Why won’t Obama clarify what he wants in terms of health care reform? He identifies principles (e.g. no tax on the middle class) rather than details. And Congress seems to be confused about what to do. Why is he not stepping in to fill the gap? This is all I can think of:
(1) History: Clinton spelled out what he wanted and it was killed by the so-called “Harry and Louise” ads and Congress. If you define your plan clearly, it is easier for other players to coordinate against it. If you keep it vague, they do not what to shoot at. Obama is using vagueness strategically to keep his opponents guessing – a kind of a “mixed strategy” in an informal sense.
(2) Buy-in: By allowing Congress to make up the health care plan, he hopes to get them to buy into it and pass it.
(3) Guaranteed win: If you define your objective, it is easier for your opponents to show you lost. If you keep your objective vague, you can claim a larger set of outputs as a “win”.
The drawback is obvious: maybe what comes out of Congress is going to a big mess with lots of pork and horrible inefficiencies. A little direction could prevent that.
But the biggest mystery is the trivial one: Why the hell, if you’re so good at using intentional vagueness, did you answer the question about racial profiling so clearly? You know the Foxosphere and ANBCBSNBCNN channels are going to focus on that..or is that what you wanted you devious, devious guy…?
Cheap Talk 
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July 23, 2009 at 11:48 pm
joshjs
The above is a cynical assessment. It’s entirely possible that the president would communicate his desire for health care reform through only principles because he thinks those principles are what’s really important.
He’s claimed time and again that he wants to be inclusive. A good way to do that is to identify a goal that most everyone can agree is worth pursuing, then sit ’em all down and hammer out the best way to get there.
Sure, perhaps it’s naive to take the guy at his word. But you should at least *mention* this outlook if you’re trying to enumerate his possible intents.
July 24, 2009 at 12:59 am
John Moore
The above is a naive assessment. Obama has a tiger by the tail and doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s way, way above his pay grade.
We have a guy with zero executive experience who was never vetted by the press at all, suddenly in a position of great responsibility. He shows his unsuitability by using an internationally viewed press conference to condemn police officers in a situation he claims he knows nothing about.
When asked questions that require answers not on his telemprompter, he stumbles and makes freshman mistakes.
The guy is toast.
July 24, 2009 at 12:38 pm
mike
here we go with the teleprompter thing again
July 24, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Alex
That last point is definitely the most interesting. The science of predicting what questions will be asked at a presidential press conference should not be too difficult, especially for professional political operatives. There’s usually a good probability that somebody will ask something inflammatory, unrelated to the topic of the press conference, and big in the news.
Personally I thought it would be a question about the birth certificate but I would also imagine that if I spent my entire day doing what Robert Gibbs does I would’ve been able to see a question about the racial profiling incident coming. In that case I certainly would’ve prepped the President for such a question and if I wanted the message to be about health care, I definitely would’ve had him say something like, “We don’t know all of the facts yet and I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”
I’m inclined to believe that Gibbs (and the President) really dropped the ball on this one. The only other explanation is that they wanted to deflect the story from health care on to something else. But that’s a hard explanation to believe.
What I do think is that the fallout of this press conference is probably playing out like a typical episode of The West Wing. I wish they had hidden cameras in the White House so I could confirm that.
July 24, 2009 at 8:22 pm
John Moore
If the President was of executive quality, he wouldn’t have needed any prepping to avoid making such an inflamatory statement.