Obama's incompetence

Richard Baehr

Not for the first time in recent memory, reporters are describing this past week as the worst one for U.S. President Barack Obama since he took office. It is easy to see why. A new word is also beginning to enter the discourse surrounding Obama's performance: incompetence.

The signature achievement of Obama's first term was the passage (or jam through) of the ill-named Affordable Care Act. Due to mandates for coverage imposed by the administration, the act, more commonly known and derided as "Obamacare," will make health insurance, in the new individual exchanges that are being set up, less affordable for many more people, particularly young people, than the number it assists in obtaining or purchasing insurance at a lower price.

This past week, in the face of a solid wall of opposition, the administration retreated and announced that it would suspend the mandate for employers of companies with 50 or more workers, employed 30 hours or more a week, to provide health insurance coverage. The employer mandate was pushed back until 2015, instead of taking effect in 2014.

In addition to mass confusion on how the hours requirement would be calculated, it was already clear that the only thing the mandate has accomplished so far was to lead some companies to reduce the hours of their work force in anticipation of implementation, to keep their head count under 50, or to put off hiring. Most large companies (well over 90 percent) already provide health insurance coverage to their employees. But smaller companies, one of the engines for growth in the economy, are less likely to do so.

2014 was already shaping up as a difficult year for the Democratic Party. Several long-serving Democratic senators from Republican-leaning or competitive states, had announced their retirement: West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana, Iowa and Michigan. In addition, other Democrats, elected in the 2008 wave that accompanied Obama's decisive victory, will face voters again in 2014 in states such as Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas and North Carolina -- all of which lean slightly or heavily toward the GOP. It appears possible for the Republicans to pick up the six seats they need to take control of the Senate.

In the U.S. House, Republicans already hold a majority (234-201) and most observers believe that due to skillful redistricting, and the reduced number of truly competitive House districts, the GOP is favored to retain control in 2014. It is now a virtual certainty that the Republicans will use the president's problems in implementing Obamacare as a major issue in the upcoming campaigns and place Democrats who supported or support the legislation on the defensive.

The decision to suspend the employer mandate for a year was seen as an attempt by the administration to prevent a slowdown in hiring in 2014 that would be blamed on Obamacare. It may well be, however, that the decision will instead lead to greater pressure on the president to delay other parts of the act, including the individual mandate, beyond 2014. Some questioned the constitutionality of the president's decision to unilaterally delay implementation of a portion of the act on his own accord, and without the concurrence of Congress. It is highly unlikely that Republicans would provide Obama with a legislative escape hatch for his predicament, so Obamacare may be back in the courthouse again shortly.

The biggest story of the week however, was the Egyptian military coup that removed Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi from power following demonstrations by millions of Egyptians. A large majority of the population, according to opinion polls, had given up on Morsi, as the country's economic collapse intensified.

While this was going on, Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood allies worked on other matters, consolidating their control and power over all institutions in the country, so as to rapidly move Egypt toward becoming an Islamist state.

Morsi's ouster dealt a blow to Obama, who has made outreach to Islamists including the Muslim Brotherhood a key policy initiative of his administration. The president had joined the ranks of those who pushed Morsi's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, out of power in 2011, but then seemed to signal that in the upcoming election, the Muslim Brotherhood, a party with a long history of intense enmity toward the U.S. and other Western democracies, was an acceptable party to lead the government.

When opposition to Morsi and his policies became stronger, the U.S. appeared to have Morsi's back. U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson discouraged the 12 million Coptic Christians, already under assault from the new government and its supporters on the streets, from participating in anti-regime demonstrations. The actions on Friday by the military seemed to suggest they had no fear of possible negative repercussions on relations with the U.S. as a result of the coup, basically telling Obama he was irrelevant.

Cairo was the site of Obama's 2009 address to the Muslim world, in which he legitimized the Muslim Brotherhood as a political actor in the country. It was part of a more generalized campaign by the American president and his team to make nice with other enemies of the U.S., such as Iran and the Taliban. There was more than a touch of hubris in all this -- no one could reject entreaties by Barack Obama, the Nobel prize winner, and leader of the U.S., if not the world .

Some critics think the administration needs to urgently reappraise its policies and honestly evaluate where it went wrong, but that scenario is not likely. After all, Obama can always find a way to try to blame George Bush for his own mistakes.

As for the decision to back the Muslim Brotherhood, Middle East scholar Barry Rubin writes: "There has still not been anything close to an agonizing reappraisal of what has been done, said, and thought."

So let's see: Is the U.S. supporting an unpopular dictatorship? Yes. Is it backing a country that is making a mess of development and impoverishing the nation? Yes. A country threatening its neighbors? Oppressing minorities and women? Yes. Are truly pro-democratic people marching in the streets denouncing the U.S. for selling them out? Yes. Is it a policy for which an American president will apologize in future? Yes. As one Egyptian Christian tweeted: "I must confess this: One of the most painful moments for us was when we discovered that official U.S. did not support us but the Islamists. And this time it is also on top of all that backing a regime that hates the United States, even as it sends it hundreds of millions in weapons and aid, too!"

Former State Department official Elliott Abrams is also critical of Obama's bungling, but does not believe the U.S. should now be endorsing the military coup. Abrams argues that the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is good news for U.S. interests, and bad news for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Qataris, both of whom have been pushing the Islamist wave in the region with Obama's tacit, if not warm support:

"The Obama administration has mishandled Egypt from the day it took office. First it embraced Mubarak, whom Hillary Clinton called a 'family friend,' and took no stand against his human-rights violations and increasingly unpopular effort to insert his son Gamal as his successor. When Mubarak fell, the White House was off balance but decided to embrace Morsi with equal enthusiasm. Again, human-rights violations were ignored; Morsi's prosecutions of journalists and activists for 'insulting the president' -- more numerous in his one year than Mubarak had racked up in 30 -- were not protested.

"So today Egyptians believe we were pro-Morsi and wanted him both to stay in office and to accrue more personal power. This is a self-inflicted wound from which we will now have to recover. But who is in charge in Washington? ... Has Obama learned anything from this policy debacle?"

While Egypt exploded this week, Secretary of State John Kerry was once again feeding his Israeli Palestinian peace process obsession. Has Obama sentenced him to this purgatory to keep him from a real policymaking role?

It is unclear if the turn toward Islamists was Obama's personal policy decision or one that came form the cadre of "experts" including Muslim Brotherhood friendly people who have found a home in the administration.The president may need some more travel excursions in the weeks ahead to try to change the subject as his authority and respect unravel by the day.