Facilitator of Change

Ryan Lizza notes that although many hoped Barack Obama would be someone “who reshapes public opinion and the political landscape with his charisma and his powers of persuasion.”

“Instead, Obama has turned out to be… ‘a facilitator of change.’ The facilitator is acutely aware of the constraints of public opinion and Congress. He is not foolish enough to believe that one man, even one invested with the powers of the Presidency, can alter the fundamentals of politics… Directors are more like revolutionaries. Facilitators are more like tacticians. Directors change the system. Facilitators work the system. Obama’s first three years as President are the story of his realization of the limits of his office, his frustration with those constraints, and, ultimately, his education in how to successfully operate within them. A close look at the choices Obama made on domestic policy, based on a review of hundreds of pages of internal White House documents, reveals someone who is canny and tough–but who is not the President his most idealistic supporters thought they had elected.”