Herron: Obama cannont change Washington alone

‘ President Barack Obama’s administration might still be in its infancy, but so far, it… ‘ President Barack Obama’s administration might still be in its infancy, but so far, it appears that changing Washington might be more difficult than he originally expected.

Obama’s great appeal was his image as a transformational candidate. His unique background and contrast to past presidents provided the initial embodiment of this idea. He promised to work past ideological divides, purge unethical practices and create a more transparent government. The problem is that Washington is a leviathan of bureaucracy and power. It contains 535 congressmen, 18 executive departments and countless think tanks and lobbying firms. Trillions of dollars are distributed each year to thousands of organizations, local governments and interest groups.

Expecting one man to remake the U.S. government is a fantasy.

Jimmy Carter attempted to fight the powers of Washington when he was president. He was elected to be the antithesis of the Nixon administration’s corruption. His charming, good-ol’-boy Southern roots evoked an appearance of sincerity and humility. He was a true outsider, and when elected, he brought in an army of Washington outsiders.

Unfortunately, Carter ran into numerous obstacles. Congress — controlled by a Democratic majority — saw any gestures of reform as abrasive. Carter attempted to remove pork-barrel spending and scale back social programs. Congress responded with belligerence and gave Carter trouble for the rest of his one-term presidency.

President Bill Clinton ran on a campaign theme similar to Obama’s. Clinton presented himself as an agent of change. His nomination acceptance speech even ended with his belief ‘in a place called Hope.’ But after his inauguration, Clinton immediately had to conform to political realities.

He dropped his promise of a middle-class tax cut, sidestepped gay rights issues and backpedaled on health care reform. Today Clinton is seen as a symbol of the establishment.

Much like his predecessors, Obama faces political challenges. Obama made an exception to one of his more substantial campaign promises — the exclusion of lobbyists from his administration — to accommodate his nominees for deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, and deputy secretary of health and human services William V. Corr, who lobbied for Raytheon and Tobacco Free Kids, respectively. However, Lynn was lauded for his bipartisan support and received a waiver from the administration, and Corr agreed to recuse himself from tobacco-related issues to avoid a conflict of interest. So while it’s fair to say that Obama has hired a few former lobbyists, it seems that he’s still attempting to keep his staff free of any outside influences.

Obama’s’ attempt at a bipartisan cabinet was also quixotic. The nomination of Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., for secretary of commerce imploded when Gregg withdrew his nomination because, apparently, Republicans and Democrats disagree on certain issues. The nomination was more symbolic than substantial.

The Obama-Biden campaign Web site promised, ‘As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House Web site for five days.’ However, Obama signed SCHIP legislation and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act fewer than five days after their passage in Congress.

It’s not as though these promises were disingenuous. They were broken because they were too ambitious, too idealistic. Lobbyists, for example, do play a genuinely important role in government. The First Amendment permits citizens ‘to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’ Loosely, this is what lobbying does. The best way to curtail the influence of lobbyists is not to bar them from government interaction altogether, but rather to elect politicians who will not be swayed by corrupt bargains.

At this point, the effort of one man to change Washington could be distracting at best and counterproductive at worst. We stand amid a national crisis. It is better to focus efforts toward creating effective government rather than cleaning house.

In our system of checks and balances, it isn’t prudent to expect sweeping change at the hand of one individual. Our nation was founded with the goal of prohibiting such a concentration of power. As a result, change in U.S. history has always come from the bottom up. Historians are often tempted to celebrate leaders as originators of change — an Andrew Jackson, a Theodore Roosevelt or a John F. Kennedy. But these men would not be who they were without the era to which they belonged.

The change that voters called for this fall might still come to Washington, but it won’t be because of one man. It will be a gradual, organic process. As philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke once wrote, ‘Our patience will achieve more than our force.’ The 2008 elections were an example of holding the president accountable. If we want to see true change, it is now time to do the same for the rest of Washington.

E-mail Mason at mph20@pitt.edu.

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