By PETER BAKER
Published: April 30, 2009
AS he thrust Chrysler into bankruptcy on Thursday, President Obama stopped to make a commercial message to his national audience.
“If you are considering buying a car,” he said as cameras carried his words live, “I hope it will be an American car.”
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But he was not done yet. “I want to remind you that if you decide to buy a Chrysler,” he went on, “your warranty will be safe because it is backed by the United States government.”
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He may not have set out to be a car salesman — or a banker for that matter, or an insurer. But suddenly Mr. Obama is all of those. And more.
In the midst of a health scare, he is Dr. Obama telling Americans to wash their hands. In an energy crisis, he is a utility engineer telling them to turn down their thermostats.
By dint of circumstance, ideology or nature, or some blend of the three, this is a president, and by extension a government, that is increasingly involved in many corners of society.
The president’s announcement on Chrysler made abundantly clear that his team effectively controls a onetime American industrial giant, down to determining which executives are out, which brands die and how much aggrieved creditors will get.
Standing behind Mr. Obama during Thursday’s announcement was essentially the new management team for American industry, the collection of cabinet secretaries, economists and policy makers who make up the president’s auto team. It will be up to these government jockeys to help build a new-generation Chrysler that can retool its products, scale back its work force and find its niche in the modern marketplace.
All of which has many free-market libertarians worried about the expanding presence of the state and its leader. Even many conservatives grant the logic behind government intervention during times of economic crisis — after all, it was President George W. Bush who started putting taxpayers into the banking business — but they want to see an exit strategy.
The administration’s resistance to taking back bailout money from some financial institutions only reinforced the fear that state involvement may not be temporary.
“You can make a reasonable case that the circumstances required them to” dive deeply into the financial sector, said Irwin M. Stelzer, director of the Center for Economic Policy Studies at the Hudson Institute. “What is scary is they don’t want to give it up: ‘Here’s your money back.’ ‘Uh-uh, we don’t want you to give the money back. We want control.’ ”
Mr. Obama insists he has no interest in “meddling in the private sector,” as he put it at his news conference Wednesday. “I don’t want to run auto companies,” he said. “I don’t want to run banks. I’ve got two wars I’ve got to run already. I’ve got more than enough to do. So the sooner we can get out of that business, the better off we’re going to be.”
And yet there does seem to be a part of Mr. Obama that has him in other people’s business beyond business itself. He seems prone to giving advice for everyday lives. During the campaign last year, he told Americans to properly inflate their tires and get their cars tuned up to save on energy use. Republicans mocked him, with Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the party’s vice presidential nominee, complaining that his approach would lead to the “government moving into the role of taking care of you.”
More recently, Mr. Obama advised Americans not to “stuff money in their mattresses” out of fear of bank failures. Last month, he held a roundtable discussion to urge Americans to refinance their houses, complete with a Web address. And on Wednesday night, he counseled those worried about a flu outbreak to “wash your hands” and “cover your mouth when you cough.”
Such entreaties do not always work out so well for presidents. Mr. Bush was ridiculed for telling Americans after Sept. 11, 2001, that the most important thing they could do was to go shopping.
Jody Powell, a former press secretary for President Jimmy Carter, said that the president has a responsibility to speak out. “I think Americans are kind of looking for some leadership here,” he said. “Maybe we’re getting past the point of, ‘Hey, if it feels good do it; don’t worry, it’ll all work out.’ ”
Even some critics said Mr. Obama’s popularity might make it easier for him to play the outsize role in American society he is assuming, at least for now.
“He is, I hate to say this, the father of the country,” Mr. Stelzer said. “There’s a kind of egomania behind that. But it works.”
A version of this article appeared in print on May 1, 2009, on page B6 of the New York edition.
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