Obama and His Honeymoon

A new broom always tries to sweep cleaner than the old one. Newcomers usually state their intentions to do something loud and clear and set the tone right. The present situation is never good enough and earthshaking changes have to be made. It is rare to have newcomers who will just take over and follow what their successors have done wholesale. What is common are newcomers who start off on a promising note and later fail to keep up with the momentum or even falter.

Obama had a magnificent inauguration ceremony that will go down in history. Equally magnificent is the expectation of the people for the “reforms” that he has promised. However, this expectation is unlikely to turn into reality in the short-run as Obama is still gathering his clout.

First of all, although Obama has stuck to his promise of fostering cooperation between the two rival political parties, the gulf between the two is simply too entrenched and wide to
bridge. While the House passed Obama’s economic stimulus package last week, all the Republican senators cast opposing votes to protest against House of Representative Speaker Pelosi and other Democratic senators for ignoring Obama’s call for inter-party cooperation in order to ostracize the Republicans.

As the Congressional debate over the economic plan kicks off this week, Republican leaders have openly advocated the use of a filibuster to block the vote unless major changes are made. As things look, the much-anticipated economic stimulus package is unlikely to receive the green light from Congress by the middle of this month before the term ends, much against what Obama had initially hoped.

Second, the Obama administration has seen the withdrawal of three of its nominees over misconduct. This has put the president’s integrity into question.

Daschle’s Nomination Saga

Of all nomination sagas, none has stirred up more controversy than that of Daschle, a Democrat and the former U.S. Senate majority leader, for the secretary of Health and Human Services.

Over the past two years, Daschle received $220,000 in speaking fees from the health care industry. In addition, he earned a total of $5.2 million for consultancy services he rendered to insurance, hospital, real estates, energy and power sectors.

Daschle has been embroiled in a tax scandal for omitting a car and chauffeur provided to him by a former employer in his tax submission. Moreover, his extraction of speaking and consultancy fees from health care and pharmaceutical bodies has put him in a conflict of interest. This has raised doubts over his suitability as a choice of someone who can accomplish Obama’s task in reforming the health care system.

Daschle turned to the business world after he was defeated in re-election five years ago, making him a typical hybrid of politician and businessman in the money game between lobby speakers and the government played in Washington. It reflects the many options and ways to spin money open to Washington elites who, more often than not, find themselves caught in the conflict of interest web.

Daschle is special to Obama. He was Obama’s de facto tutor in politics and one of the key Democratic contributors to having won the nomination as president. Obama staunchly supported and stood by Daschle initially. The president paid tributes to Daschle’s experience and emphasized his honesty as no attempt was made to conceal the tax omission.

Obama has vowed to set things right in Washington and make changes to the culture that engages in the exchange of interests between the commercial and political sectors. The president has drawn critics from commentators as some members of his team have allegedly put themselves "on the wrong side of history," one after another. The commentators criticized Obama of calling for integrity on one hand and backing Daschle on the other and accused him of not practicing what he preaches.

To build his dream government, which is socially responsible with no conflict of interest, Obama accepted the withdrawal of Daschle from his nomination, but not without reluctance.

Americans have always termed the first 100 days of the President’s office as the “honeymoon” period. How much can Obama do in his first 100 days in the face of numerous unspoken rules in Washington?

If Obama is unable to realize his campaign promise for reforms within his first100 days, he will risk falling support from the people. If this happens, his honeymoon period will be cut short.

The higher the hope the people have for Obama is, the steeper the “slope” of confidence that they have for him will be. American media cartoonists have played on these two words very often recently. It serves to caution Obama that he has only two ways out: either he swims or he drowns.