Posted on 08/31/2009 2:33:46 AM PDT by kingattax
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.
George Bush Jr didn't fail so much as he was perceived to have been too much of a patrician while being uncomfortable with his more conservative allies. Yet George Bush Sr is still perceived as a man of uncommon decency, loyal to the enduring American character of rugged self-determination, free markets, and generosity. George W will eventually be treated more kindly by historians as one whose potential was squashed by his own compromise of conservative principles, in some ways repeating the mistakes of his father, while ignoring many lessons in executive leadership he should have learned at Harvard Business School. Of course George W could never quite overcome being dogged from the outset by half of the nation convinced he was electorally illegitimate -- thus aiding the resurgence of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
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 loath 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, Reagan.
But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, 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.
Outside of Reagan and Clinton, every President has been a failure to various degrees since Eisenhower. Reagan and Clinton had their share of scandals of course (although one can debate whether Iran-Contra can really be blamed on Reagan) but by and large had successful Presidencies and were popular when they left office. You’ve got to give JFK an incomplete obviously but I don’t think he would’ve gone down as a successful President even if he had lived and been re-elected.
Where’s the “that’s racist!” kid?
He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loath them.
Gee you think
Klintoon was an a-hole ... using him in the same sentence as Reagan is an insult ...newbie
That is certainly the truth. The problem is that he wants to remake us in his image.
He's not smart, he's not knowledgeable, he's not ethical and he shares none of our intellectual or moral views, but that doesn't matter, because he is fueled by hatred and wants to impose his way on us. Furthermore, he wants to do this on behalf of all the imaginary resentments of his imaginary Third World brethren, because he sees himself as their representative and not ours.
What? Chicago is a dark rock?/S
He is suceeding at his mission of killing Capitalism.
The media, who are today’s priests, have crowned Obama king.
His legislative agenda was in trouble, his popularity was waning quickly thatnks to Bay of Pigs, his adventure into Vietnam was already proving troublesome and unpopular.
The reason he went to Dallas was to try and shore up his support in the South and avoid electoral defeat.
I discussed this portion of "the Messiah's" lack of insight and character with pioneering, Conservative talkshow host, Avi Nelson when he was subbing for Howie Carr: Discussing "the Messiah's" inauguration with Avi Nelson
Geoffrey P. Hunt did an excellent job on this.
Thanks for posting it.
You wouldn’t think Obama’s RACE has anything to do with his current support, do ya? I mean, people look BEYOND that nowadays, right?
No one in America would support him based merely on his race, would they? (off sarcasm)
His ability to do this is in part fueled by the expansion of his role as President. If as a society we held all Presidents to a much narrower job description they would all have a much more difficult time making our lives miserable. We should never, as individuals or as a nation, have to worry about any one individual imposing their ideology or agenda on our lives.
I still say this in defense of President Bush, especially where the war on terrorism, Taliban and al Qaeda are concerned: Look at it this way- If there are a million mistakes a commander-in-chief could make during wartime and he only makes 10,000 then that’s not too bad, is it?
Millions of American people made the only mistake they could’ve made when they voted for Obama.
Obama, his administration and the Democrats are making mistakes that are not among the many mistakes that would ‘normaly’ seem possible. In fact, they’re not even mistakes per se, they’re part of a concerted effort to disrupt and overturn society and government to where society does not define the status quo. It’s a non-violent, aggravated assault on traditional freedoms, liberty and the American people.
Sorry newbie, Reagan was elected twice with overwhelming gusto.
Do not even try tp equate him with Obozo and Clinton, Carter.
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