An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right

«

»

Beast in the Jungle

Posted by PRAIRIE WEATHER in Economy, Politics.
Aug 10th, 2011 | 9 responses

… Obama has spent a lifetime creating his persona — superior, wise, above all parties and interests, all-seeing, calm, unflappable.

But as Drew Westen, a liberal psychology professor at Emory University wrote in The Times on Sunday, puzzling about what has happened to his former hero’s passion, the president never identifies the villains who cause our epic problems.

It’s unclear, Westen wrote, whether that reflects his aversion to conflict or a fear of offending donors, or both.

Obama’s assumption that you can rise above ascribing villainous motives has caused him to waste huge chunks of his first term seeking bipartisanship from Republicans who were playing him for a dupe. And it has led to Americans regarding the nation’s capital as a place of all villains and no heroes. ...Maureen Dowd

___

… Obama arrived at Dover again Tuesday afternoon. Nothing about his presidency felt new anymore; he looked tired, solemn and gray as he stepped onto the tarmac. Since his last trip, 874 more Americans have died in Afghanistan, and Obama has signed 874 handwritten condolence letters. The war is fully his now. This time, he went to Dover to greet the charred and dismembered remains of Americans he had ordered to Afghanistan himself. …WaPo



9 Responses to “Beast in the Jungle”

  1. Allen says:
    August 10, 2011 at 11:31 am

    Not true. The President has identified “the problem” many times over. It amazes me that you need an invitation to see it. Let me help you!

    It’s called: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

  2. dduck says:
    August 10, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    He’s a nice guy, but inept………..

  3. ProfElwood says:
    August 10, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    Uh, yeah, he hasn’t fixed the economy.
    …or discovered the cure for cancer.
    …or even made politics into the fun and educational demonstration of love and cooperation that we all know it could be.

    Shame on him.

  4. dduck says:
    August 10, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    Yes, he has tried to please everyone.
    Yes, he has accepted all the praise and flattery as his due.
    Yes,he has not stuck to his guns on enough issues.
    Yes, he has really disappointed progs and Maureen Dowd.

  5. DLS says:
    August 10, 2011 at 3:05 pm

    The quintessence of vapidity, Dowd, is simply joining others on the Left even more than on the Right who are saying the see another Jimmy Carter in Obama now.

    They Once Loved Jimmy, Too.

    Like Obama, Carter enjoyed the intellectuals’ favor.

    [I]t’s not just the way President Obama’s policies have not worked out that invites the Jimmy Carter parallel. It’s also the over-the-top praise each received before entering office. In both 1976 and 2008, each Democrat was presented as the kind of smart, cool, new politico who was going to—fill in the cliché—”transcend politics as we know it,” “appeal across traditional lines,” “bring America together,” etc.

    Ironically, here Mr. Romney has a case, for some of the differences between the two presidents favor Mr. Carter. Faced with raging inflation and a declining dollar, President Carter appointed Paul Volcker chairman of the Federal Reserve. He supported deregulation. Most of all, in contrast to President Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because he wasn’t George W. Bush, President Carter actually earned his, at least for the Camp David Accords that brought about peace between Israel and Egypt.

    Mr. Obama can’t be blamed for the excesses that saw him hailed as the new FDR, the new JFK or the new Lincoln, or for the Norwegian committee that bestowed upon him a Nobel. He can be held to account for encouraging them: by delivering a campaign speech in Berlin, by accepting a prize he hadn’t earned, by breaking out not only a Lincoln quotation but the Lincoln china and the Lincoln Bible for his inauguration.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904140604576496461072142314.html

    Is Obama Smart?

    A case study in stupid is as stupid does.

    The aircraft was large, modern and considered among the world’s safest. But that night it was flying straight into a huge thunderstorm. Turbulence was extreme, and airspeed indicators may not have been functioning properly. Worse, the pilots were incompetent. As the plane threatened to stall they panicked by pointing the nose up, losing speed when they ought to have done the opposite. It was all over in minutes.

    Was this the fate of Flight 447, the Air France jet that plunged mysteriously into the Atlantic a couple of years ago? Could be. What I’m talking about here is the Obama presidency.

    When it comes to piloting, Barack Obama seems to think he’s the political equivalent of Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Yeager and—in a “Fly Me to the Moon” sort of way—Nat King Cole rolled into one. [...]

    Of course, it’s tempting to be immodest when your admirers are so immodest about you. How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he’s criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he’s too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

    I don’t buy it. I just think the president isn’t very bright.

    Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama’s big speeches that didn’t amount to cliché? As for the small speeches, such as the one we were kept waiting 50 minutes for yesterday, we get Triple-A bromides about America remaining a “Triple-A country.” Which, when it comes to long-term sovereign debt, is precisely what we no longer are under Mr. Obama. [...]

    Then there is Mr. Obama as political tactician. He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent. [...]

    Then there’s his habit of never trimming his sails, much less tacking to the prevailing wind. [...]

    Mr. Obama [...] appears to consider himself immune from error. Perhaps this explains why he has now doubled down on Heckuva Job Geithner. It also explains his insulting and politically inept habit of suggesting—whether the issue is health care, or Arab-Israeli peace, or change we can believe in at some point in God’s good time—that the fault always lies in the failure of his audiences to listen attentively. It doesn’t.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904140604576495932704234052.html

  6. slamfu says:
    August 10, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    Frankly I feel the GOP hasn’t given America a chance to see if Obama’s plan work or not. I don’t consider it a fair test when the president is hobbled by obstructionists, obstructionists who then turn around and want my vote to let their guy get to work because the last guy couldn’t get anything done. For instance, Bush was allowed to enact his policies almost in their entirety. The result was that we as a nation became broke, the financial sector was allowed to run amok ruining our economy, we got involved in a war in Iraq we had no business getting involved in, and taxes were needlessly lowered which only exacerbated both the debt and the flow of money away from the consumer class.

    You don’t tie a hundred pound weight to a guy then ask him to run the 100 meter dash and say he sucks when his time is worse than the other runners. Its not a fair comparison. If the GOP wants to convince me that Obama sucks, let him get a few things done, then point to the results. Maybe some of you say that as president he should be able to somehow get Congress to work together, but considering the stance that the GOP leaders have taken I think that is a silly expectation. The GOP may not be the party in power, but they have enough clout to stop an agenda if they want, and thats what they’ve done.

  7. JSpencer says:
    August 10, 2011 at 4:17 pm

    Slamfu got to the heart of it. That said, it would be refreshing to see a progressive who was less afraid to mix it up.

  8. dduck says:
    August 10, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    Yay, he got Obamacare through.
    Nuff said.
    He got Bin Laden, with a little help.
    He got the Nobel prize but is trailing in getting the noble prize.
    And, no more hundred pound weights, we will give him training wheels and water wings.
    Plus, maybe if he had all three parts of government Democratic AGAIN for two plus years he could really ace the “dash”.
    Puhleez.

  9. slamfu says:
    August 11, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    Where is Obamacare? I don’t see it, I don’t feel it, and it certainly isn’t going to do anything for me if I break my leg later this afternoon. As far as I can tell that never got passed for all the good its doing me.

    And while for a few years technically the Dems had a simple majority across the board, they could be and were stopped in almost everything by a GOP filibuster. Plus add the fact that the dems in Congress are such a bunch of spineless, useless politicians that they are too afraid to vote for anything of substance if there is even a slight chance they will piss someone off and hurt their chances of re-election. So basically, Obama can not count on help in that quarter. His own party is useless. There is a reason congress has a what, 12% approval rating?

    There is a reason I am not affiliated with either party.

© 2003-2011 The Moderate Voice | Site design by Elegant Themes | Site customization, hosting, and security by Mode Equity