Apparently, we communitarians are disappointed in Obama

I say that because Amitai Etzioni, the acknowledged ultimate communitarian guru, writes the following on the HuffPost:

If you understand where President Obama is headed in his second term, pray send me an email. I like him, wish him Godspeed, and might well support where he is going — if I could just figure out where that is….

During his reelection campaign, the president evoked a vision I found very compelling. I call it thefair society, one in which — as he put it — “everyone gets a fair shot… everyone does their fair share, [and] everyone plays by the same rules.” It was a theme into which one could fold many other specific policies that we must promote, including reducing inequality, ensuring that there are jobs for all, and creating a society that does not discriminate and where special interests at kept at bay. However, the post-election Obama turned very prosaic. I miss the visionary one.

The president is consistently sticking to his theme that the time has come for nation-building at home. I do not recall an inaugural address or a State of the Union in which foreign policy was mentioned as little as this time around. As Slate’s Fred Kaplan put it, Obama, in his State of the Union address, “barely mentioned foreign and defense policy until 54 minutes after he walked into the chamber — and even drew more of a vague sketch than a policy.” I wonder if Syria, Iran, Pakistan, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the resurgent al Qaeda will play ball. I fear they will force the president’s hand to be more mindful of what is happening out there.

Maybe it is just a post-election slump or a changing of the guard in the White House. Maybe others have divined where Obama is taking us. If you have, do your good deed for the week and let the rest of us know.

Mind you, I just have communitarian tendencies. I’m not doctrinaire anything, and not necessarily guided by what Prof. Etzioni says. Unlike Democrats and Republicans, I don’t let other people do my thinking for me. But he may have a point. I’m not entirely sure where the president is going these days, either.

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