Why’d the White House Play Hard to Get on Solar Panels?

Writing at Salon, Andrew Leonard ponders the imponderable: Is the White House’s new acceptance of solar panels (nearly two years after the Election of Hope!) “…a welcome change of tone, prefiguring a new push on climate change and renewable energy, or yet another example of how a too-cautious administration keeps stepping on its feet”?

Bill McKibbon wasn’t the only one shocked and disappointed when the White House turned him down last month when he offered both a symbol of renewable energy – one of the Carter-era solar panels that had graced the White House roof – and a full modern solar installation, donated by Sungevity.

So in order to avoid comparisons with a President who is widely perceived as weak and vacillating, the Obama administration stood up in front of the nation and showed themselves to be… weak and vacillating.

Here’s Leonard:

They made it into the White House, but then got stonewalled. When the college-age activists accompanying McKibben asked why the administration wouldn’t do the “obvious thing” and put solar panels on the White House, they couldn’t get a straight answer.

To their queries, the bureaucrats refused to provide any answer. At all. One kept smiling in an odd way and saying, “If reporters call and ask us, we will provide our rationale,” but whatever it was, they wouldn’t provide it to us.

It was all a little odd, to say the least. They refused to accept the Carter panel as a historic relic, or even to pose for a picture with the students and the petition they’d brought with them. Asked to do something easy and symbolic to rekindle a little of the joy that had turned out so many of us as volunteers for Obama in 2008, they point blank said no.

The Obama administration’s reluctance to put a Carter-era solar panel on the White House roof was understandable, even if repulsively pusillanimous. The last thing the White House wanted to do was to give the right another talking point comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter. You can see the wheels turning — Carter put solar panels on the White House, and ended up a one-term president mocked for decades by Republicans…. run away!!!

And of course, it will surprise noone that as soon as the announcement was made, conservative narrative-setters Matt Drudge and Rush Limbough both pounced on the Carter/Obama comparison.

“Jimmy Carter is a symbol of a failed president whose failure helped contribute to nearly 30 years of Republican dominance of American politics,” Allan Lichtman, presidential historian at American University, told Politico. “He suffered big losses in the midterm elections. Solar panels is a great image. Jimmy Carter isn’t. And what the White House really cares about right now is the next 30 days.”

“Clearly, a solar panel on the White House roof won’t solve climate change – and we’d rather have strong presidential leadership on energy transformation. But given the political scene, this may be as good as we’ll get for the moment,” McKibben said in a Washington Post comment this morning. (Via Guardian UK)

“Our point was never that they should put up the Carter panels,” McKibben said. “That was just a gift, a historic relic. This is much better. They’re putting up modern, made-in-America solar panels.”

But coming just a month before the mid-term election, this is one more reminder of how badly the White House has been playing the game of politics. At a time when strength is badly needed, we’ve been getting calculated weakness.

Is there a ray of hope? Leonard thinks it’s possible:

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a sign of a changed tune at the White House. I’m not so sure that there’s that much of a difference between new White House chief of staff Pete Rouse and Rahm Emanuel, but it’s at least possible that the turnover in staff is signaling a new determination to press forward, with a little less caution. Let’s hope so, anyway.

See our earlier coverage of this issue:

White House Won’t… er… WILL Go Solar

White House Rejects Carter-era Solar Panel