The Insiders: The White House is taking a pounding from all sides

Washington Post ^ | May 1, 2014 | Ed Rogers

[don-o]

I’ve been at the White House when it has been taking a pounding from all sides. The inner circle gets smaller, and the rest of the staff tries to either put on a brave face or acknowledge the problems and quietly point fingers. Democratic insiders tell me the Obama inner circle now only consists of the president, Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett and Chief of Staff Denis McDonough — and not everyone agrees on McDonough. Whether or not the president takes any criticism to heart and tries to change course seems unlikely based on what we have observed so far.

Every president experiences periods when he is unpopular or facing difficult decisions. But I don’t remember another president in my lifetime who has reached such a diminished state with so much time left in his term. We have more than two and a half years left under President Obama. We have to realize we will pay a price for this president’s lack of leadership. No one knows what the headlines will be next week, next month or next year, but nothing this president does seems to be shaping the world in a way that makes America stronger.

[scott7278]

I've been at the White House when it has been taking a pounding from all sides.

That's what Reggie said!

[tiki]

I just kept thinking that Nixon got re-elected too.

[Fledermaus]

Boooooo Hooooo, did Ed Rogers have to be dragged screaming to finally acknowledge reality?

[Billthedrill]

How is it possible that the American people voted twice for somebody whose only qualifications in life was to be a community (communist) agitator?

Incomparable packaging and a monolithic defense front by the media. My concern is, if they can package a dolt such as 0bama for the Presidency, is a complete nitwit like Warren going to be the turd with a bow on it that passes for a cupcake?

[Publius]

When Lyndon Johnson heard Walter Cronkite turn against the Vietnam War on a CBS radio broadcast, he said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country."

Here, the response would be, "If I've lost Maureen Dowd, I've lost my base in the Mainstream Media."

However, losing Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations is a whole other matter. When the CFR turns against a president, he's on his way out. Ask Nixon what happened when the Foreign Policy Community decided he was a liability. Considering that there is a dotted line relationship between the CFR and the Mainstream Media, the whole ballgame may be changing.

[prairiebreeze]

Maureen O'Dowd is quoted in the article writing in a NY Slimes piece: She also points out that the president’s explanation of his foreign policy “doesn’t feel like leadership. It doesn’t feel like you’re [Obama] in command of your world.”

Really, Maureen? You rely on feelings instead of viewing, hearing, and intellectual evaluation of what leadership is?

Wow, its telling that even the top libtards are starting to listen to their feeeeeelings about Barky's incompetence and the potential disasters that may well be looming.

Twit.

[MinuteGal]

"Going yo Bunker Mode".

.....(then correction)...."Going to Bunker Mode".

I like your typo better, Don-o.

It kinda fits into the phrase in pure Obamaspeak.

(.....as in "government is yo friend!)

Leni

[Billthedrill]

An excellent point. That is, after all, one of the oldest and most entrenched wings of the establishment. And even his erstwhile allies are beginning to admit that the 0bama administration has been a crashing failure in foreign policy from the day it first took office.

But clearly someone's interests have been tweaked, either lately with the developments in the Ukraine or of a longer-standing nature. Benghazi perhaps? That establishment regards even as young an ambassador as Stevens to be One Of Us. It may be that precisely why he was hung out to dry has suddenly become incontestable for one reason or another. The emails? A report none of the Unwashed has, or will read? Well, nobody's cut me in. :-(

Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to think of a single aspect of 0bama's foreign policy that has not failed ingloriously, even those few that actually are in U.S. interests. His not-Bush routine with regard to anti-missile deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic is now looking like the disaster most of us recognized at the time. His rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood was doomed from the start. His kowtowing apology tour served only to alarm our allies that there was a fool at the wheel. His Nobel Peace prize was a bad joke. His idiotic ROE in Afghanistan have cost lives and his abusive drone campaigning has taken them unnecessarily and hardened the Taliban without destroying them. I'm searching for a single, solitary positive development here and I'm not finding one even E.J. Dionne could spin into a success.

[Publius]

And even his erstwhile allies are beginning to admit that the 0bama administration has been a crashing failure in foreign policy from the day it first took office.

The timing of Boehner's abrupt about-face on appointing a committee to dig into this thing is interesting. He resisted his rank-and-file mightily until Haass spoke out. I suspect Dr. Haass called the Speaker and said, "It's gone too far. Start the process. Watergate him."

[Newtoidaho]

Isn’t it odd that this sick bitch is never heard from publically, the evil/criminal/Moronic media protect her more fiercely than even obozo.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[Arthur McGowan]

Actually, I’m unsure about this: Was the tutelage Obama’s or Frank Marshall Davis’s. I.e., when someone is being tutored, is the tutelage that of the tutor or the tutored? Or is it both?

[Safetgiver]

Whether or not the president takes any criticism to heart and tries to change course seems unlikely based on what we have observed so far......He is so far gone, psychologicaly, he doesn’t see he has made mistakes, because he firmly believes he is always correct. That is the way he was raised, educated and groomed to take over for the ONE WORLD POWER leaders. If he doesn’t get his way, he need only call the Saudis. Even though they are sort of tired of his bumbling.

[RipSawyer]

“Any thinking person would have known 0bama was not qualified to be president.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

There can be no question of that, anyone who had any interest in the truth could see through him. The astounding thing for me was seeing just how many people have ZERO interest in reality and simply prefer to live in a total fantasy. There are still some who claim to believe in this absurd fantasy called the Obama presidency. It brings to mind the old joke about the difference between a neurotic and a psychotic, the neurotic builds castles in the air, the psychotic LIVES IN THEM. By that definition all those who voted for Obama would be considered psychotic, they were definitely dwelling in an air castle when they voted and they voted for a candidate who never really existed except as an invention of the media. As to who the man who calls himself Barack Hussein Obama II really is I still don’t know and I am not sure anyone does, least of all he himself. I do know that he is no more qualified to be president than Joe Biden is qualified to be a brain surgeon who moonlights as a rocket scientist.

I nominate THIS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbIcfFD30Ms as his theme song.