A puzzle for Obama: How much reality can Americans handle?


INTELLIGENCE/ROGER COHEN

NEW YORK I was interested to learn that Defense Secretary Robert Gates may be about to change the policy that prevents any photographs being taken of the coffins of United States soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The invisible is surfacing in American life and the process is painful. We’ve been living in cloud-cuckoo land.

The Pentagon policy that barred photos of the fallen has been in place since the Gulf war of 1991, but was not strictly enforced until the start of the Iraq war. Its effect has been to dampen the emotional impact of the deaths of almost 5,000 United States troops in two American wars.

This escape from reality was a cornerstone of the Bush Administration’s policy. The former president viewed soldiering and shopping as twin acts of patriotism. For the latter to go ahead, it was necessary for the heavy cost of the former to be hidden. The mall palls when blood is visible.

I trust the Obama Administration’s policy review will be concluded rapidly. It makes sense for families to make this decision, not governments. Some have always wanted their sacrifice taken out of concealment. Their wish should be respected.

In general, a price is always paid for opacity. Nobody imagined, however, that it would be this high. Just as 70 is the new 60, or so health experts tell us, a trillion is the new billion.

If the cost to America of its wars may now become visible, the cost of the accompanying shopping spree already is. Debt was desirable, leverage lovely, greed great. Risk no longer existed, so what was the point of oversight?

We have just learned from the trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s investment firm that there’s no evidence Madoff bought any securities for clients in at least 13 years. Where, during those 13 years, was the United States Securities and Exchange Commission? Gone missing, like every other regulatory agency.

A Grand Illusion is dissipating, revealing an abyss. I think four culture shocks - the end of the Cold War, rapid globalization, digital technology and the 9/11 attacks - contributed to a dizzying American moment. Now, nobody knows how much more toxicity lies hidden, which is why the economy keeps unraveling.

The Madoff trustee leveled with investors. The trustee of United States bankruptcy, President Barack Obama, is also trying to level with Americans. He has their support, although measures up to now have had more than a hint of flailing confusion.

An unnamed senior Administration official told The New York Times that policy toward banks was based on“an acceptance that the future is uncertain, but that we can plan on a certain basis for it.”

You can sure take that statement to the bank.

I have two worries. The first is that the revitalizing churn of the American market is being lost as the great bailout spreads and we enter a period of Big Government. France is a lovely country, but I don’t want the United States to become France.

The second is that there is only so much reality people can take. Just how treacherous illusion is has become clear. But undiluted realism is unbearable. Obama is scrambling like a chief operating officer warning of“catastrophe.”He needs to step back, like a good chief executive officer, gaze into the medium-term future, and speak more of“possibility.”That was the theme of his campaign.

Don’t hide the facts, even if they are as painful as flag-draped coffins at Dover Air Force Base. But deploy the language of hope.