The stars aligned perfectly for BO. He became president.
The stars are no longer in formation. Beyond grand announcements and slick speeches, he has yet to accomplish anything of substance. Obama has done nothing, past nine months, but disappoint his followers and cheer his critics.
Obama has demonstrated that which we highlighted early on as his critical flaw - a chronic lack of judgement.
For starters, he misjudged his mandate. He is an extremist, an inexperienced far-left ideologue elected 75% on political correctness and 25% on a sour economy. He figured that somehow a country that is just a tad right of center gave him some kind of go-ahead on deficits, spending, nationalized health care, cap-and-trade, voting "present" of Afg., etc. He figured Congress would pass his bills redefining America. He figured he’d stay in campaign mode, berating Bush for all his problems. But while campaigning could center around soaring rhetoric, governing is altogether messier. It involves tough, unpopular choices. It requires doing things rather than talking about them. BO has shown little appetite for this.
Now, BO’s ratings have tanked.
Next, in response, and again demonstrating a lack of judgement, he has resorted to cynicism and slander, a real live sycophant residing squarely in the WH.
In just nine months the phrase "Chicago style" has gone from something old-time that evokes Al Capone or Mayor Daley to something very real, contemporary, and scary — David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and BO. As Kim Strassel noted in the WSJ, "a White House set on kneecapping its opponents isn't, of course, entirely new. (See: Nixon) What is a little novel is the public and bare-knuckle way in which the Obama team is waging these campaigns against the other side."
BO’s administration tries to strong-arm the opposition, demonize the media, and manipulate government largesse to either penalize or reward recipients on the basis of their degree of support for Obama.
But are we surprised? When a man has spent his entire adult life as a community organizer in the precincts of Chicago, it should hardly be news, as Mark Steyn notes, "that much of his Rolodex is made up of either loons or thugs." The trick is identifying who falls into which category. Anita Dunn, the Communications Director commending Mao Zedong as a role model to graduating high school students, would seem an obvious loon. But the point about Mao, as Charles Krauthammer noted, is that he was the most ruthless imposer of mass conformity in modern history: In Mao's China, everyone wore the same clothes. Steyn continues, "So when Communications Commissar Mao Ze Dunn starts berating Fox News for not getting into the same Maosketeer costumes as the rest of the press corps, you begin to see why the Chairman might appeal to her as a favorite 'political philosopher'". My, my.
And most of the rest are nuts too. There might be one statement like Van Jones’s slander of "white people," or Sonia Sotomayor’s "wise Latina" boast, or Anita Dunn’s lengthy praise of the mass-murdering Mao, but not an entire series of them? At some point, the American public snaps out of it, and sighs, "Whoa now, three more years?"
Finally, he’s tough with his domestic opponents, sure. What a man. But the strange disparity between the heavy-handed community organization at home and the flaccid representation abroad risks making the commander-in-chief look like a weenie — like "President Pantywaist," as Britain’s Daily Telegraph has taken to calling him. Exactly so. Our point all along folks.
This week WH communications director Dunn extolled that the Obama image is intact. "He's who he has always been."
Indeed he is.
Robert Craven
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
There's Nothing There
Obama’s half black; he’s a slick speaker. That delivers in this society. He became a cult figure - coeds swooning in the aisles. Political correctness and a sour economy propelled this guy to the presidency. The swooning coeds voted for him, but so did a lot of very reasonable people. And now? Now they find that they have - right, just another politician. Or worse. Not even that - a void.
We find him almost boring. His presidency represents a distillation of the time-worn ideas of the northeastern liberal aristocracy/media confab - Stalin’s "useful idiots". Obama is nothing more than a cliche’ of all their pathologies.
His speech and demeanor - simply a mask for his lack of substance. Worse, he is petty. Joining for example in the skirmish between race profiler Bates and the law. Or trying to intimidate a news agency. Or just yesterday, telling his money-giver fans that Republicans "just kinda sometimes do what they are told." (Recall Bush ever criticizing Dem’s?)
Some leaders find BO personally engaging, but, they no longer believe what he says. Foreign powers don’t take him seriously. Abroad, there is the same commonsense intuition that most of us have, that something about the president’s talk does not quite seem right. From our neighbor Vic Hansen, "One or two apologies might convey magnanimity; three or more reveal obsequiousness. Apologizing to a cranky neighbor for mowing on a Sunday morning is wise; apologizing to the entire block for an array of past sins does not just ensure ridicule, but could prove downright dangerous."
His performance for example before the UN was an embarrassment. (Our lefty friends would agree with John Bolton's indictment – that this was a post-American speech by a post-American president – but mean it as high praise. Hah!) As one UK observer noted, "He can inspire crowds in Berlin but - sad to say - he also needs to show that he can pack a punch." There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing. He is the subject of jokes and derision back stage, world politics. As well he should be. He sounds good but carries no heft.
Now, even liberal columnists are sounding increasingly skeptical about the individual they once supported. Witness Richard Cohen in the Wash Post, who wrote that Obama, "inspires a lot of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the later, though, that matters most in international affairs where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama." Those who understand the makings of diplomacy understand that the president of the United States needs to show, at least sometimes, that he can inspire fear as well as affection.
Even his strengths have begun to look like weaknesses. His eloquence from a public platform has begun to contrast with his failure to get things done behind the scenes. There is no there there.
BO was greeted like a rock star by the Olympics delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and was a major blow for BO at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance. See what we mean?
Meanwhile, America and its allies are being forced to witness a very public agonizing by Mr Obama and his advisers over his Afghan strategy — six months after it was set.
This has all added to the growing perception that Obama’s soaring rhetoric — which captured the imagination during last year’s election — is simply not enough. It's almost sad to witness the left continue to fish for excuses for behavior which they know in their collective little heart, is not defensible.
Three more years? We are in trouble.
Robert Craven
We find him almost boring. His presidency represents a distillation of the time-worn ideas of the northeastern liberal aristocracy/media confab - Stalin’s "useful idiots". Obama is nothing more than a cliche’ of all their pathologies.
His speech and demeanor - simply a mask for his lack of substance. Worse, he is petty. Joining for example in the skirmish between race profiler Bates and the law. Or trying to intimidate a news agency. Or just yesterday, telling his money-giver fans that Republicans "just kinda sometimes do what they are told." (Recall Bush ever criticizing Dem’s?)
Some leaders find BO personally engaging, but, they no longer believe what he says. Foreign powers don’t take him seriously. Abroad, there is the same commonsense intuition that most of us have, that something about the president’s talk does not quite seem right. From our neighbor Vic Hansen, "One or two apologies might convey magnanimity; three or more reveal obsequiousness. Apologizing to a cranky neighbor for mowing on a Sunday morning is wise; apologizing to the entire block for an array of past sins does not just ensure ridicule, but could prove downright dangerous."
His performance for example before the UN was an embarrassment. (Our lefty friends would agree with John Bolton's indictment – that this was a post-American speech by a post-American president – but mean it as high praise. Hah!) As one UK observer noted, "He can inspire crowds in Berlin but - sad to say - he also needs to show that he can pack a punch." There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing. He is the subject of jokes and derision back stage, world politics. As well he should be. He sounds good but carries no heft.
Now, even liberal columnists are sounding increasingly skeptical about the individual they once supported. Witness Richard Cohen in the Wash Post, who wrote that Obama, "inspires a lot of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the later, though, that matters most in international affairs where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama." Those who understand the makings of diplomacy understand that the president of the United States needs to show, at least sometimes, that he can inspire fear as well as affection.
Even his strengths have begun to look like weaknesses. His eloquence from a public platform has begun to contrast with his failure to get things done behind the scenes. There is no there there.
BO was greeted like a rock star by the Olympics delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and was a major blow for BO at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance. See what we mean?
Meanwhile, America and its allies are being forced to witness a very public agonizing by Mr Obama and his advisers over his Afghan strategy — six months after it was set.
This has all added to the growing perception that Obama’s soaring rhetoric — which captured the imagination during last year’s election — is simply not enough. It's almost sad to witness the left continue to fish for excuses for behavior which they know in their collective little heart, is not defensible.
Three more years? We are in trouble.
Robert Craven
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