Christmas 2010

Well now, it looks like president Obama is having a very nice Christmas season. This president, who the political class had dismissed as whiny and weak, has suddenly turned out to be savvy and strong, and Santa Claus is treating him as not naughty but nice. Obama is getting things done and people, including Republicans, are recognizing it.

Something is happening, and it looks much deeper than "politics as usual." The presents are turning up under our political Christmas tree in the form of progress or passage of: the tax bill, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the 9/11 health-care bill, the food safety act, and possibly even the START treaty. That's just this week and in a short lame-duck session. And most important, none of this could have been done without some Republican help. What happened?

That's a good question because the gridlock, antagonism and petulance were and still are pervasive. President Obama took office with 80 percent of people believing we as a country were going in the wrong direction. Most still believe that. It is not that we have a simple disagreement over some issue that can be solved by a different political movement taking control. The consensus says we're in trouble whoever is running the show.

Obama recognizes that but believes more specifically that our political process itself is broken. Obama believes that restoring the political process itself is more important than anything else on our political agenda. Other things will just have to wait.

The president has not yet convinced the political class that this is the problem. The political parties, movements and interest groups are all hung up on specific answers to specific problems. The political parties point to their inability to respond to their constituencies. The Tea Partiers accuses government of denying them the American dream with high taxes, big government and overregulation. For others it is the government getting in the way or failing to act on a wide range of challenges: the environment, our educational system, free trade and trade agreements, the gutting of our manufacturing base, our health-care system, the aging of our population, the banks, Social Security and Medicare trust funds and the debt and deficit.

Traditionally, political leaders are supposed to use the political process, negotiation and mutual accommodation, to put together the coalitions that solve problems. That's politics and the process is supposedly well-known and accepted. The negotiation is supposed to be over content. Obama thinks that the broken process and the approach it demands are more basic than can be handled with "politics as usual."

Everyone seems to have noticed by now that Barack Obama is not your normal politician. He did not begin his presidency with a frenetic 100 days as some wanted him to and others feared he would. The left faulted him for not using his mandate and the right accused him of socialism. The political class began to believe he was nothing more than a naïve glamour boy, not tough enough for the job.

President Obama did indeed eschew the power brokering and horse trading of politics. That's because he sees himself as our community organizer-in-chief and he looks at our society the way a professional community organizer would look at a dysfunctional family or neighborhood. The real problem is a lack of communication and an absence of civil discourse. You have to solve that first.

Obama insisted, rebuff after rebuff, in approaching the Republican leadership. He had to tie himself into all kinds of knots to get them to a real negotiation. He also had to give a lot. But Obama finally got the Republicans to the table talking, making concessions and attending signings. If he had to give that much, he felt getting the broken system working again was more important than anything he might have to give.

We may have turned a corner in Obama's nation sized family therapy program. The stimulus package and healthcare were like a steady job and family health insurance. You did those first to stabilize the situation. Then you start the family talking, sharing and doing something therapeutic, maybe even singing Christmas carols.

To get back to this Christmas. The kids don't want anything fancy like a Flexible Flyer, a dollhouse or, more probably, a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. They want mommy and daddy to stop fighting and get to responsible parenting where they will pay the bills, make the kids feel secure and do the other necessary parental chores, like cleaning up the house.

Let's hope and pray that this Christmas President Obama is starting our family on its way to a happy, healthy and holy Christmas, and a healthy politics.