Judgement

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