Posted on 08/09/2010 11:38:55 AM PDT by Art in Idaho
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China .
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?
No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.
But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.
In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us -- financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job.
Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.
Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.
Sorry, it’s actually from Tuesday, November 24th, 2009.
http://www.fillmoregazette.com/politics-government/anatomy-failing-presidency
Richard Nixon’s overture to China resulted in the Chinese becoming more productive and almost capitalist in their efforts to manufacture goods & exports.
Nixon was driven out of office by the progressive MSM. He resigned in the best interest of the Nation and he did not leave America as a socialist collective nanny state.
Lacked only a couple of days being from February....
Clearly, Dr. Hunt is a racist.
Another great one!
You are a pro.
So, the writer is prescient. Or he has a crystal ball. Or both.
Let’s see...wasn’t it only in January that Obammy was on top of the world? He and Rush were both in Hawaii, Obama lounging around, and Rush hospitalized with chest pains. Fast forward to today, and Rush has a lovely new bride and Barry is facing an ass-whoopin’ at the polls and can’t buy a friend. Hee, hee, hee...
Gotta love it!
Nixon was driven out of office by the progressive MSM. He resigned in the best interest of the Nation and he did not leave America as a socialist collective nanny state.
I was a mature adult during Richard Nixon's Presidency. Here are results during that Presidency:
Vietnam War, begun by John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, ended.
US relations with China restored.
Environmental Protection Act passed.
Federal grants, without strings or micromanagement, granted to applicant jurisdictions.
United States astronauts circled, then landed, on the Moon.
Don't know about federal budget and taxes, but surely could not have been worse than LBJ.
Richard Nixon was EASILY one of the most competent Presidents in my lifetime (which began with FDR). So much for Media Power and revisionist perspectives presented to ingenuous progeny.
We live in the MATRIX.
Not a problem. It looks like one title has a capital ‘O’ in ‘Of’ and the other does not. And articles frequently get yanked if they don’t have a source. Now you’ve got one.
Back in the 1930's Germany put(got) a community organizer in their highest office and look what the world got. The guy in Germany was all about rebuilding his country. Or guy is about "debuilding" his country.
“It’s that he’s not one of us.”
He doesn’t know the ordinary folk at all. He has it all wrong about us. He sees us as invading the land and shooting Indians, then enslaving Blacks and whipping them. So he feels the need to reduce us to second class citizens and take our money and give it to people who vote democrat.
For the record - I had nothing to do with killing Indians or enslaving Blacks or whipping them. I am not a racist and resent being called one simply because my skin shade falls in the “oppressor” category.
If you make Jimmy Carter look like a "good" President...
You might be Obama...
...or something to that effect....
btt
Every single thing about 0bama is rotten, rotten, rotten and evil, evil, evil!
I think the man is what is known as “Perfectly possessed”. Look it up.
A possessed empty suit?
I like that...........
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