Obama's Lawyerly Governing Style and the Public Anger of the Moment

Obama's legal training and his political leadership

Under the pressure of the colossal, zany domestic and global financial crisis, President Obama's governing style is coming to view. An individual with a culturally, ethnically, and geographically diverse background and with multiple talents and thus multiple prospective avenues for success (e. g., writer, president, fashion model, but not a professional bowler), Obama even into his forties never formed a permanent, well-defined identity. Somewhat chameleon-like, he had his eye open to varied routes and positions for upward mobility and adapted to certain opportunities and situations as they came his way. This is not to say, he was shallow or had no firm values and ideals. It's just that the nature of who he was by birth and the somewhat marginalized position dealt to him inculcated such resources as flexibility and keeping options open.

In the incomparably visible position of president, however, under the pressure of the financial crisis, and having to respond to varied individuals and interest groups, Obama has been constrained to manifest a comportment more consistent, prolonged, and integrated than any manifest during is earlier years of moving among schools and regions, holding different positions, and pursuing his presidential campaign. (Come to think of it, did Obama ever pursue a career?) Naturally and inevitably, basic characteristics of Obama are seen in this comportment. Nonetheless, such conduct as president could not be inferred from his demonstrated basic characteristics. Given Obama's (and any successful national politician's) somewhat chameleon-like nature, the conduct may be like an improvisation to help get the country through the severe financial crisis. Or it may be a surfacing of his native leadership style he will display throughout his time a president.

Obama's training as a lawyer has not received much scrutiny as a key to what was often commented on during his presidential campaign as him being an "unknown." This quality was the basis for both criticisms from his opponents that he was a "celebrity" (i. e., superficial) candidate and also hopefulness in his supporters that he would be a bringer of change. But putting aside all of the heterogeneity of Obama's background and the defenses and adaptations of the presidential campaign, what is most consistent and foundational in Obama's life is his involvement with the law. He sought out law school at one of the most prestigous law schools in the country, Harvard; and he was editor of the school's Law Journal. After Harvard, he took a position at the Univerity of Chicago School of Law. Then there is the anecdote during the campaign where when Obama learned about a relative of his (in Boston, as I recall) who was possibly in the U.S. illegally, he said he had sympathy for her, but stressed that the relevant law should apply to the relative's situation.

Obama's postmodern, composite make-up (like a collage, the paradigmatic postmodern art form) was at least centered, though apparently self-consciously given ground by his attraction to law. This rootedness in the law; reliance on its role. mechanics, and techniques; and trust in its integrating, generally salutary effects is discerned in Obama's leadership in the financial troubles.

Apart from their work of representing clients and conducting cases in the courts, lawyers in general see themselves as providing the valuable social service of protecting the economic upper echelons from the mass of lower strata; or from protecting society's haves from the much greater number of have-nots. In this, lawyers see themselves as standing for and fulfilling the prime American ideal of fairness. It is by seeing themselves in this light that many lawyers rationalize whatever lies they purport and whatever deceptions they execute. They are serving the high ideal of fairness, so they reason. In many cases though, the socially desirable democratic wont of protecting society's upper echelons from the passions and unruliness of the lower strata in the name of fairness is virtually indistiguishable from insulating the upper echelons from repercussions of their own mischievous and destructive passions and their own unruliness. The deceptions lawyers weave distancing the upper echelons from the passions of the lower classes in the name of fairness are virtually indistinguishable from disguise of the aberrations and crimes of the upper echelons.

No one is suggesting that Obama is purporting lies or weaving deceptions. It is his role he appears to have taken on for himself which reflects nothing so much as the lawyer's assumed role of keeping at bay the passions of the lower socioeconomic strata so that such passions have no or have minimal effect on the upper echelons whatever their wrongs or whatever their crimes. This keeping at bay in Obama's political leadership in the financial crisis, as in the field of law, is accomplished for the most part by process. This process for keeping at bay--mostly by the expectation or promise of a socially acceptable outcome--inherently favors the upper echelons in that it insulates them.

Obama has commented that the public's anger be "channeled." Channeled? Be channeled where? Be channeled to what effects? to what end? Obama's advice for anger to be channeled is actually a plea for patience, another virtue usually of most benefit to the well-positioned.

Anger of the present magnitude toward the financial and social crimes of such magnitude is not to be channeled, it is to be instrumental. Obama should work on how best and where to direct the anger, not on how to divert or exhaust it.

also posted at The Obama Moment website