more scientists and some more engineers, who are building and making things that we can export to other countries."
But his overall purpose seemed clear: He was determined to make sure Americans understood that the flurry of activity at the White House in the last two months is part of a larger strategy aimed at attacking the various weaknesses in the economy.
It was an economic Sermon on the Mount that laid out the path to economic salvation—blessed are the consumers and the banks, for they will restore our standard of living—but also intended to reassure the American people that he is not winging it.
Obama vigorously defended his spending plan with a detailed, almost legalistic, explication of his spending initiatives, and he acknowledged that the long and expensive list of remedial action his administration has taken thus far has come under fierce attack in some quarters: “I know there is a criticism out there that my administration has somehow been spending with reckless abandon, pushing a liberal social agenda while mortgaging our children’s future,” he said before explaining why that view is a misguided one.
Such a long speech offered prime real estate for easy sound bites. But the president seemed less interested in making a few memorable points than in presenting an image of a steady hand on the tiller.
The most he offered in terms of quick and easy grabs was a summary about halfway through. “All of these actions—the Recovery Act, the bank capitalization program, the housing plan, the strengthening of the non-bank credit market, the auto plan and our work at the G-20—have been necessary pieces of the recovery puzzle,” he said. “They have been designed to increase aggregate demand, get credit flowing again to families and businesses and help them ride out the storm. And taken together, these actions are starting to generate signs of economic progress.”
And still, Obama was at least as downcast about the short-term economic prospects as he was optimistic about an eventual recovery.
“There is no doubt that times are still tough. By no means are we out of the woods just yet. But from where we stand, for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope,” he said.
That mixed message did not seem to matter as much as making sure that people understood that whatever crises still loomed, he was on top of them.
By the way, there is no evidence to suggest that Nietzsche actually said anything about a man “with a plan;” Al Pacino, playing Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy, was the one who tried to put those words in the philosopher’s mouth.
However, Nietzsche did actually once say that “to forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.”
This president is intent on making sure we know his purpose; he’s not about to let us forget.
Terence Samuel is deputy editor of The Root.