I’ve never interviewed Barack Obama, and I probably never will. If I did, however, it would probably run something like this:
I enter his office, where he is waiting.
C: Good morning, Mr. President! Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.
O: It’s always good to talk with a fellow lawyer.
C: It’s interesting that you say that, because the thrust of one of my posts was that you approached foreign policy issues in the manner of a litigation attorney–you were always looking for the fastest, cheapest, and least risky way to deal with them.
O: There’s probably something to that.
C: My plan is to handle this in two parts. In the first part, I’ll be asking questions about domestic politics. Then we’ll take a break, and then come back and talk about foreign policy and the current state of the country.
O: OK.
C: I’d like to start by asking you a deceptively simple question: why did you run for president in 2008? You certainly don’t come across as someone who needs power to boost his ego, and there were other candidates in the race with better paper qualifications.
O: Chuckles slightly. I thought the country needed me. I thought I had a unique ability to bring the parties together. I thought Hillary, for all of her good qualities, was a divisive figure, and I figured I had a better chance to bring the country together.
C: At the risk of sounding like Sarah Palin, how’s that working out for ya?
O: With a wry smile. Obviously, my efforts to bring the country together were a failure. There’s nothing about my presidency that I regret more than that.
C: Why do you think that happened? Was there anything you could have done, but didn’t?
O: Well, a few of my comments, like the “bitter” line, were a mistake. Mostly, however, I underestimated the cynicism of my opponents, and how hard the job was.
C: My theory is that everything about you–and I don’t just mean being an African-American–didn’t play well with rural America. You were cool, well-educated, and cosmopolitan. You liked Jay-Z. You were quintessentially urban. There was nothing you could do about that.
O: There’s probably something to that, too.
C: Did you perceive that you had any major policy differences with Hillary?
O: No. On the one issue we did have, the individual mandate, I wound up agreeing with her. It was all a matter of personalities and approaches to government, not policy.
C: If she had been elected in 2008 instead of you, do you think the country would be very different today?
O: Probably not, although our approaches to foreign policy were somewhat different.
C: Let’s move forward to 2009. I have always thought that the auto company bailout had to be one of your most difficult decisions, because it didn’t touch anything that you discussed during the campaign, and there was no template for it. Do you agree?
O: Absolutely. All of my instincts told me not to do it. On the other hand, it was clear that if the car companies failed, millions of jobs were going to disappear, and if we learned one thing from FDR, it was that you had to throw away the rulebook and be willing to try unusual things to keep the country afloat in a crisis. That’s what we did, and I don’t regret it. The recession might have turned into a genuine depression if we had taken the easy route and done nothing.
C: I personally view the bailout as a huge accomplishment. The country didn’t even lose much money on it. Do you agree?
O: Yes, absolutely. Although it just encouraged Fox News to call me a socialist.
C: Then there’s the stimulus. You know that people like Paul Krugman are critical of you for not advocating a much larger stimulus. How do you respond to that?
O: If we had had better information about the state of the economy in real time, and if we had had GOP support for a greater stimulus, then he would have a point. Neither of those things was true. We did the best we could under the actual conditions we had.
C: Were you surprised at the lack of GOP support for your agenda?
O: Yes. I knew about McConnell’s statement about making me a one-term president, but I really thought the Republicans would learn something from the election and work with me to solve our problems. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
C: In retrospect, should you have been tougher with them earlier on?
O: Not in 2009. My brand, as it were, was to bring the country together. It would have been hypocritical of me to turn into a partisan before I tried everything else. Besides, I actually believed what I said in the campaign. You can make a case that I should have been tougher on them after 2010, though.
C: What do you think about the process of approving ACA, in retrospect? Could it have been done more smoothly?
O: I’m sure we made some mistakes, but the bottom line is that passing important legislation is an inherently messy business. Just look at the mess that the Republicans have made on health care and tax reform.
C: Is there anything you would like to change about the legislation itself?
O: It would have been better with a public option, but that wasn’t possible. The votes weren’t there.
C: Some critics have suggested that it was a mistake to spend so much energy on health care so early in the process. Do you agree, in retrospect?
O: No. Health care was, and is, a huge issue for working and middle class people in this country. The Democratic Party has been determined to fix it since Truman was president. I don’t regret making it such a high priority. It made a difference in the lives of lots of people.
C: Any regrets about cap-and-trade?
O: I’m afraid it’s a problem without a practical solution. The GOP won’t vote for it because it’s a regulation, and it affects the financial interests of their core supporters. Democrats from energy-producing states won’t vote for it, because it would be political suicide. The two put together are an unbeatable force.
C: My guess is that you’re proud of what you did with energy investments and regulations. Am I right about that?
O: In the big picture, I’m afraid we didn’t do nearly enough to deal with climate change. That said, I pushed the envelope as far as I could, and I think the investments and regulations helped. I don’t think Trump can reverse that, no matter how hard he tries.
C: Were you surprised by the outcome of the 2010 election?
O: Mildly, yes. But change is hard, and the economic improvement was slower that we wanted. In retrospect, it wasn’t really surprising at all.
C: Let’s talk about the Grand Bargain. The current theory is that the deficit doesn’t matter, and that the whole idea of entitlement reform was a big political mistake, because it demoralized the base. Do you agree?
O: People say that today because the Social Security and Medicare trust funds aren’t broke yet, and because interest rates are still low. We’re not paying a price for the deficit yet. That won’t last forever, and then what? The issue may be sleeping, but it’s not dead. Plus, we would have gotten some badly-needed infrastructure improvements out of the deal. I would try it again.
C: Did anything about the 2012 election surprise you?
O: I wasn’t surprised that Romney was the nominee. I admit that I was taken aback when I called him out for lying about his tax plan during the first debate, and it didn’t work. Other than that, no.
C: If Romney had won in 2012, we would probably be in his second term today, instead of Trump’s first. Would the country be better off?
O: Much as I hate to admit it, you could make a case for that. Romney would have been competent, and he wouldn’t have tried to split the country apart.
C: Your second term was characterized mostly by unilateral action in the face of legislative gridlock and inaction. You have been criticized for Caesarism for doing that. How do you respond?
O: I learned two things from my first term. One, the only way you could get Republicans to do anything positive was to create leverage. And two, doing nothing just demoralized my supporters–it didn’t win any goodwill from the other side. And so I pushed the envelope as far as I could. But we always tried to stay within the limits of the law.
C: Are you concerned today that those efforts helped open the door for the right-wing equivalent?
O: Yes, but what else was I supposed to do? Watch the dream wither and die? Be Herbert Hoover? That’s not me.
C: With that, it’s time to take a break.