And you wonder why Obama's favorability ratings are in the dumps:
WASHINGTON—U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday committed to urge lawmakers to back a bill giving trade deals a fast track through Congress...
Speaking to business leaders, he acknowledged differences within his own Democratic Party on free trade agreements that he supports and said he would also make the case to unions that trade brought benefits for workers.
A bill to give the Obama administration so-called fast-track power, which would allow only yes-or-no votes on trade deals in Congress without amendments, has been stuck all year....
"It should help move TPA along both because it will help persuade wavering Democrats that supporting it is the right thing to do and because it will demonstrate to Republicans that the president is willing to wade into the fight," said Bill Reinsch, National Foreign Trade Council president.
Analysts say fast-track authority would persuade other countries to make their best offers during negotiations, secure in the knowledge that any pact could not be reopened by Congress....
Obama said free trade is "tough politics" among some lawmakers because many Americans feel their wages and income have stagnated as a result of foreign trade.
He said his argument to U.S. labor unions and environmental groups concerned about the impact of free-trade agreements is that new trade deals, such as the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership, will help raise labor and environmental standards.
"Part of my argument to Democrats is: don't fight the last war," Obama told the Business Roundtable, noting that companies wanting to move offshore for cheaper labor had probably already done so.
Fifty percent of Americans think trade destroys jobs and 45 percent think it lowers wages, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center. Obama said anti-trade sentiment had also increased among Republicans....
I'd think that if it were really the case that this "free trade" bill really "will help raise labor and environmental standards" and "that trade brought benefits for workers" there wouldn't be any reason to keep its terms a state secret from the public and from the Congress that has to answer to the public. There wouldn't be any reason to keep it a secret from the public until the very last moment. There wouldn't be any need to tie the hands of lawmakers to keep them from changing any part of what the business lobbyists have written to benefit themselves and their clients.
Is all the other free trade agreements have led all the businesses who want to offshore already, so don't worry about it really a good argument for making yet another one?
Why doesn't the president want to articulate the principles and vision of the party of which he is the leader instead of demonstrating to Republicans that he's willing to wade into the fight for theirs?
It's sad that an op-ed like this one even needs to be written, but clearly it does:
Every great president since George Washington has also been a great partisan.
President Obama, however, has been reluctant to present himself as a partisan, much less as the leader of a party....
Obama too often seems to see himself standing apart from both parties.... He aspired to an elevated, post-partisan plateau from which partisan conflict looked like a petty and self-defeating distraction from the interests of the nation....
In the most noble image of politics, parties would not be necessary; if only people had all the facts, they would all agree. But politics is not a science — it is a contest. The program advanced by Obama (and his party) is controversial. Facts are necessary to persuade people. But a fight, and a party leader who attends to that fight, is also required....
It means rallying those who are already disposed to agree by invoking the great goals and purposes that define the party....
Clearly, in Obama’s view — and that of his party, going back to FDR — government is what enables citizens to stand together to share risks that the most vulnerable cannot successfully shoulder individually. It is what allows the people to act together to solve problems. This is not a policy, though it leads to particular policies, such as immigration reform. It is a public philosophy.
Presidents need to convey the public philosophy that defines their presidencies and their party. When presidents succeed, they leave behind not only discrete policies but also energetic parties that carry on the work.
For his policies to endure, Obama will have to succeed in the role that to this point he has disdained: leader of his party....
What his party needs from him...[is] a potent articulation of its ideals and goals.
Trade deals that undermine workers' rights, environmental protections, and legislative integrity itself are about the furthest thing from articulating the great historical ideals and goals of the Democratic Party that it's possible to get.