The Ethereal Presidency of Barack Obama
Political types used to worry about an imperial presidency in which a chief executive used both formal and merely implied powers of his office to run roughshod over congress, the courts, and other institutions to impose his own will on government policy. No need to worry about that, however, with Barack Obama in the White House.
The man clearly has other priorities. He’s got a lot more important things on his mind than running the country in the way he promised supporters he would run it last election time, or the way most Americans felt he should have tried to run it by exercising real leadership in the debt ceiling crisis.
What, then, has this precious, ethereal being who deigned to become our president been up to of late? What has he and the cerebrally endowed political wonks he surrounds himself with been focused on in recent weeks? The answer, by all accounts, is the intellectually stimulating intricacies of electoral triangulation.
This, after all, is the sort of challenge that superior minds with an ethereal bent really love to tackle. Much more so than immersing themselves in the crass vulgarity of spending cuts or higher taxes. There’s another presidential election in 2012 and Team Obama plans to triangulate itself to victory. That’s what they seem to really care about. And here, according to reports, is how they expect to pull it off.
Conservatives will naturally not back the president. That’s a given, no matter how often he buckles on their issues. Liberals, though, can be taken for granted because the Republican candidate will certainly be less appealing. Liberals have been dissed again and again by the president and his minions, lied to on issues liberals hold dear, betrayed in negotiations that liberals deemed critical, but will nonetheless fall into line come election time. It’s an ethereal certainty.
It’s the independent bloc of voters that Obama White House wonks really expect to pile on big-time for their man in the next election. Their view here is that independents have long craved a president with no discernible fixed principles, who vacillates endlessly when faced with competing views, who shows no leadership at critical moments, and whose rhetoric is so divorced from his actions that he is nearly impossible to take seriously. Ethereally speaking, another certainty.
Such is the thinking of the current occupant of the Oval Office and his helpers. Will it prove correct in 2012?
Personally, I have my doubts. But you never know. If the 2012 race ultimately pits Mr. Obama against a former pizza chain executive, and America-Elect’s own third contender ends up being a “Jersey Shore” TV show favorite, the guy from Chicago might just pull it off.
They can’t seem to govern inside the Beltway anymore. But a Barack-Herman-Snooki face-off in 2012 might at least be entertaining.
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19 Responses to “The Ethereal Presidency of Barack Obama”
Man folks, when you people get whiny it’s a free-for-all. From “the one”, the ingenious strategist to a wimpy nothing in one year.
Maybe you’re being marginalized because there’s no pleasing you. For that matter, maybe he knows something you don’t.
Hi ProfElwood,
I don’t feel marginalized. I feel a strong current of progressive politics building in this country and I’m proud to be part of it.
As to being “wimpy.” Strange observation. When a conservative pol doesn’t keep his campaign promises he is pilloried. He is roundly criticized. He is taken down a peg. But when a progressive takes on someone who betrayed the trust and dreams of those who elected him, this person is “wimpy.”
American politics turned sharply to the right between 2008 and 2010. It’s gonna turn sharply the other way in 2012. Bet on it.
I can’t imagine a worse choice than Obama versus some Republican goob next year.
@Michael
“Their view here is that independents have long craved a president with no discernible fixed principles, who vacillates endlessly when faced with competing views, who shows no leadership at critical moments”
I’m not the one calling Obama wimpy, that’s what’s been coming out time and again. How many times have you seen people saying that he “caved” or “gave in” to demands.
Personally, it seems he’s doing what pretty much every president before him has done. He negotiates, spins, pushes, and consolidates. He spends more time speaking publicly because that’s one of his strengths.
Your problem really isn’t with the president, but the party.
Are the kiddies (who apparently prefer default) today upset! They have to face reality the way everyone else has been facing it so long.
From Messiah to Judas … oh, that child’s tempestuousness.
What did the President do?
Well, he just signed the RAISE THE DEFICIT LIMIT, imposed by congress in spite of an all out effort to default on National Debt by an unprecedented legislative Terrorist element controlling the Republican party.
I’d say he did pretty darn good.
What you have is a president that wants congress to do something for a change, rather than do everything himself. That is a good thing, even when the president is dealing with terrorists.
Prof I have to disagree with you a bit – to me Obama seems like the guy who tries hard to be all things and ends up being nothing. You are right all presidents have had to compromise, but with Obama there isn’t a good understanding of where he draws the line in his negotiations, or a strong sense of the principles that underlie his presidency. That isn’t necessarily bad since compromise is important especially in dealing with a hostile House, but I get the sense his primary principle comes down to getting re-elected.
As an independent Obama’s pliability theoretically should make me happy, but there’s a thin line between compromise and weakness and I’m not sure which side of the line Obama is on.
I mean really, President Obama is an absolute excellent President! Not that it was somehow difficult to follow the act of the last President.
This President’s behavior is exemplary! His example WILL be emulated by future American leaders. I am exceedingly proud of him and the First Family!
I believe that congress should commission a national monument devoted to the excellence of our first Black American President or President of Color, however they wish to word it, simply because he is, “American Excellent”, in every regard.
I just cannot say enough.
” but will nonetheless fall into line come election time.”
Not this one. I just may opt out of the cesspool of politics altogether. Let the idiots have the country and run it into the ground, they seem pretty determined. Just stay off my property. F-ing lemmings.
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JSpencer-
Stay off your property? Sorry, government has full right to “your” property under a myriad of circumstances. But you still have the courts if that’s any consolation.
J. Spencer is a libertarian anti-government crank! Oooo
Sounds like a Tea Party contender for leadership, circa 2009.
[grin]
DLS-
Quit calling people names.
Can we please quit referring to Tea Party as terrorists? Yea, they suck, and they have no idea what they are doing or how things work, but lets just stick to something that has meaning. If someone does something stupid, like invade a country for what turns out to be no reason at all, lets call him stupid. But throwing around the term terrorist because we don’t like their politics undermines the idea of this entire blog, as well as any argument you might be trying to make.
I corrected “terrorist” before: with the debt limit, they were being extortionists. (Ignore how the angry lefties are imitating them now in their anger.)
There was no need for them to do it, of course, but they did it. Of much more interest is how the Dems chose to work with the GOP and craft a budget deal, lousy as it is. (Not because it’s not trying to “soak the rich” or spend like crazy, but because entitlement reform is the crucial issue and it was avoided; the agreement is also full of other gimmicks.)
The main thing that’s important is that it is acknowledged that spending must be controlled, and probably reduced — the real world has been accepted. I suspect this, and the implication of that for the excessive size and scope of the federal government is what has liberal critics really upset.
How will they fare from the 2020s onward then?
Thanks DLS, I reckon that’s as close to a term of endearment as you will come.
Sure, Spence, unless I imitate Sean Hannity’s early-2000s April Fool’s Day joke on his show when he said he had become a liberal and spoke in his usual style that day but as a liberal talker rather than a conservative talker. (Apparently many didn’t realize that it was a joke, not only during that show, but days afterward, too.)
“Terrorists” and “Hostages” (and “Attacking America”) are now common. (And Obama released the hostage, you’d gladly say, after giving in to all kinds of their demands.)
Well that’s a nice story about Hannity. And all this time I’ve been thinking that republicans were humor deprived.