With Friends Like These...

One of the defining characteristics of the Obama presidency will be the shameful irresponsibility from critical partners that his administration has had to work with both at home and abroad during a time of great duress. One does not even have to be a supporter of Obama, or America for that matter, to appreciate this reality objectively. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

The number of serious problems facing the nation today is staggering in comparison to much of America's history- a flailing economy, a mortgage crisis and stock market crash which wiped out 20% of the nation's wealth, two costly and bloody foreign wars each over 7 years old, and an unprecedented environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to name a few. Partnership isn't an option in this mess; it is an absolute necessity. Democrats have no choice but to reach out to Republicans, government to the private sector, America to foreign nations. The hand has been extended in each case by an open Obama administration. Here is what we have seen in return:

The Party of No. While there are a few impressive figures left in the Republican Party who are getting constructive things done, such as Chris Christie of New Jersey or Dick Lugar of Indiana, most nationally prominent Republican politicians are simply blocking everything the Democrats are trying to do while blaming the administration for all the ills in our country. Many defeatist figures, such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Michael Steele have little to no real involvement in the nation's affairs outside of preening themselves for the media, putting their own naked ambitions on display while denouncing everything anyone else is trying to do. Those who actually do have a policy portfolio in our democracy, such as John Boehner and Eric Kantor, blindly and reflexively object to virtually every law and presidential nominee brought in front of them. Critical government posts are vacant for months or years? Oh well, it just makes the Democrats look pathetic for their inability to govern. Major legislation languishing on the table? At least they made a stand against Obama and nearly succeeded in "breaking" him. The dearth of good governance ideas, meanwhile, is legendary. Only expect this situation to get much worse if Republicans make gains in November 2010, validating the strategy in their minds. It is easier to summarily dump on others than try to do the hard work of compromising in the trenches during a historically difficult time.

Hamid Karzai. The reason why the United States effort is languishing mightily in Afghanistan is because we do not have a reliable friend to lean on. It's that simple. The US armed forces have largely achieved the military objectives, but the ultimate solution is political. Karzai is a train wreck of a partner to have on our side: power-tripping, blatantly corrupt, a documented rigger of elections, an incompetent manager, possibly mentally unstable, and certainly insubordinate to America. Karzai is even secretly forming back-room deals with the very Taliban insurgents we are supposed to be fighting. He owes his very existence in power to massive amounts of American blood and treasure, yet he is proving a completely ungrateful wretch. Morally bankrupt as he is, we have no alternative in Afghanistan except the Taliban Mullahs with their shahria law and governance by terror. Karzai is probably the lesser of two evils. We could have pulled out of the country by now with a competent local government working alongside us to build up the military, police, courts, and other institutions of civil society. Sadly, this was not meant to be.

Two-Face Incarnate. Even worse may be the treatment America gets from its supposed ally, Pakistan. Since 9/11 America has given this nation billions upon billions in aid, and helped broker a deal between erstwhile enemies Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto, and General Pervez Musharraf to coexist peacefully and even run an election together. Instead, Bhutto was mysteriously assassinated upon her return from exile, and the government not only failed to protect her in life, her cold-blooded murder investigation was covered up by officials in death. Now with her corrupt widower in power, the recent "Wikileaks" brought to light something most observers have known for years: that insurgents including Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are openly supported by Pakistani military intelligence. This is the same military establishment that accepted $15 billion in US aid since 2001. In effect, Pakistan is using the very aid dollars America gave them to fight the insurgents to instead kill American soldiers in Afghanistan through their terrorist proxies. What a brilliantly wicked thing to do, and get away with.

General Insubordination. General Stanley McChrystal, widely thought to be a good strategist and a fine soldier, was appointed by Obama to help clean up the mess in Afghanistan. McChrystal had one fatal flaw: a total lack of respect and even disdain for the chain of command. On multiple occasions he was insubordinate, and the recent Rolling Stone article exposing the depth of this disdain for civilian control over the military was unforgivable. He was summarily fired by Obama, but we have not witnessed such open antics by a four-star wartime general in many decades. We can hope that Petraeus will bring professionalism back to the corps as we struggle on in Afghanistan.

Beyond Pathetic. BP not only caused the worst oil spill in US history, they then lied about it shamelessly for weeks on end. The company lied about the amount of oil gushing out, tried to cover up the extent of damage to the gulf waters and coastline, and were slow to help roll out solutions. The administration has worked to ensure that BP will pay out for the damage, but the company has resisted mightily all along the way, shirking on its legal duty whenever possible. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I have yet to meet someone who honestly believes that BP did all that was within its power to contain the spill.

Wall Street. The bailout happened. Debate will continue for years whether TARP actually helped us avert a bigger disaster or not. What has been made clear since 2008 is that although the banks happily took $800 billion of the government's money during the tough times they were largely responsible for creating, they had no intention of helping kick-start the economy in return. While most of the country suffered, bank executives continued to pay themselves insane bonuses even while their companies hoarded capital, and credit largely was not loosened as TARP intended. Goldman and Citibank alumni including the TARP architect, Hank Paulson were tasked with pretending to oversee their old pals. Wall street continues to have an outsize influence on the economy, with no pretense of social responsibility or of adding real value to society with honest and transparent labor and products.

We have clearly gotten away from what made America a great nation. We have lost the way in both the private sector and in government. Somehow, someway Obama and his JV team of Democrats are muddling along, steering the nation through the dense fog alone. Obama is far from perfect but that is a poor excuse for the lack of sincere help he is getting along the way.