Obama and Zuccotti Park: What He Didn’t Say

Unlike many of my friends and acquaintances, I don’t feel particularly let down or cheated by Barack Obama. Back in 2008, I viewed him not as a transformative political figure but as a moderate, talented young Democrat, whose speaking skills and keen intelligence partly made up for his lack of experience. In a classic “time for a change” election, he was the right man in the right place.

As President, I think Obama has done a fairly decent job of cleaning up the financial mess he inherited, keeping the economy afloat, and restoring America’s reputation in the world. I say “fairly decent.” A bang-up job would have featured pushing through a bigger stimulus; imposing harsher terms on bailed out banks; passing a broader “Volcker Rule” with the intent of breaking up financial behemoths; and making a decisive effort to resolve the housing crisis. But none of these things was a cinch. Presented with a trillion-dollar-plus stimulus, Congress may well have balked. The Bush Administration had already dictated the terms of the bailouts. A narrow “Volcker Rule” barely squeezed through Capitol Hill. And bailing out underwater homeowners on the scale necessary to raise house prices would have been a huge logistical and political challenge.

In the nineteen-thirties, of course, F.D.R. rose to such challenges and triumphed. Obama, a habitual seeker of the center ground with little experience of running anything and a shaky majority in the Senate, was never going to morph into Roosevelt. Hopes to the contrary were daft. But every now and again, and despite my modest expectations, he does manage to disappoint me—even when he is on the other side of the world.

On Tuesday afternoon, this Associated Press headline crossed the wires: “Obama: Cities Must Make Own Decisions on Protests.” About twelve hours earlier, in the dead of night, hundreds of cops in riot gear had cordoned off much of lower Manhattan, cleared out Zuccotti Park, and arrested some two hundred people, including journalists and a City Councilman. (My colleague Philip Gourevitch has written more on the paramilitary aspect of the operation.) This is what the AP story said:

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Barack Obama’s spokesman is suggesting the president believes it’s up to New York and other municipalities to decide how much force to use in dealing with Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. Spokesman Jay Carney also says Obama hopes the right balance can be reached between protecting freedom of assembly and speech with the need to uphold order and safeguard public health and safety.

Carney spoke to reporters Tuesday as Obama flew to Australia. He was asked whether Obama had been following the early-morning police raid on Zuccotti Park in New York, where Occupy Wall Street protesters have camped out for weeks. Carney said the president was “aware of it.”

To begin with an obvious point: if Obama had wanted to comment on the breaking up of a protest that has drawn worldwide attention (and why wouldn’t he?), then rather than dispatching Carney with the message, he could have ambled back to the pool reporters who fly in the rear of Air Force One. And what might he have said? How about something like this:

Hi everybody. Before we arrive, I just wanted to say that I saw what happened in New York this morning and give you my reaction. As I said shortly after the Occupy Wall Street protest began, I think it expresses the frustrations that many ordinary Americans feel. The demonstrators in New York and other cities are giving voice to a broad-based anger and frustration. We had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, with huge collateral damage throughout the country, and yet some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly are still fighting efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this mess in the first place.

Second, I think the protestors have performed a valuable public service by raising two issues we have neglected for too long: the sharp rise in income and wealth inequality, and the corrosive role that money plays in American politics. When the protestors say that rich people need to pay their fair share of taxes, and that we in Washington often pay too much attention to the wishes of Wall Street and other powerful interest groups, and too little attention to the interests of middle-class families, they are only stating what most Americans know to be true. Indeed, the money problem is getting worse. Under a recent ruling from the Supreme Court, corporations and billionaires can make unlimited contributions to political parties. Some of them, as you know, are already financing ads aimed at me and my policies.

Third, as a former lecturer on Constitutional Law, I have a great appreciation for the rights afforded Americans under the First Amendment, which includes freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but also the right to peaceably assemble. Now, according to all the reports I have received, almost all of the folks associated with Occupy Wall Street have behaved peacefully. In a protest movement that has spread to more than a thousand locations across the country, there have been remarkably few reports of violence. Conservative efforts to portray the protestors as anti-American agitators and troublemakers are misplaced.

All that said, the cities and localities in which the protestors have gathered do have an obligation to uphold order and to safeguard public health and safety. If the demonstrators’ encampments present a genuine fire threat or health threat, they must be cleaned up. If and when people break laws, including the law of trespass, the authorities must put a stop to it. But I call upon mayors, governors, and local police chiefs—whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or independents—to exercise caution in how they act, and to treat the demonstrators with the respect that all law-abiding citizens deserve. Because, to an overwhelming extent, that is who the protestors are: patriotic citizens, concerned about their country, who are exercising their rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I commend Mayor Bloomberg for re-opening Zuccotti Park to them.

For people in authority, dealing with such folks can be costly, time-consuming, and irritating. Trust me: having spent almost three years dealing with members of Congress who are exercising their constitutional rights to block many of my policies, I know what I am talking about. But public participation and occasional frustration on the part of the rulers are integral to our democracy. We all like to see our country as a nation of laws, a nation of due process, a nation—as the Constitution puts it—of inalienable rights. If we don’t take these things seriously, if we exercise authority in arbitrary and excessive ways, then we are undermining the things we were elected to defend.

I am not saying that New York or any other cities have stepped over this line. In some cases, the local authorities have acted with admirable restraint; in others, they appear to have used a considerable amount of force. Without detailed information about what was happening on the ground, I would not pre-judge any particular decision or action. My point, rather, is that there is a line we need to keep our eyes on, and to cross at our peril.

That’s it. Thanks a lot everybody. Now I am going back to my cabin to read some briefing papers and watch a tape of Tiger Woods playing golf in Australia. See you all later.

Would such a statement have made a big difference to the future of Occupy Wall Street, or to next year’s election? Probably not. Would it have sent an important message to cities and states that they don’t have carte blanche in dealing with protestors? Would it have conveyed something significant about the President’s values? And would it have cheered up his supporters? Surely, it would have done all of these things.

Photograph by Donald Traill/AP Photo.