Sometimes it seems as if Barack Obama, pegged early on as a great communicator, seems more comfortable playing the great equivocator.
He draws few lines in the policy sand. He rarely sticks his neck out for clarity's sake. He's never so brash as to proclaim himself "the decider."
Rather than get out in front of Congress on most issues, the President prefers prodding its members from behind. If the buck stops with him, he makes sure it is dirtied by plenty of other hands before it gets to his desk.
The day after Mr. Obama tabled a $3.7-trillion (U.S.) budget for the 2012 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, he found himself on the defensive throughout an hour-long press conference Tuesday for failing to send a clear road map to Congress for how to fix America's long-term fiscal mess.
"Where is your leadership on that issue and when are we going to see your plan?" Associated Press reporter Ben Feller asked the President.
Why, NBC's Chuck Todd wondered, did he appoint a commission to come up with solutions to the fiscal quagmire only to disregard its majority report calling for $4-trillion in cuts over the next decade?
"You had a majority consensus to do all this? Why not grab it?"
The "blunt answer," explained Michael Dimock, associate director of the Pew Research Center in Washington, "is that the public was not that supportive of that deficit commission."
Indeed, a recent Pew poll showed that, while 70 per cent of voters think the deficit is a "major problem that must be addressed right away," all of the so-called Simpson-Bowles commission's main recommendations are non-starters with the U.S. public.
Almost three-quarters oppose making employer-provided health insurance a taxable benefit; the same proportion is against raising taxes on gasoline. About two-thirds say "no" to higher medicare premiums, while almost 60 per cent oppose raising the Social Security retirement age.
Still, Mr. Obama insisted he has not "shelved" the commission's recommendations, but intends to work with both parties in Congress to draft a comprehensive plan to put the country on a sustainable fiscal track.
"This is a process in which each side, in both chambers of Congress, go back and forth and start trying to whittle their differences down until we arrive at something that has an actual chance of passage," the President told reporters. "My goal here is to actually solve this problem. It's not to get a good headline on the first day."
Reporters find answers like this infuriating, bereft of either passion or principle. Politically speaking, however, bland can work.
"It is very much characteristic of Mr. Obama's leadership style," Mr. Dimock noted. "Whether that's just the way he is, or whether it's strategic, a case could be made that it's a style that has done well for him."
His midterm election "shellacking" notwithstanding, Mr. Obama has repeatedly surprised pundits by winning major legislative victories on health-care reform, a $900-billion quasi-stimulus package of tax cuts and enriched unemployment benefits negotiated with Republicans in December and ending the ban on gays serving openly in the military.
He has a chance to prove himself again.
Well before he hunkers down with Republicans to tackle the country's structural deficit – which, left untouched, would add about $9-trillion to the $14-trillion federal debt by 2021 – the President must come to an agreement with GOP leaders to keep the government running after March 4.
Republicans are refusing to extend government funding beyond that date unless the White House agrees to more than $60-billion in cuts for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year. The proposed GOP cuts take direct aim at some of Mr. Obama's signature policies, including federal aid to majority black colleges and funding to implement the President's health-care and financial reform laws.
Failure to reach a deal before March 4 could result in a government shutdown similar to the one that paralyzed the federal apparatus in 1995. Back then, a Democratic president refused to give in to Republican demands for bigger budget cuts. Politically, Bill Clinton emerged the winner, as voters blamed the GOP for its intransigence.
Late Tuesday, the White House put out a statement indicating the President would veto the Republican budget proposals if they land on his desk as is. The terse release went farther than Mr. Obama dared in his press conference only a few hours earlier. The March 4 deadline just got serious.
In depicting Republicans as the unreasonable ones – indeed, their cuts would immediately choke dozens of federal agencies and programs – the White House seeks to portray the President as the voice of reason.
After all, it's worked for him before – even if reporters hate it.
Konrad Yakabuski