Republicans have now presented four different, specific plans (and passed one in the House), and took part in the Gang of 6 proposal — which the Democratic leadership in the Senate now says won’t be ready for the August 2 debt-ceiling deadline anyway. Democrats in the Senate otherwise have offered nothing for the crisis, despite having control of the chamber. In his three press conferences, Obama repeatedly refused to provide detailed answers for the crisis, talking only about process.
That brings us back to Tuesday’s briefing. After Obama left, ABC’s Jake Tapper asked Carney when the president would lead by presenting his own plan to deal with the crisis for which Obama himself keeps raising the alarm. Carney then offered what seems to be the White House definition of leadership: “Leadership is not proposing a plan for the sake of having it voted up or down.”
Obama wants to define leadership as somehow not leading or taking any kind of political risks. Meanwhile, Republicans have offered an array of approaches to the issue, and have done so for months, while Democrats take the same approach to the debt and deficit issue in 2011 that they did for the FY2011 budget in 2010. Leadership may not entirely be about proposing plans for an up-or-down vote, but it almost always involves doing just that as a basic prerequisite. Obama and Democrats have abdicated leadership, while Republicans have had to govern in their retreat.