Will someone please tell me how I should feel about Obama?
I read about half a dozen blogs every day. They’re without exception written by and commented on by smart, funny, honest, sophisticated people. What this means is I’m exposed to the well-thought-out, well-written opinions of upwards of between, say, thirty and sixty people daily. Including weekends.
They all share my disgust with the Republican Party, my contempt for the right-wing commentariat, my disbelief of and distaste for the simple-minded Tea Party “patriots,” and my disdain for most of the mainstream media. Many of them seem to know a lot more about history than I do (although that wouldn’t be hard). They manifest differing degrees of cynicism, hope, anger, resignation, perseverance, pragmatism, idealism, and irony, but I feel entirely at home within their universe of discourse.
But after this debt-ceiling business I cannot decide whom among them I agree with. There are those who defend Obama by saying that he played the best one could, given the bad hand he was dealt. There are others who say that Obama–as he did on health care reform–gave away the store and only then started to negotiate. There are those who give him a pass for the “compromises” he could not avoid but fault him for not rallying the troops–us–and using the bully pulpit to at least identify by name those taking the US budget hostage.
For every commenter who says “that’s does it; he’s a moderate Republican and should be primaried from the left,” there is one who says, “he’s out-maneuvering the Tea Baggers and, when you can neutralize a radical clique, you’ve accomplished something.” For every “I wish I had voted for Hillary” there’s a “look at the list of his accomplishments: he’s done more than any Dem since FDR.”
Is everyone right? Is everyone wrong? Is Obama a decent centrist making the best of a bad situation, or is he a moderate Republican who cannot, or doesn’t want to, see that the GOP itself is a force for evil and plutocracy? Is he a politician who thinks he’s above politics, and therefore declines to lead anyone into battle–resulting in the victories of our enemies? Or is he a decent strategist grappling with a horrendous legacy from the previous administration?
I’m open to suggestions.
Obama is an utterly incompetent politician–that’s my guess (and observation). As for those Lawrence O’Donnell types who see a slick tactician in Barack, what are the chances, logically speaking, that giving the other side precisely what it wants constitutes some brilliant maneuver? Or any maneuver at all?
I don’t think it ultimately matters why Obama is behaving as he is–maybe he’s an evil robot from Pluto. What matters, to quote Froma Harrop, is getting “a living, breathing leader” as our 2012 presidential candidate.
You could be right, although his campaign for prez seemed skillful and shrewd. Granted, he was up against a befuddled flip-flopper and a self-parodying provincial nitwit. Maybe the basis of his incompetence is the assumption that the best one can get is half a loaf, so there’s no point in demanding more. It drives me crazy when he characterizes the concerted campaigns of lies perpetrated from the right as, e.g., “partisan shenanigans,” as though career scumbags like Mitch McConnell are simply obstreperous boys who can’t reign in their youthful zeal for mischief. I agree with your point about a living, breathing leader. Alas.
I lost faith in Obama during the primary, when an audience member asked him if everyone would be required to participate in universal health care. Instead of pointing out to the idiot that “universal” means everyone, Obama instead assured him that, no, he wouldn’t force everyone to buy insurance. Meanwhile, O.’s website promised universal health care. That was a massive enough red light for me.
Unfortunately, come the election, the only other choice was Too Old and his sidekick, Too Stupid. (With both being Too Republican.) So I voted for Obama. Which, barring some miracle, I’ll have to do all over again next year.
I’ve always said Obama is playing Romulan Chess while the other guys are playing checkers, and I’ve been waiting for him to rout them from the board. After this week, I don’t know anymore. Maybe the game really is checkers. What we can’t afford to do is primary him from the left. We’ll drive away independants and weaken what little strength an incumbent President has. We’ll wind up with President Bachmann. I’ll be under the bed till this all blows over.
I can’t imagine actually primarying him from the left–although at this point God only knows what “from the left” means. I’m afraid that even if he runs in 2012 as a truth-telling (quasi-) liberal, denouncing what he should have been denouncing for the past four years and correctly identifying who our enemies are, I and you and everyone we know just won’t believe it. We won’t believe he’ll be willing to come off this “post-partisan” fantasy and deal with the liars, lunatics, and thieves in the manner they deserve.
The current wisdom is that he’s listening to Plouffe and doing everything to please and not alienate the center and the Independents. How that has to translate into “start by asking for half and bargain down from there,” I don’t know. Just because he’s unemotional doesn’t mean the rest of us are. He can’t not know that but he sure acts like it–and “acting” is as important for the leader of a party, as anything else. That’s what leadership IS.
Re the center, don’t the majority of Americans want job creation and taxes on corporations, to name two things on which Obama refuses to come through? And didn’t most Americans want single-payer?
That is to say, if Obama ever did decide to govern from the middle, we’d be much better off, given that what we want of him–taxes on corporations and the rich, universal health care that qualifies as such, jobs, penalties for polluters and job exporters–are things most people say they desire.
That’s the frustrating part. Say what you will about Ronald Reagan (and I’ve said plenty and none of it good) His third tier acting skills seemed to actually work on people and gave him the ability to affect real (disastrous) change. So, you think if we all chip in we could get a good acting coach for Barry? He has to know this Spock thing doesn’t work when he’s getting rolled. My fervent hope , however, is that he somehow makes me eat these words.
a) I love “this Spock thing.”
b) Go here, read this: http://tinyurl.com/3l3joc3
Thoughts?
Yeah, I read it earlier. It made me feel a tiny bit better for about five minutes. This really now is all about perception. The bad guys now think he’s a kitten they can drown. And I’m afraid, especially now that S&P just downgraded us, that we have another Jimmy Carter in the White House. I just don’t know that he has the ‘chootspah’ to change that. Again, please, please, please, Mr. President. Make me spread these words on a cracker in place of chopped chicken liver (which is what I feel like), and eat them.