Written by John Turner   

A consensus about President Obama is growing in the land. He is not brave. He is not bold. He won’t really fight. But he does, somewhat, lean in the right direction. So he may be as good as we can get.

What this means for people who would like to rescue the country from militarism and plutocracy is that they have to forget about leadership. Instead of finding men in public life to follow they have to put pressure on those who have managed to scramble into public office.

“Leadership” is one of the great flimflam terms of our time. I watched a football game yesterday involving one of the so-called “service” academies. The announcers, in nauseatingly adulatory language, reminded us incessantly that the young men on the field were being trained for leadership. Think of that concept. Young people are enlisted by the establishment and trained to lead. And what will they lead us towards? Something better? Something brighter? Something cleaner? No, they will “lead” us to support the establishment. It’s a curious definition.

Politicians go through a process that is essentially emasculatory, which is what the establishment not only wants but insists upon. It is a rare person who can pass through that process and not come out feeling intimidated. Politicians don’t want to think of themselves as intimidated, of course. So they call themselves “practical” -- another of the great flimflam terms.

The solution to the Guantanamo problem Obama seems to be drifting towards may be be a perfect example of who he is. There are about fifty men being held in the prison in Cuba whom the United States is afraid either to release or to try in court. The government doesn’t want to release them because it’s feared that they might join groups hostile to the United States (that would be a big surprise, wouldn’t it?). But neither does the government want to bring them into court because their trials would inevitably reveal the illegal ways they have been treated. So far the solution has been to keep them in limbo.

Obama’s leanings tell him limbo shouldn’t be either hermetic or eternal. So he has decided to create panels which will regularly review the cases of each of the prisoners. Should one of these panels discover that a prisoner poses no further danger, he might, someday, be released. It’s a lukewarm bow towards justice but at least it’s not simply throwing men into a hole and forgetting about them. It’s not much, but it’s something. It’s about like Obama’s recent compromise on the taxes.

We will not get more from Obama than this unless we make him give us more. That’s not going to be easy but neither is it impossible. If the political climate were shifted sufficiently, Obama would return to being the man he promised us he was going to be during his presidential campaign.

When we think about changing the political atmosphere we turn from Obama’s weaknesses to our own. The American public continues to be insufficiently subtle. Most people seem to think that one must be either for a politician or against him. If you’re for, you have to be enthusiastic; if you’re against, you have to be outraged and indignant.

Neither of those positions is useful with respect to the president. What’s needed is conditional support. And the conditions in the “conditional” should have some bite. Otherwise, Obama will pay no attention to them and we’ll get milk toast all the way.

I don’t think it would be out of order to support a primary challenge. That is, if a credible challenger could be found. The idea that a primary fight weakens a candidate in the general election is nonsense. It may push him, and whether Obama can understand this or not, being pushed could be helpful for him. It could encourage him look brave and less of a weakling and he certainly needs more of that appearance.

There may well be other tactics that could be adopted as elements of qualified support -- marches, rallies, targeted campaigns. The main thing is not to sit back and rely on Obama’s leadership. The best we can get from that is little, and the worst is a Republican victory.

It could be an understood accommodation, of sorts, flavored by picturesque outbursts. It could even be fun.