New York Times Editorial: One Hundred

New York Times Editorial: One Hundred
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29wed1.html?_r=1&ref=global

Crises, not days, is the first word that comes to mind when we think about the number 100 and Barack Obama’s presidency.

The list of failed policies and urgent threats bequeathed to him by former President George W. Bush could easily be that long. In his first 14 weeks plus two days, President Obama has made a strong start at addressing many of the most critical ones.

He is trying to rebuild this country’s shattered reputation with his pledge to shut down the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, his offer to talk with Iran and Syria, and, yes, that handshake with Venezuela’s blow-hard president, Hugo Chávez.

Mr. Obama has not allowed a once-in-four-generations recession — or politically driven charges that he is over-reaching — to rob him of his ambition. He is right that there can be no lasting recovery until the country reforms its health care system and tackles the clear and present danger of global climate change.

The government is promoting women’s reproductive rights. It is restoring regulations to keep water clean and food safe. The White House has promised to tackle immigration reform this year.

Mr. Obama and the country still have a long way to go. The Taliban’s power grabs in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a reminder of why the White House must chart a swift exit from Iraq so it can focus on the real front in the war on terror. Recent horrifying bombings are a reminder of how far Iraq is from political conciliation and how much remains to be done to ensure an orderly exit.

We are skeptical that the bank rescue plan is aggressive enough to salvage those that are at the edge of insolvency or protect the taxpayers’ investment.

We know that President Obama, and many voters, don’t want the fight, but until there is a full investigation of detainee abuse, “extraordinary rendition” and the other outlaw policies authorized during the Bush years, there is no way to ensure they will never be repeated.

These are very tough times, but Mr. Obama seems to have lifted the spirits of a divided and fearful nation. In the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, 72 percent of Americans said they were optimistic about the next four years. They also recognized that some problems may be too difficult to solve even in four years.

Here is a look, by no means comprehensive, at the president’s early efforts:

THE WORLD Mr. Obama has promised to quickly bring home American troops from one of the longest and most divisive wars in American history. He must now persuade Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government to reconcile with the Sunnis and to defuse tensions with the Kurds. Iraq still has not agreed on a law to equitably share its oil resources. Thousands of members of the Sunni Awakening Councils, the former insurgents whose decision to switch sides helped change the course of the war, are still waiting for promised government jobs.

Mr. Obama pressed his advisers to come up with a comprehensive plan for the dangerously inter-related conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now they must implement it — and quickly. Last week, the Taliban advanced within 60 miles of Islamabad. Pakistan’s leaders still do not seem to grasp the mortal threat.

The president has begun new negotiations with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals. The Pentagon has started to make the tough choices to shift spending to weapons needed by troops fighting today’s wars. Mr. Obama’s commitment to Israeli-Palestinian peace is already being tested by Israel’s new prime minister, who says he doesn’t believe in a two-state solution.

Americans can feel both pride and relief at the enthusiastic welcome Mr. Obama has received in his early travels abroad. The president will soon have to find ways to leverage that popularity. He must persuade European allies to contribute more troops and resources to Afghanistan. If negotiations with Iran fail, he will have to convince Europe, Russia and China to impose tough sanctions to try to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

THE ECONOMY After eight dismal years, the president’s stimulus bill, his budget and even the flawed bank rescue strategy offer a welcome return to the rational proposition that some problems are so big that the government must step in. Our main concern is that he has been too reluctant to challenge traditional interests on Wall Street or Capitol Hill.

His attempt at bipartisan consensus-building crashed against Republicans’ obstruction of the stimulus package and weakened the final legislation. The $787 billion stimulus is small when compared with the size of the contraction; the 3.5 million new jobs projected pale against the 5 million lost since the end of 2007.

The administration has been similarly timid on the banking crisis. The White House is so far refusing to consider a temporary takeover of foundering banks — the best way to ensure that they are efficiently restructured and the taxpayers’ money is protected. Instead, the administration has offered hundreds of billions in subsidized loans to hedge funds and other private investors to entice them to offer inflated prices for bad assets.

We are concerned that Mr. Obama’s anti-foreclosure plan — which relies on lenders to voluntarily modify troubled loans — will falter unless Congress quickly reforms the bankruptcy code. All of this fosters the belief that the White House and Congress will not stand up to the banks. It is also likely to slow the recovery.

CIVIL LIBERTIES Less than 12 hours after taking office, Mr. Obama halted the military tribunals at Guantánamo. Then he ordered the detention camp closed within a year. He has issued orders to prohibit torture and shut secret prisons overseas and to create a detainee policy based on the law and Constitution rather than Mr. Bush’s grandiose visions of executive power.

Earlier this month, Mr. Obama overruled his C.I.A. director and ordered the release of four horrifying memos on prisoner interrogation written by the Bush Justice Department. He has ruled out punishing C.I.A. interrogators who participated in the detainees’ abuse and reluctantly decided to leave it to the Justice Department to make the call about other prosecutions.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has not dropped overly broad state secrets claims used by the Bush team to try to block lawsuits on rendition, torture and illegal wiretapping. He needs to rethink that position as well as his opposition to a full public inquiry to determine why, how and by whom so many orders were given to violate the law and the most cherished Constitutional rights.

ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT Mr. Obama and his new team have been as aggressive on these issues as Mr. Bush was passive or obstructionist. The Environmental Protection Agency quickly issued a formal determination that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare — the necessary prelude to regulating those pollutants. The Interior Department has rejected Mr. Bush’s industry-driven drill-anywhere policies in favor of a more balanced approach to energy production.

The stimulus package includes money to encourage energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, higher-mileage cars and coal that is truly clean. Mr. Obama has also endorsed, in general terms, legislation that would put strict caps on greenhouse gas emissions and invest in technologies to make it easier to achieve those caps.

HEALTH CARE Far too many Americans still have no health insurance; those who do pay too much and the quality of care is too low. Mr. Obama’s bold 10-year budget plan proposed a substantial $634 billion down payment to widen coverage and improve the delivery of care. He offered sensible proposals to pay for these reforms — including higher taxes on the rich and eliminating unjustified subsides for private Medicare plans — that met with immediate Congressional resistance.

This is going to be a tough fight. Mr. Obama must keep reminding Americans that reforms are essential for their personal health and the nation’s economic health.

EDUCATION Mr. Obama has demonstrated a welcome breadth of knowledge on education but will need to use bare-knuckled clout to get needed changes. That is especially true of his student loan plan, which would end wasteful subsidies to private lenders and permit college students to borrow directly from the government. The president’s plan for using stimulus money to force reforms that the states were supposed to carry out under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 will also require energy, vigilance and an end to loopholes in education regulations.

During the campaign, then-Senator Obama declared that “government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves.” In his first 100 days, President Obama has started to show Americans just what he meant.