The President's plan is not a "gamble"...

The British writer Godfrey Hodgson recently wrote on openDemocracy.net that there was a "reality gap" between President Obama's plans to resolve America's economic crisis and the resistance he faces, implying that the president's "rhetorical tools" might not be up to the task and that the "political obstacles" are ferocious (http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/barack-obamas-reality-gap). Another way of putting this, to use a British reference, is that Hodgson sees congressional foxes in the way of a presidential hedgehog. The ancient Greek reference -- "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing" (revived for modern consideration by Sir Isaiah Berlin) -- is apt. The one big thing that Obama knows is that the American public has decisively rejected not only the specific policies of the previous failed Republican administration, but also Washington's culture of special interests and obstruction of the national interest, which have immobilized the political system for most of the last two generations. By trying to obstruct Obama's proposals, his Republican opponents are merely re-enacting the despised failed narrative. So the president has enormous political wind in his sails, which is predicated on far more than his "rhetorical tools" or the public's yearning that we get through the present economic crisis with the American way of life intact. Obama's proposals are not, as the pundits are now wrongly calling them, a big political gamble, because he realizes that unless his proposals are seen by the people as proportionate to their manifold discontent, their support will quickly wane. He is not gambling on a political opportunity. He is embracing a political necessity. The stakes are no higher for him than they are for his country. The people recognize that the president understands their demand for bold action. That is the reason that he has their respect and, most probably, their patience.