CJR Notices Obama's Leadership Shortcomings

In a review of the ongoing policy crisis over at the White House, the CJR notes with no small measure of concern and amazement,

The second half of the [National Journal] article is devoted to the ways in which “the bruising confirmation process” deters potential nominees, and the fairly unprecedented level of GOP obstructionism to new appointments.

Those are real issues, but Obama has done strikingly little to grapple with them. Calls for a president to show “leadership” are often demands for heightened rhetoric that is emotionally satisfying but unlikely to be productive. But here, there were tools available to Obama—beginning with simply communicating to Senate Democrats, who still control their chamber, that this is an important problem—that he seems rarely to have used. As far back as March 2010, the blogger Jonathan Bernstein, one of the most astute analysts of the presidency on the web, was calling this passivity “Obama’s biggest failure.” Despite some tentative movement since then, there’s little reason to expect a different verdict today.

Holding this President to account is critical if America is going to emerge from this economic crisis any time soon.