President Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod has two general demeanors, and he tends to demean to the extremes: friends say he can be anxious, very very anxious; or he can be serene; very very serene. There have been moments, over these past eight months, when Axelrod has seemed very anxious -- anxious to point where his friends were worried for his health and told him about their concerns. He took two weeks off in August, and his serenity, it seems, has returned. When Axelrod is serene, he worries about the long game, not the short game.
Tonight, as the featured guest of ABC News's Charles Gibson, the serene Axelrod was on display. "The great challenge if you're governing is to take the longer view, and to not get consumed by the maelstrom, and I think Obama is uniqutely suited to that," he said. In the long view, he said, the politically parlous stimulus package spent a lot of the president's political capital but, in Axelrod's view, saved the economy from complete collapse. It may have hindered his legislative agenda down the line, Axelrod acknowledged. "I think history will say that he did what you wanted the President of the United States to do and put the country's interests ahead of political interests."
How does Obama make decisions, Gibson wanted to know?
Axelrod used two words that he often uses to answer these questions: Obama is "methodical" and "pragmatic." Axelrod began to talk about the day that Obama decided to temporarily take over the auto industry. Obama had just come from a national security briefing where he was told that North Korea was likely to launch a nuclear weapon. He had spent the past 24 hours absorbing thousands of pages of briefing material. Axelrod said that Obama, in a meeting with economic advisers, gamed out situations -- and "he didn't want these companies to be the wards of the state." Gibson wondered whether the auto industry and the banks were held to different standards. At one point in the meeting, Obama said, according to Axelrod, "I think I've heard enough."
Gibson asked Axelrod why he, the president's political adviser, was sitting in Wednesday's meeting about Afghanistan. "I don't define myself as the presdident's political adviser. My job is to help him and the administration communicate the messages that he wants to communicate. ... I was not a participant, but I certainly was an observer to it." I will skip over Axelrod's statement that Obama doesn't dwell on the political dynamics of a particular situation; presidents tend to sincerely believe that, in most cases, they defer to expediency.
Speaking of serenity, where does Obama's Michael Jordan-like ability to hover above the maelstrom come from?
Axelrod said he was concerned that Obama didn''t display a "primal hunger for the presidency" that characterized other candidates. Axelrod said he was worried that Obama couldn't handle the pressure. "Throughout the process, whenever he had stumbles, he was the guy who picked us up. I don't think he was afraid to lose."
"When the Rev. Wright episode exploded, that was the moment when I realized ..." Axelrod trailed off and began to recount the story about how Obama single-handedly decided to give a speech on race.... He wanted to give one earlier, Axelrod disclosed, but the campaign could find the right moment. Then the Wright story broke. Obama wrote the speech himself, mostly, in a few days, staying up all night. When Axelrod read the speech in the wee hours on his Blackberry, he typed back to the candidate: "This is why you should be president."
Interlude -- Axelrod does an impersonation of Rahm Emanuel, banging his fists on his desk, asking about Obama, "Why is he so calm? Why is he so calm?"
Gibson said he was worried about the nature of political debate today, and Axelrod cited Tom Friedman's column on comparing the atmosphere in Israel before the Rabin assassination to the atmosphere in America today. Axelrod called the column "interesting....I don't want to talk about whether it's dangerous, but do I think it is destructive to the process of getting things done. ... something is going on that transcends [the usual constructive politics] ... and I think it's worrisome. Distortions become widely accepted as truths, and it fans something very unsettling."
Axelrod said he spoke recently to a "very significant figure" on the right who told him that Obama "wanted to start a national police force." "What are you talking about," Axelrod asked. The GOPer sent him a 21-second clip from a speech Obama made in Colorado last year -- a speech on national service -- and in it, Obama said he wanted to create a civillian force that could go into countries and provide humanitarian services.... Obama used the word "civil force" -- "They took that 21-second bite .... and it has been taken as an article of faith that the president wants to create a national police force."
Watch the full video of this session:
