At his press conference yesterday afternoon, President Obama took himself off in a little boat and went to where the Wild Things are.
Like Max, the protagonist of Maurice Sendak’s illustrated book for children, he shouted “Be still!” at the Democrats who are roaring their terrible roars about his tax-cut compromise with the GOP and at the Republicans who are gnashing their terrible teeth about his refusal to make all Bush tax cuts permanent.
Max’s shout, and the trick of looking his antagonists straight in the eyes, cause the Wild Things to make them his king. But that’s unlikely to be the effect of Obama’s press conference, which was one of the most bizarre political events of my lifetime.
Somehow, I don’t think the Democrats disenchanted by his policy choices over the past couple of days are going to be in a coronating mood after Obama furiously upbraided them in ad hominem language of a kind we may never before have heard from a president.
Had he followed their counsel and refused to deal with the GOP, he said, “We [would] be able to feel good about ourselves, and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are.”
And the Republicans who just struck a deal with him will surely be less inclined to compromise in future negotiations if they are going to be insulted immediately afterward.
“I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers,” he said, “unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.”
The hostage takers were the Republicans, whom he also likened later to bomb throwers.
The conversion of Mr. Cool, the president who never gets ruffled, into the would-be King of All Wild Things took, in Sendak’s words, “almost over a year.” That’s what was revealed by the president’s near-tantrum — there is no other word for it — about the Left’s disappointment with him.
Out of nowhere, he brought up the matter of the “public option,” the health-care proposal that would have created an entirely government-run plan and was dropped from the pending legislation a year ago this week, to the Left’s dismay.
“So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans,” he said in what even Politico called a rant, “but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get . . . that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise. Now, if that’s the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it, we will never get anything done . . . That can’t be the measure of how we think about our public service.”
Obama’s anger at the Left is merited. He may not have closed Gitmo or ended the war in Afghanistan, but he did shepherd through the most far-reaching piece of social legislation of the past half-century, and is culturally and socially the most liberal president in history.
Still, demanding the Left’s fealty with a narrow-eyed lecture on how “The New York Times editorial page does not permeate across all of America” is an odd way to get grudging support for a tax bill they hate.
The most revealing aspect of the press conference wasn’t Obama’s anger, but rather his continued insistence (he said it five times) that allowing the top tax rate to rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent was a political winner for him.
Indeed, he claimed he proved his point during the run-up to the 2010 elections — the worst showing for a party in power in 72 years. He also said he looked forward to using it as a campaign issue against the GOP in 2012.
When Max gets bored among the Wild Things and decides to return home, he finds dinner is waiting for him, and it’s still hot. Unless the tax-cut deal causes the economy to take off, and fast, Obama is going to be feasting on cold leavings, and all by his lonesome, up in the room to which his political family may be banishing him.
johnpodhoretz@gmail.com