Outlook: Obama on Responsibility

It's his go-to word. His rallying cry. His credo. But will it get old?

"During his historic presidential campaign, Barack Obama assured the nation's voters that language is not just the stuff of speeches and empty rhetoric, that words matter. Six weeks into his presidency, the word that seems to matter most to Obama is 'responsibility.' The president has rarely offered a speech, introduced a new top adviser, or explained a policy proposal without invoking the words 'responsible' or 'responsibility'... It sounds great: Who doesn't want a responsible president, especially at a time of financial crisis and war? But over time, there is a risk that the word -- and the president who deploys it -- may suffer from its overuse, especially if "responsibility" moves from reassuring to lecturing, from calming to hectoring, turning this young new president into the father-knows-best figure that kids tune out, the one who insists on giving the responsibility speech before handing over the car keys on a Friday night."

Washington Post White House correspondent Michael D. Shear was online Monday, March 9 to discuss his Outlook article on what President Obama means by his frequent use of the word "responsibility" -- and how Americans are reacting to it.

A transcript follows.

Archive: Transcripts of discussions with Outlook article authors

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Michael D. Shear: Good morning everyone.

I'm happy to talk about my piece in Outlook, or anything else having to do with national politics, the crashing economy or -- my favorite -- Virginia politics.

Let's get at it.

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Kensington, Md.: Doesn't the entire premise of this article seem a bit flimsy, being as how it's based on the assumption that Obama MIGHT somehow morph into Jimmy Carter? You admit that he's hardly in that stage yet.

And when you say that people want their president to be more "optimistic," at what point does that change into "people want their president to tell them the truth?" Herbert Hoover's public pronouncements were the embodiment of optimism, and look where his reputation is now, outside of the farther reaches of the Amity Shlaes Fan Club.

Seems to me that so far Obama's doing a pretty fair job of walking the line, and that the only people really complaining much about his performance to date are the usual suspects. Of course this could change if the economy continues to plunge, but I don't see why it requires a genius to figure that out.

Michael D. Shear: Well, I certainly don't claim to be a genius, and I'm not sure the article aspired to some revelation that others couldn't figure out. In fact, one of the things that motivated me to write the piece was the chatter you can find on the blogs, etc. about his use of "responsibility."

As for "flimsy," I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. My sense was that there were some interesting points to make about the variety of ways that he uses the term, and about the dangers that are out there for a politician who overdoes something like that.

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Deer Park, Illinois: Obama talks about responsibility but is it responsible to commit so many funds to social programs before turning the economy around? Obama reminds me of a child left alone in a candy shop; he wants it all and wants it now! He's like a teenager who gets the family car for the evening, jumps in, then takes off speeding down a narrow twisting highway without fastening the seat belt!

Michael D. Shear: Deer Park expresses a thought that is found in many of the questions this morning -- the sense that President Obama's actions do not match up with his rhetoric. But Deer Park provides a fun analogy.

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Dayton, Ohio: I'm really surprised that anyone could react other than positively to the word "responsibility." Words like "integrity," "honesty," and right along with those, "responsibility," should be second-nature to all of us -- even without the President's prodding. (My household holds those values very high -- and those are the very words that I challenged my nephew with when he graduated from high school a couple of years ago.)

If what you say is even remotely true, that "...its overuse moves from reassuring to lecturing, from calming..." then, it doesn't speak poorly about our president but, speaks volumes about both the young and old in our country -- and how they could allow themselves to be turned off by such a positive word.

A very, very poor state of our country indeed, if that is the case.

Michael D. Shear: And here's the opposite view, from Dayton. There seem to be a fair number of people who are happy that the president is focusing on "responsibility."

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Arlington, Va.: How does Obama's responsibility theme jibe with the fact that he's only asking 5% of taxpayers to pay increased taxes? Why isn't the other 95% responsible?

Michael D. Shear: I believe the president and his team would say that they ARE being responsible by targeting the tax increases only at the people at the top. But that just confirms the point of my piece: the idea of responsibility is very squishy -- it can be one thing to one person and something altogether different to someone else.

One of the linguists I talked to called that a "contested concept." I thought that was a very interesting idea.

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Somewhere: The words like responsibility, transparency and others used by this administration are the result of polls taken. It has nothing to do with beliefs or values. It's what they feel we want to hear.

Michael D. Shear:

It's certainly true that candidate Obama used polling frequently to drive his campaign. And it's also true that as president, he is very aware of the polls that are out there.

I'm not sure its fair to say, however, that his use of the word is entirely driven by polls. His advisers would say it represents a core value of his, and that he's been using the idea of responsibility in a variety of ways since before he's been in public life.

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Fiscal responsibility: Um, what about those who overspent? The lenders that encourage buying on time? The easy credit cards. I'd like to see more responsibility on the consumer level.

Michael D. Shear: He does talk about this frequently, especially during the discussions about housing. Part of the debate over his housing plan centers on whether he's rewarding people who have been irresponsible. That debate will likely continue.

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Tired?: I had to laugh at your article's title and subtitle, saying to myself: OF COURSE we'll get tired of hearing "responsibility" repeated. How did we get where we are now? No group as self-centered as many Americans would want to be reminded of their responsibilities beyond themselves...

Michael D. Shear: This is an interesting take. I wonder if other folks agree? Are Americans basically self-centered, and thus are doomed to get tired of hearing "responsibility"?

Or are we at a place in our history -- the economy crashing, etc -- where we are ready to hear it. That's what Obama's aides believe. Are they deluding themselves?

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Does he get it?: I like Obama. Stood in line for hours to vote for the man...

But before he utters the world RESPONSIBILITY one more time, he needs to put OUR MONEY where his mouth is, and acknowledge and STOP the atrocities that firms like AIG are committing daily by LOOTING the public coffers for untold billions, which both Congress and the President know is BEING FUNNELED RIGHT OUT THE BACK DOOR to the same sleazy brokerage firms that got us INTO THIS SICKENING MESS!!!!

Show us you "get it," Obama. We want perp walks, we want jail sentences, and we want you to STOP SPENDING OUR MONEY to keep failed business models propped up, when we all know it will ultimately FAIL!!!!!!

This is such an outrage!

Michael D. Shear: Here it is: the anger that's out there about the money that is being spent to bail out Wall Street. There's little doubt that many people out there resent the fact that so many billions are being spent on the very banks that made so many bad bets -- some would say, they were acting "irresponsibly."

That's part of the challenge for the new president -- how to pursue policies that appear to reward irresponsibility (bankers, homebuyers who bought beyond their means) without angering people too much.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: "How does Obama's responsibility theme jibe with the fact that he's only asking 5% of taxpayers to pay increased taxes? Why isn't the other 95% responsible?"

Really quite simple: The vast majority of those 95% have been relatively stagnant for 30 years, while the fortunes of the top 5%, particularly the top 1% have skyrocketed. It's called rebalancing our national portfolio.

Michael D. Shear: Here's one answer to the question about the 5 percent. I'm sure there are people out there who disagree, who would say that "rebalancing our national portfolio" is another way of saying "redistribution of wealth" or even "socialism."

It gets to a very central argument in our country right now -- one that seemed more settled during the last 30 years as conservative principles dominated. President Obama is reopening the question, though he would vehemently disagree with the idea that he is pursuing socialist ideas.

In fact, in a conversation with New York Times reporters last week, he explicitly defended his actions as completely consistent with the free market.

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Baltimore, Md.: The poster who excoriated the government for funneling money to AIG would benefit, as I did, from hearing a report on ABC News last week about why the company keeps getting money. An economist said that AIG is right now the center of the spider's web created by the international dealings in so called credit default swaps, which the company insured. The biggest banks in the world are on the line for those swaps and, if their insurance isn't covered, their books essentially fall away to nothing, which means a complete freeze not just on credit markets, but on people's personal savings and checking accounts. Yes, it's a damn shame. But going back to bartering and living off the land would be essentially the only option.

Michael D. Shear: This is an example of the quandary the president is in. If he lets a company like AIG fail, is that the responsible thing to do? In one way, it is, because you could make the argument that the executives at the company acted irresponsibly by taking too many risks with other people's money.

On the other hand, if the experts are right and the failure of AIG would topple thousands of companies, big and small, putting millions out of work and deepening the recession, then maybe letting them fail is not the responsible thing to do.

I'm not offering an opinion here about which is right. But I think it's an example of how "responsibility" is not an easy word to define.

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Richmond, Va.: Obama does seem to be the type, who despite all his pronouncements about responsibilty, wants to please everybody and pass every Democratic spending program. He may be forgetting that he chiefly won the election because of the economic crisis, which means he must take an even more responsible stance as a political leader. For instance, he talks about bipartisanship to Republican leaders, but he also wants to please the big spending, left-wing Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.

Michael D. Shear: Richmond is expressing the sentiment of a number of people who have sent in questions today. It's a frustration with the spending advocated by the president.

What do others think? Is the spending an example of irresponsibility on the president's part?

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Retroactive Responsibility?: How about holding those who got us into this mess the past 8 + years accountable? Why not start by the print media challenging (shaming?) the broadcast media for being so lazy and incompetent by continuing to feature the overabundance of failed blowhard pundits, commentators and politicians who actually are known crooks and liars (DeLay, Gingrich, et al) not to mention big fat Hypocrites and talking point spinners (Carlson, etc)!

For some that little concept means throwing the doors/ windows/governmental records wide open and letting the sunshine in.

in fact: Transparency + responsibility + accountability just might add up to a little bit of old-fashioned justice.

But I guess that would all be too much work and just not cynical enough to generate 'drama' and 'conflict' for the infotainment quotient, eh?

Michael D. Shear: Well, I'm not in the business of challenging or shaming my colleagues, print or broadcast. But I do see my job as holding the government accountable. I started covering the White House in January, and I'm certainly hoping that all of us in the media hold President Obama's feet to the fire as the results of his policies become clear. If the economy recovers because of the actions he's taking, we should report that and give those actions credit. If not, we should report that too and make sure everyone knows.

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Washington, D.C.: Michael, How much change did you make on your job with less than 100 days experience?

Michael D. Shear: Good point, Washington. The president deserves a chance to show that his actions are going to work, and that means giving him some time. But even the White House would not argue with the idea that everything is playing out more quickly than it has in the past, and that includes the idea that Obama should be judged more quickly, too.

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Silver Spring, Md.: After 28 years of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush it's about time someone talked to Americans about responsibility. Reagan, Bush, and Bush rang up $9 trillion of America's $11 trillion debt with their irresponsible spending. They essentially put every American on welfare, with no one paying the bills.

So 8 years of Obama's responsibility talk will not be enough. No one should take offense after just 6 weeks.

Americans are scared. They are losing their jobs, their houses, their retirements because of the irresponsible words and actions of our past leaders. In such circumstances don't you think Americans will listen to a president who talks about America's responsibility to take care of all Americans?

Michael D. Shear: Another example of a frequent idea: blaming former President Bush for the problems the country faces. I've gotten a bunch of these kinds of statements.

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Pennsylvania: Of course people would prefer to hear about "solutions" as opposed to "responsibility". That's exactly why focus on "responsibility" is appropriate and vital at this time. The "responsibility" for the economic crisis is broad and deep -- shared by business, government and the people. All have been irresponsible as we have built this house of cards of excesses -- easy credit, corporate greed, living beyond our means, excessive borrowing, blind eye regulatory philosophies, etc. There's plenty of irresponsibility to go around. The hole we have dug is deep and getting deeper. There will be no easy solutions, only a slow climb out. One look at the history of the 1930's depression should make that obvious to all.

So the bottom line is that we all need to be "responsible" now. What does that mean? First, it means understanding that there is no magic "solution". This may come hard to people who have never been called on to do more than "go shopping" as a response to crisis. It will also mean being "responsible" enough to be patient. This recovery will be slow and there will be mistakes and need for readjustment as we go forward. It will be easy to be diverted by the partisan blame game and by the sensation-focused talking heads on conservative and liberal cable networks and radio stations.

The "loyal opposition" has a "responsibility", too, and lately they have been falling short to say the least. First, they need to put a clamp on the idea that hoping for failure is somehow OK, because this would demonstrate that their ideology is superior. What could be more irresponsible than that? They may well be punished for this stratagem, but that leaves an even more important challenge for Republicans. They need to think some more before reflexively regurgitating the same old conservative dogma that got us into this mess in the first place -- now and in the 1930s. The voters explained this to them in November. Their adherence to this failed creed in the face of its demonstrated results is astounding and certainly not "responsible".

That leaves the issue of columnists like you. This column, like so many others, is focused on the easy baby food issues of process. Process is something that readers can grasp, especially when it seeks blame by tossing about the prospects of easier "solutions" and pointing out errors, mistakes and worse. If you want to be "responsible," start talking about the substantive issues. Educate the public. Don't just inflame them. Help create realistic expectations, not false hopes. This would be "responsible".

I think Obama is on the right track with this theme.

Michael D. Shear: Pennsylvania gets the award for the longest post. How could I not use this one after all the work.

I'm also going to sign off now. Thanks for all the great questions and comments.

I look forward to chatting again after my next Outlook piece. And I chat every other week or so during the daily political chat.

Mike

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