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A Storyteller Loses the Story Line, By MAUREEN DOWD
NY Times ^ | June 2, 2010 | By MAUREEN DOWD

Posted on 06/02/2010 4:52:53 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

It’s not a good narrative arc: The man who walked on water is now ensnared by a crisis under water.

One little hole a mile down on the ocean floor, so deep it seems like hell spewing up its sulfurous smoke, has turned the thrilling saga of “The One” into the gurgling horror of “The Abyss.” (Thank goodness James Cameron, the director of “The Abyss,” came to Washington Tuesday to help the administration figure out how to cap the BP well. What’s next? Sending down the Transformers and Megan Fox?)

With as much as 34 million gallons of oil inking the Gulf of Mexico, “Yes we can” has been downgraded to “Will we ever?”

It’s impossible not to feel sorry for President Obama, pummeled by the cascading disasters, at home and abroad, unleashed by two war-mongering oil men — plus scary escalations by Israel, Iran and North Korea. (Dick Cheney’s dark influence is still belching like the well. BP just brought on a new public relations executive: Anne Womack-Kolton, who served as Cheney’s campaign press secretary in 2004 and worked in W.’s White House and at the Energy Department.)

Obama wanted to be a transformative president and now the presidency is transforming him.

How does a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history lose control of his own narrative?

This president has made it clear that he’s not comfortable outside whatever domain he’s defined. But unless he wants his story to be marred by a pattern of passivity, detachment, acquiescence and compromise, he’d better seize control of the story line of his White House years. Woe-is-me is not an attractive narrative.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dowd; maureendowd; modo
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To: Mad Dawgg

Shut up,bartender,pour me another.I’ll tell you when its’last call!


21 posted on 06/02/2010 5:09:48 AM PDT by Dr. Ursus
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To: subterfuge

22 posted on 06/02/2010 5:09:58 AM PDT by Haiku Guy (Gov. Chris Christie (R) won the NJ-6 held by Rep. Frank Pallone (D) by a 15.5% margin!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history"

So that's how it's done. Occasionally, libs provide a window onto their world and confirm it's completely alien to mine. Thanks Mo.

23 posted on 06/02/2010 5:10:31 AM PDT by Oratam
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
How does a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history

Bill Ayers ?

24 posted on 06/02/2010 5:11:36 AM PDT by Nonstatist
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

This is very telling. Lefties elected 0 based on a belief in “magic” and are now dumbfounded to discover there is no such thing.


25 posted on 06/02/2010 5:11:38 AM PDT by jtal
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To: Mad Dawgg

Wow. Thanks. Never saw that one before.


26 posted on 06/02/2010 5:11:48 AM PDT by subterfuge (BUILD MORE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS NOW!!!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Poor Maureen still desperately clings to the romantic notion that Obama actually sat down and penned that book himself.


27 posted on 06/02/2010 5:11:53 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: NoExpectations

“That’s because he didn’t write the book. He is a charade. We elected this fraud based on a book??”

YES!!

It’s the only thing they have to point to as proof of his superior intelligence.

They don’t have a record of grades. No thesis.
His record as a senator in Illinois and the US are laughable.

All they’ve got is that book.


28 posted on 06/02/2010 5:13:58 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

It was our ability and willingness to use the might of the US military that kept us safe. That is being dimantled and is creating such an explosive situation.

With the left and statists hitting us with “It’s for the children”, the children will be unimpressed when they are dead.


29 posted on 06/02/2010 5:14:32 AM PDT by listenhillary (You might be a modern LIBERAL if you read 1984 & said "YEAH! That's the world that I want!")
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Obama Lied and Pelicans Died.”


30 posted on 06/02/2010 5:15:26 AM PDT by Malesherbes (Sauve qui peut)
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To: Haiku Guy

31 posted on 06/02/2010 5:16:59 AM PDT by N. Theknow (Kennedys: Can't fly, can't ski, can't drive, can't skipper a boat, but they know what's best.)
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To: Haiku Guy

Hey, she’s got a pretty decent swing there. And she can play golf too!


32 posted on 06/02/2010 5:17:32 AM PDT by subterfuge (BUILD MORE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS NOW!!!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
It’s impossible not to feel sorry for President Obama, pummeled by the cascading disasters, at home and abroad, unleashed by two war-mongering oil men

Bush's fault

33 posted on 06/02/2010 5:18:01 AM PDT by jtal
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To: listenhillary

War is the art without which all other arts can’t exist.


34 posted on 06/02/2010 5:20:14 AM PDT by Citizen Tom Paine (Never give up!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

dowd lusts for rosie... euuuuuuuwwwwwwwww.

LLS


35 posted on 06/02/2010 5:22:28 AM PDT by LibLieSlayer ( WOLVERINES!)
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To: jtal

I hope libs go past the grave with that hate


36 posted on 06/02/2010 5:25:40 AM PDT by reefdiver ("Let His day's be few And another takes His office")
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To: Mad Dawgg

It took 16 posts before this thred was made right - sheesh!


37 posted on 06/02/2010 5:26:53 AM PDT by frithguild (I gave to Joe Wilson the day after, to Scott Brown seven days before and next to JD Hayworth.)
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To: Oratam
"a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history"

The pathetic thing is, even as she accepts the rather doubtful contention that Barack Obama (if that is his real name) actually wrote that book, Dowd admits that Obama is "invented" by it. Her best-case scenario is that Obama is a favorable fiction.

Unfortunately, fictions, no matter how attractive, don't amount to much when the Real World intervenes.

38 posted on 06/02/2010 5:32:34 AM PDT by Haiku Guy (Gov. Chris Christie (R) won the NJ-6 held by Rep. Frank Pallone (D) by a 15.5% margin!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
How does a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history lose control of his own narrative?

Maybe someone else wrote for him Mo? Maybe none of it was true? Maybe it was all an invention, and you were sucked in?

Check into it. It's not hard if you lurk here at FreeRepublic.

ML/NJ

39 posted on 06/02/2010 5:33:03 AM PDT by ml/nj
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To: Dr. Ursus
"Shut up,bartender,pour me another.I’ll tell you when its’last call!"

Tony D'Annunzio: Another Rob Roy, Bishop?

Bishop: You never ask a navy man if he'll have another drink, because it's nobody's goddamned business how much he's had already.

40 posted on 06/02/2010 5:33:24 AM PDT by BlueLancer (I'm getting a fine tootsy-frootsying right here...)
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