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Victor Davis Hanson: Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama - The backlash is sharp as voters learn that...
National Review Online ^ | September 18, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 09/18/2009 11:20:56 AM PDT by neverdem








Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama
The backlash is sharp as voters learn that Obama is not the man they thought he was.

By Victor Davis Hanson

No one imagined that Barack Obama, during his first nine months in office, would be falling in the polls even faster than George W. Bush did prior to 9/11. We all knew what Obama’s weaknesses were as he came into office — a lack of experience in foreign affairs, little knowledge of how private business works, and poor judgment concerning the extremist company he had kept in the past.

But given the unhappiness over the war, the September 2008 financial meltdown, the animosity toward Bush, and the lackluster Republican campaign, millions of moderates and conservative Democrats were willing to give the unconventional Obama a chance.

Voters wanted political change — anything other than the status quo. They warmed to the idea that in their generation America would elect its first black president. When the most partisan member of the U.S. Senate started sounding like the least partisan, they believed him.

There was a sense of reassurance that Obama was a healer. He was a transcendent figure that would bring us together at home and make us better liked, and perhaps thereby more secure, abroad. People assumed that his easy rhetoric was not a result of studied preparation or superficial style, but a natural reflection of honesty and sincerity. So Obama was elected and enjoyed quite a 90-day honeymoon in an atmosphere of promised transparency and togetherness. A “god,” a Newsweek editor called him.

Now nearly half the country is not merely distrustful of him, but increasingly viscerally angry at him as well. Actually, “him” is a construct: At times there seems to be no “him.” Instead, the people don’t know whether the kindly Dr. Barack is their president, or his unpredictable double, Mr. Obama.

They never expected the president to show mastery of economic affairs or reveal much expertise in matters abroad, and accordingly were not disappointed when he did not. His critics concede that he inherited two wars and a dismal economy, though they argue that he may be making these bad situations far worse.

Instead, the real anger from independents arises over disappointment, false merchandising, and hypocrisy. It is real and deep — as is true of any animosity that arises from a sense of betrayal of former trust. You see, it took millions of Americans months of fair and judicious examination to conclude that Obama’s real weaknesses were his once-advertised strengths: He seems not a healer at all; he is not particularly sincere; and he is not especially veracious. Someone other than the man who ran for president is sometimes occupying the Oval Office: The present Mr. Obama looks and sounds like the old Dr. Barack, but he surely does not act anything like the candidate who persuaded America.

When thousands of loud protesters went to tea parties and town halls, the people wanted the self-advertised purple-state Obama, the old organizer, in good nature to laugh that he was being out-organized — not to unleash lackeys to call the concerned activists mobs and brownshirts. When the crude Rep. Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie!” the people wanted their transcendent Obama to remind us all that we should not sound off like either a Joe Wilson or a Van Jones, if we wish to engage in responsible debate. Instead, Obama went back into campaign mode, alleging fabrication on the part of his opponents, even as he fabricated many of his own talking points. 

Health care would prove to be Obama’s perfect storm, bringing out all of these disturbing revelations at once. In serial fashion, Obama has accused his opponents of lying and distortion — and yet himself still cannot clearly demonstrate in detail whether our existing health plans will change, whether illegal aliens will be included in his reform, how we are to pay for this new entitlement, and why there is need for revolutionary change in the next 60 days. 

Obama has given us several figures on the number of uninsured; they change weekly. There was to be a public option; now there is not; and then there is sort of not one. He knows no more than we do what exactly lies hidden in a 1,000-page plan.

Tort reform? Perhaps; but not likely; or is it suddenly kind of? A bigger deficit? Not by a dime — as if more people can get better coverage (remember no rationing!) at less cost. Billions in waste and fraud will soon be saved to pay the costs — if so, why not right now and banked instead?

In almost every statement on health care, Obama uses the conditional or optative mood (may, could, would, should, etc.). And for good reason: When he resorts to the indicative mood of fact he is rarely being fully truthful. The problem is existential: The American people like their health-care system and want it at most only tweaked. All the invocations of God, threats, distortion, and assigning of guilt over the dead to come cannot make them accept in a democracy what they do not trust or want.

Obama worked hard abroad to be liked, but it was a funny sort of charm offensive. He insulted the British in a variety of gratuitous and trivial ways, from poor gift giving to sending the bust of Churchill unceremoniously home. Democratic Israel is hardly an ally any longer. The constitutional government of Honduras is bullied, apparently because it acted in a constitutionally sober, but conservative, manner. The Eastern Europeans, traditionally among America’s staunchest friends, were strangely shorted in order to curry favor with the thuggish Vladimir Putin. 

To soothe the anger of the Islamic world, our sins were magnified, those of the Muslim world understated — and over 1,400 years, no less. The new president defamed his predecessor so often and to such a degree that even Obama’s supporters politely urged that he move on and get a life. When the ahistorical president indulged in historical reference, the result was analogous to a George W. Bush offering tutorials on rhetoric and oratory.

All this, the American people put up with on the expectation that Obama’s new directions, his stately apologies, and his airing of American sins and blunders would win over our enemies. Yet the exact opposite has followed. 

Iran is more bellicose than ever. It is emboldened by its unchecked progress in getting the bomb and by the ease with which it strangled a democratic reform movement, ignored by Obama himself. What ally wishes to join risky embargos and boycotts when at any moment Obama might cut their legs out from under them with yet another video or valentine sent to Tehran? 

Hugo Chávez is following suit. He grasps that the nuclear finagling that works for Iran can serve another dictatorial oil exporter just as well. If Iran is going to be the regional nuclear hegemon of the Persian Gulf, why not its friend Venezuela in Latin America? 

No one knows what is going on with North Korea. But we assume that it is not disappointed with America’s move away from missile defense or with a new trade war with our creditor China. It is not clear that the key governments of Britain, France, Germany, and Japan are any more pro-American now than they were in the days of Bush. Many may privately have preferred to safely caricature reliable old “smoke ’em out” and “dead or alive” George W. Bush than run the present risk of soaring along with “hope and change” and “this is our moment” Obama among the Iranians, Koreans, Syrians, and Venezuelans. In other words, Obama the healer has in kindly fashion estranged many of our friends and, by intent or not, encouraged our enemies.

Did Obama at least achieve togetherness on matters of race? A year ago most Americans thought his long association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his “typical white person” slur, and his crude stereotyping of rural Pennsylvanians were understandable aberrations, not revelations into the candidate’s inner character. Indeed, they expected the soft-spoken Obama to be a liberal version of Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell: Matters racial would be incidental, not essential to the presidential worldview. 

But the president, in just nine months, has managed to ensure that race is on the verge of becoming more problematic than at any time in the last twenty years. As the president's polls dip, his supporters — scan the week’s network news shows —  cry out “racism” on spec, although empirically they have not made the case that the opposition to Obama is any more virulent than what was unleashed against Bush. Most, in fact, assume that what the Left did to Bush — mainstreaming hatred in respectable venues like Hollywood, The New Republic, Alfred Knopf, or MSNBC — the Right has not even approximated. I do not recall anyone suggesting that the Left’s often visceral anger at Condoleezza Rice revealed its own racism.

Instead, through a series of incidents, Obama himself has alienated — perhaps permanently — millions of swing voters. He need not have commented on a minor incident involving Professor Gates at Harvard. Instead, the president pontificated on racial stereotyping and accused the local police of acting stupidly. Most people of all races disagreed, and felt that Obama’s friend had himself gratuitously insulted the officer and played on his position and contacts to construct a dramatic and self-serving “teachable moment.” Would the president now editorialize on all, some, or no more publicized racial confrontations?

Obama appointed a racialist to a White House position. When it was revealed that Van Jones had alleged that white people were racial polluters and were more likely to commit Columbine-like massacres in schools, Obama said not a word in opposition to his venom — akin to his initial ambiguity over the revelations about his own crude pastor. 

When the New York governor and a number of prominent House Democrats — most notoriously the ethically challenged Rep. Charles Rangel — played the race card, Obama voted present and said not a word. Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, accused his fellow countrymen of being cowards, because of their alleged reluctance to discuss race under the only conditions that Holder would consider fair. None of these incidents alone was important; but collectively they confirmed doubts from last year’s campaign.

So now we are reduced to a new polarization in which African-American elites are portrayed as more racially sensitive than ever, and quicker to allege bias as the first explanation of discontent. Indeed, a melodramatic congressman has now charged that we are back to the days of night riders in sheets harassing African Americans.

In turn, there is a new simmering on the part of the working classes, as they hear ad nauseam replays of the vulgar Van Jones anti-white accusations, and as they wonder whether the unseemly outbursts — splashed 24/7 on the Internet — of the prominent and successful Serena Williams and Kanye West (who has a history of racial polarization) are emblems of America’s new racial anger and coarseness. All that leaves them confused — and increasingly angry themselves that their healer is more part of the problem than the solution.

Why is Barack Obama sinking in the polls in a fashion beyond the easy remedy of more hope-and-change elixirs? 

The people were willing to overlook his weaknesses, given his obvious strengths. But when after months of fair examination they concluded his purported plusses were even greater liabilities than his flaws, they began to see him not merely as unimpressive, but perhaps even as unappealing — to a degree we have not seen often during the first year of a presidency.

Obama’s real problem is not conservative rabble-rousers at town halls or Republican activists. Rather, it is the Democratic rank and file. They may rewarm with an improving economy, but for now they  are discovering that just as Obama could take them individually to great heights last fall, so too he could soon bring them down collectively to unprecedented depths.

— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. © 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: backlash; bho44; bhohealthcare; healthcare; medicalcare; obama; third100days; vdh; victordavishanson
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1 posted on 09/18/2009 11:20:56 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: Tolik

Heads up!


2 posted on 09/18/2009 11:22:39 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: neverdem
No one imagined that Barack Obama, during his first nine months in office, would be falling in the polls even faster than George W. Bush did prior to 9/11

We did...

3 posted on 09/18/2009 11:23:34 AM PDT by NMEwithin
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To: neverdem

good job: you got me under a minute. I just checked a last time before hitting a Post button, and here you are - just posted

Thank you anyway

Incoming!


4 posted on 09/18/2009 11:24:57 AM PDT by Tolik (my photos from the TeaParty: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2340411/posts)
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To: neverdem; Lando Lincoln; SJackson; dennisw; kellynla; monkeyshine; Alouette; nopardons; ...

Swing voters are feeling buyers’ remorse big time, as
Obama’s supposed strengths turn out to be worse than his
known flaws

 

  Ping !

Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:   

FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index
NRO archive: http://author.nationalreview.com/?q=MjI1MQ==
Pajamasmedia:  http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/
His website: http://victorhanson.com/

5 posted on 09/18/2009 11:27:04 AM PDT by Tolik (my photos from the TeaParty: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2340411/posts)
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To: neverdem
they are discovering that just as Obama could take them individually to great heights last fall, so too he could soon bring them down collectively to unprecedented depths.

Good description of illegal substance abuse.

6 posted on 09/18/2009 11:28:17 AM PDT by smoothsailing
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To: neverdem
We all knew what Obama’s weaknesses were as he came into office — a lack of experience in foreign affairs, little knowledge of how private business works, and poor judgment concerning the extremist company he had kept in the past.

Verbose. Should say: "We all knew Obama’s weakness as he came into office — a total lack of qualifications."

7 posted on 09/18/2009 11:35:38 AM PDT by TurtleUp (I believe that America is good and that human life is good, so I'm a conservative.)
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To: All
Victor Davis Hanson:

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index:

Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama - The backlash is sharp as voters learn that Obama is not the man they thought he was
Anatomy of the "Racist" Charge—or, How to Turn a Setback into a Disaster
The "Racism" Canard [Victor Davis Hanson on Carter, MSM charge: racists oppose Obama and Obamacare]
No Rules in the Arena? Welcome to the new rudeness
The Rise of the Uncouth
Now Wait Just One Minute . . .
Deconstructing the "Whup Ass". Obama's & Jones’ lucrative anti-capitalist careers
Once Upon a Time... Whatever happened to the old Barack Obama?
The Second World War — 70 Years Later
From Preparedness to Appeasement
What We Are Learning About the Era of Obama
War — What War? We have public confusion about both wars: Iraq and Afghanistan
Obama and "Redistributive Change". His real agenda
Obama vs. Obama "The fault, dear Barack, is not in our stars, But in ourselves"
The Obama Administration : What Went Wrong
Our Road to Oceania
Bullying Israel-only country with which the U.S. has worse relations since Obama took office
Prairie-Fire Anger. Why Are People in Revolt?
Obama's Great Race to Change America
Obama’s Path Not Taken. What Might Have Happened
On Shearing Sheep (relentless hostility to small business)
The War Against the Producers
A Thug’s Primer - How to win liberal friends and oppress your people
The New Orwellianism
Our Historically Challenged President. A list of distortions
I No Longer Quite Believe ... [Victor Davis Hanson on Orwellian media & science, race relations]
President Palin’s First 100 Days. Imagine if Sarah Palin had Obama’s record
Confessions of a Contrarian [deconstructing Obama, the Left and more]
Thoughts About Depressed Americans
Bush Did It. What a difference an election makes [Brilliant Parody]
Our Battered American [gets angrier - Must Read Rant]
Just a partial list. Much more at the link:  http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index
8 posted on 09/18/2009 11:36:01 AM PDT by Tolik (my photos from the TeaParty: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2340411/posts)
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To: neverdem

” new polarization in which African-American elites are portrayed as more racially sensitive than ever, and quicker to allege bias as the first explanation of discontent” - even Bill Crosby - a multi-millionaire due in large part becaus of his embrace by and popularity by a white public has jumped on and played the race card. He should be ashamed.


9 posted on 09/18/2009 11:37:38 AM PDT by NHResident
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To: neverdem

...”The people were willing to overlook his weaknesses, given his obvious strengths.”...

Pray tell, Dr. Hanson, what are those “obvious strengths”???

We in America have been snookered by the so-called MSM...and it’s not funny.


10 posted on 09/18/2009 11:38:11 AM PDT by astounded (The democrat party is a clear and present danger to America.)
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To: neverdem

Those of us who get our news from Fox news and talk radio knew all along who Obama was and what would likely happen if he became POTUS. It was the people who were hoodwinked by the sycophant media who now have buyers remorse.


11 posted on 09/18/2009 11:39:07 AM PDT by The Great RJ ("The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." M. Thatcher)
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To: neverdem

Those of us who get our news from Fox news and talk radio knew all along who Obama was and what would likely happen if he became POTUS. It was the people who were hoodwinked by the sycophant media who now have buyers remorse.


12 posted on 09/18/2009 11:39:13 AM PDT by The Great RJ ("The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." M. Thatcher)
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To: smoothsailing

Another classic by VDH. He cuts through the fog and reveals the real issues with BHO. If the MSM were not so willfully blind, they would see this also.


13 posted on 09/18/2009 11:39:58 AM PDT by milwguy
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To: neverdem

If you insist on a dialogue on race, don’t be surprised when the other side speaks its piece. That seems to be astonishing a number of liberals who assumed that the issue was a club to beat conservatives with, forever, or some sort of trump card that sweeps the table clean, ending discussion. It isn’t going to be like that and the ones squealing the loudest about it are the ones who most thought so.


14 posted on 09/18/2009 11:39:58 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: neverdem; Tolik
But when after months of fair examination they concluded his purported plusses were even greater liabilities than his flaws, they began to see him not merely as unimpressive, but perhaps even as unappealing — to a degree we have not seen often during the first year of a presidency.

The mushy, hoodwinked voters who chose this fraud are starting to act like scorned lovers, and we know how well that always works out.

15 posted on 09/18/2009 11:49:10 AM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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To: astounded
Pray tell, Dr. Hanson, what are those “obvious strengths”???

He's a great liar?

16 posted on 09/18/2009 11:51:13 AM PDT by Doomonyou (Let them eat Lead.)
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To: neverdem

“No one imagined that Barack Obama, during his first nine months in office, would be falling in the polls even faster than George W. Bush did prior to 9/11. We all knew what Obama’s weaknesses were as he came into office — a lack of experience in foreign affairs, little knowledge of how private business works, and poor judgment concerning the extremist company he had kept in the past.”

Yeah, and for a few more of his weaknesses:

A Communist.

A Socialist.

A Liar.

A Cheat.

A New Party Member. (Again, a Communist with a pretty name).

An inept without a tele prompter

A angry nasty ACORN loving super Libtard who cancels F-22s and Missile Shields, that America spent 20 years developing.......


17 posted on 09/18/2009 11:54:14 AM PDT by DontTreadOnMe2009 (So stop treading on me already!)
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To: neverdem

“When the most partisan member of the U.S. Senate started sounding like the least partisan, they believed him.”

Well then, he tricked us, didn’t he.

And you say Newsweak called him a “god”.

Jeeeeeez, please say it ain’t so. How stupid can they be? Are they really so fawning and servile ???????

Amazing, truly amazing.


18 posted on 09/18/2009 11:58:38 AM PDT by DontTreadOnMe2009 (So stop treading on me already!)
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To: Doomonyou; astounded
Pray tell, Dr. Hanson, what are those “obvious strengths”???

He's a great liar?

Hasn't Rush said that one who refuses to support his brother in the hut (and reneged on his promise to give financial support to a school that was to be built bearing his name) is able to "say nothing better than anyone else" in politics?
19 posted on 09/18/2009 12:18:12 PM PDT by Fawnn (ObservationalTheraPist.com and CookingWithPam.com person - Faith makes things possible, not easy.)
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To: neverdem

We are through only one eighth of his term, grrrrrrh!


20 posted on 09/18/2009 12:31:43 PM PDT by happygrl (Hope and Change or Rope and Chains?)
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