Posted on 09/09/2010 11:35:55 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Barack Obama has to be one of the smartest, eloquent, calm and cool and psychologically well-balanced (think of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Richard Nixon) American presidents of modern times.
He’s also one of the toughest, although he neither sounds it nor looks it. Shrewdly, and surprisingly candidly, an aide has recently described him as “the most unsentimental man I’ve ever met.” Ruthlessness comes easily to Obama, that’s to say, which is what it took for him to beat a presidential nomination rival as tough as Hillary Clinton.
And yet his popularity is dragging down toward 40 per cent and by all the omens his Democrats are about to get trounced in the November congressional elections.
Obama does have some serious problems. He’s black.
Unquestionably, a lot of Americans hate their national leader being black, and, worse yet, a black who is the smartest man around. It’s a variant, incomparably uglier, of the widespread loathing of John F. Kennedy for making people feel bad by being so handsome and sophisticated, sort of a presidential Clark Gable.
Then there’s the economy. The lack of jobs is serious and perhaps even more so is the widespread insecurity among those who do have jobs. A double-dip recession is a real prospect.
Yet the truth — admittedly a near-irrelevancy in politics — is that Obama headed off a near-depression caused by Bush and corporate greed and arrogance and stupidity, and by his stimulus package brought the economy back at least to consciousness.
Included in this was financial regulatory reform and reform of the auto companies (it’s working unexpectedly well). Also health-care reform.
Now he’s attempting a second stimulus package. It’s been blocked by the Republicans, who are insisting that planned tax cuts be extended to the wealthy (incomes above $250,000) as well as to the middle class.
This blockage of a second stimulus is being cheered on by the populist Tea Party movement. Go figure that, other than that many Tea Partiers undoubtedly can’t stand the fact that he’s black.
This is the point. Obama’s problem, which indeed is sizeable, doesn’t reside in himself, although he needs to learn the art of faking sincerity that Clinton, with his “I feel your pain” pitch. was so good at. Obama’s problem resides in America. It’s become a near-dysfunctional society.
The Tea Party, which is a genuine grassroots movement, confirms it. It stands for “freedom.” No more big government. No more meddling in people’s lives. But instead, Sarah Palin.
That a sizeable number of people should want Palin for president is irrefutable evidence their society has gone dysfunctional. She’s a third-rater, except in demagoguery (and in faking sincerity). Paris Hilton would do the job as well, probably better.
Why should this be so? My guess is that Tea Party members and a lot of others, including that Florida evangelical minister who wanted to burn the Qur’an, even though it would have put a lot of American soldiers at risk, have actually got onto something important.
That something is that the U.S. today is clearly in decline. This shouldn’t be exaggerated. Americans have an astounding capacity for resilience. Once there was humiliation in Vietnam. Once all the experts were saying Japan was about to become No. 1. Both are now history.
The U.S. will always be powerful and wealthy. But it will never again bestride the world like a colossus towering above all others. It will be, rather, a big guy in a crowd.
America’s conceit of “exceptionalism,” or of being better than anyone else and fundamentally different from all other societies and countries, can no longer be sustained. It’s exhausted its quota, a very large one indeed, of bright, confident mornings.
Obama’s problem thus is stark and simple: He’s the right guy at the wrong time.
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Richard Gwyn's column appears every other Friday. gwynr@sympatico.ca
But I'm glad fools like this jackwagon and Eugene Robinson keep stoking the fire. It will just make the inevitable backlash all the more delicious.
Why Canada will remain a second class country.
If we all agree to that will he leave?
Obama has control of congress, real control of congress, they pass whatever pile of paper he sticks in front of them unread. He has implemented his program exactly as his pals at the Apollo Alliance wrote it.
So if its not working, maybe the problem isn’t the people who point out that its not working. Maybe its not working because its not working. Maybe the people who warned you that it wouldn’t work were the smart ones, and the people who supported the trillion dollar mystery meat were faked out by a guy who told them what they wanted to hear, but whose understanding of life and economics and foreign policy were formed by the same juvenile echo chamber that formed theirs.
Maybe electing a guy to high office who has never run a convenience store and never made a payroll and never built anything that worked in his entire life, whose only talent is reading you and telling you what he intuits that you want to hear, maybe thats not the best way to choose a president.
hey Richard! If you think he’s so smart,YOU TAKE HIM!!!!!
Funny how Sarah Palin is an effing retard who isn’t qualified for dog catcher, but BO is a god amongst men. The truth is that the media elites invested so much into him because he is the epitome of what they are: vain, all style, no substance, cynical, hollow narcissists. That makes him eminently qualified and the ultimate leader in their book. The unwashed masses are just too stupid to see it and to bitter to appreciate the gift we were given.
Canadians have a French problem. I saw a man beaten half to death outside a Toronto bar by some locals. They were hurling strange anti Quebec terms and I later found out that there is as much animosity with them as blacks here around KKK days.
those who voted for obama, thus giving him the majority are suddenly racist because they no longer support him
So Mark Steyn gave up his Canadian citizenship?
Oh gag me! I don't care what color the man is, and frankly, I haven't seen any evidence of his supposed brilliance.
I believe there is a village out there that has lost an idiot.
“...an aide has recently described him as “the most unsentimental man I’ve ever met.” Ruthlessness comes easily to Obama...”
Alan Keyes presented this fact some time ago, when he recounted Obama’s determined resistance to BAIPA, when even groups like NARAL were refusing to touch it.
There is a vast difference between resolve and callousness.
The French have their own province. Whatever French problem they have is nothing compared to the racial divisions here and the affirmative action BS we have to endure
You win!
Well, speaking as a Canadian with a slightly different outlook, sorry about that guy, he is a bit to the left of Fidel Castro and an evident douchebag (he’s been at this for forty years now).
Obama is living proof that brains can be programmed wrong, no matter how much potential there might be. I don’t care what the man’s IQ is, he is on the wrong path and has some dangerous ideas about global security too.
Just contain that guy for another two years and get Sarah Palin to replace him, and the damage may be reversible.
Times will improve, especially after that dude is gone.
Man, that was the biggest steaming hot pile of intellectual feces I have read in quite a while.
I mean, like every word was maliciously dishonest.
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Succinct and accurate summary on your part, FormerACLUmember.
those who voted for obama, thus giving him the majority are suddenly racist because they no longer support him
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I am racist because I voted for Alan Keyes.
The line from the Musical Comedy, Pippin, comes to mindL
The rule that every General knows by heart
It’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.
That statement has a eerily familiar ring to it.
Oh wait, I think I know what it is...
"Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
Yes, that's it.
Richard Gwyn has been guzzling the Manchurian Kool-Aid.
And it's red, of course -
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