Like Chauncey Gardiner, Obama Is Profoundly Aloof

Townhall.com ^ | June 27, 2011 | Michael Barone

[Kaslin]

Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

Well, Obama announced his candidacy in Lincoln's hometown two days before Abe's birthday, and he did expand the size and scope of government. But no one seriously compares him with Lincoln or FDR anymore.

Conservative critics have taken to comparing him, as you might imagine, to Jimmy Carter. The more cruel among them, like The Weekly Standard's Jay Cost, say the comparison is not to Obama's advantage.

But there is another comparison I think more appropriate for a president who, according to one of his foreign-policy staffers, prefers to "lead from behind." The man I have in mind is Chauncey Gardiner, the character played by Peter Sellers in the 1979 movie "Being There."

As you may remember, Gardiner is a clueless gardener who is mistaken for a Washington eminence and becomes a presidential adviser. Asked if you can stimulate growth through temporary incentives, Gardiner says, "As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well in the garden."

"First comes the spring and summer," he explains, "but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again." The president is awed as Gardiner sums up, "There will be growth in the spring."

Kind of reminds you of Barack Obama's approach to the federal budget, doesn't it?

In preparing his February budget, Obama totally ignored the recommendations of his own fiscal commission headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Others noticed: The Senate rejected the initial budget by a vote of 97-0.

Then, speaking in April at George Washington University, Obama said he was presenting a new budget with $4 trillion in long-term spending cuts. But there were no specifics.

Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf was asked last week if the CBO had prepared estimates of this budget. "We don't estimate speeches," Elmendorf, a Democrat, explained. "We need much more specificity than was provided in that speech for us to do our analysis."

Evidently "first we have the spring and summer" was not enough.

Then Obama deputed Vice President Joe Biden and congressional leaders to handle negotiations over raising the debt ceiling. Biden apparently did a good job of letting everyone set out their positions and interact.

But last Thursday two influential Republicans, Rep. Eric Cantor and Sen. Jon Kyl, left the bargaining table and said that they wouldn't return until Democrats dropped demands for tax increases. After all, if the Democrats hadn't been able to raise taxes on high earners when they had large majorities in December's lame duck session, what makes anyone think this more Republican Congress will raise them now?

Cantor said it was impossible to make progress unless Obama got personally involved. Top Senate Democrat Harry Reid said the same thing. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, fresh from making a bipartisan compromise on public employee benefits, offered succinct advice: "First, the president can show up."

Well, Obama has agreed to do that Monday. But while Chauncey Gardiner, in his befuddlement, tried to answer questions squarely, Obama has seemed less interested in the substance of public policy than in framing issues for the next presidential campaign.

That was plainly the case in the decisions on Afghanistan he announced Wednesday night. Regardless of conditions on the ground, the president promised that the last of the surge troops will be removed by September 2012, the month Democrats hold their national convention.

As for Libya, Obama pretends we're not involved in "hostilities" and has been content to "lead from behind." Another sop to the antiwar left.

Sometimes it seems he's president of the AFL-CIO, not the U.S.A. The man who said he wanted to double exports in five years has nothing to say about his National Labor Relations Board appointee's attempt to shut down a $1 billion plant being built by the nation's No. 1 exporter.

And don't forget the enviro types. Obama is releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but his appointees are barring drilling in the Gulf and Alaska and refusing approval for a natural gas pipeline from Canada.

On all these issues, Obama seems oddly disengaged, aloof from the hard work of government, hesitant about making choices.

That doesn't sound like Lincoln. Or Roosevelt. Or even Jimmy Carter. More like "then we have fall and winter."

[Liz]

Heh——one of Chauncey’s memorable lines.

[Kaslin]

Bingo!!!

You have got him patted right down, and I agree with you one hundred percent

[Matchett-PI]

"I used to think Obama was an empty suit but now I think he has filled his pants."

GREAT line! bttt

[JPG]

In addition to Moochelle, Valerie Jarrett and Mrs. Robinson are calling the shots. Barry reads the TOTUS and nothing more.

[Condor51]

Thanks for that info.
I followed up and checked wiki on 'Being There'. To my surprise it starred Peter Sellers, one of my all time favorite actors.

The only reason I can think of why I missed it was it was released in 1979. And back then I was busy almost every waking moment. During the week it was; work, work, work, (chasing those promotions) and on weekends it was -- Party Time! So back then I don't think I went to a movie for years and years.

I'll have to check it out now.

[Matchett-PI]

Krauthammer listens to Rush, too:

Charles Krauthammer Friday, October 16th 2009

About the only thing more comical than Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was the reaction of those who deemed the award "premature," as if the brilliance of Obama's foreign policy is so self-evident and its success so assured that if only the Norway Five had waited a few years, his Nobel worthiness would have been universally acknowledged.

To believe this, you have to be a dreamy adolescent (preferably Scandinavian and a member of the Socialist International) or an indiscriminate imbiber of White House talking points. After all, this was precisely the spin on the President's various apology tours through Europe and the Middle East: National self-denigration - excuse me, outreach and understanding - is not meant to yield immediate results; it simply plants the seeds of good feeling from which foreign policy successes shall come.

Chauncey Gardiner could not have said it better. Well, at nine months, let's review.

[snip]

[Liz]

Just humor me, FReepers----I just love posting info on Hollywood conservatives.

.....and James Cagney.

=============================================

Although he was draft-exempt due to a physical injury, actor William Lundigan enlisted into the Marines out of patriotism and served in Okinawa during WWII. Under contract to MGM at the time he enlisted, boss Louis B. Mayer was furious with him for enlisting just as the studio was promoting him as a star and he was dropped.In 1963 and 1964, William Lundigan joined fellow actors Walter Brennan, Chill Wills, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., in making appearances on behalf of U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater, the Republican nominee in the campaign against U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.

=============================================

In 1947, Adolf Menjou cooperated with the House Committee on Un-American Activities in its hunt for Communists in Hollywood. Menjou was a leading member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a group formed to oppose Communist influence in Hollywood. Other members included John Wayne, Barbara Stanwyck (with whom he co-starred in Forbidden in 1932 and Golden Boy in 1939) and her husband, actor Robert Taylor.

Because of his political sympathies, Menjou came into conflict with liberal actress Katharine Hepburn. Menjou appeared with her in the films Stage Door and State of the Union, which also starred Spencer Tracy. Hepburn was strongly opposed to Americans co-operating with the McCarthy hearings. It was reported by William Mann in his biography of Hepburn, Kate, that during the filming of State of the Union, she and Menjou only spoke to each other when required to in the film script.

=============================================

In the 1940s, Charles Coburn served as vice-president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a conservative group opposed to the Communist infiltration and proselytization in Hollywood during the Cold War.

The Hollywood blacklist was made up of anyone within the entertainment industry who supported the Communist Party and it resulted in many actors, writers and directors being forced out of their jobs. Other Hollywood supporters of the blacklist included Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, Ward Bond, Robert Taylor, and Ginger Rogers.

Shortly before his death in 1961, Coburn joined the Citizens Councils of America, an organization opposed to the desegration of public schools brought about by the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education.

[Liz]

Needless to say, Sellers was brilliant in the film-—nominated for the Academy Award and got other awards.

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

Because of his political sympathies, Menjou came into conflict with liberal actress Katharine Hepburn. Menjou appeared with her in the films Stage Door and State of the Union, which also starred Spencer Tracy. Hepburn was strongly opposed to Americans co-operating with the McCarthy hearings.

McCarthy never held hearings concerning the infiltration of communists into Hollywood. Those hearings were conducted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Tidbit:
McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and was a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice, and was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. Robert was chosen by McCarthy as a counsel for his investigatory committee, but resigned after six months due to disagreements with McCarthy and Cohn. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns. The Kennedy patriarch hoped that one of his sons would be president. Mindful of the anti-Catholic prejudice Al Smith faced during his 1928 campaign for that office, Joseph Kennedy supported McCarthy as a national Catholic politician who might pave the way for a younger Kennedy's presidential candidacy.

Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. McCarthy had refused to campaign for Kennedy's 1952 opponent, Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., due to his friendship with the Kennedys.[51] When a speaker at a February 1952 final club dinner stated that he was glad McCarthy had not attended Harvard College, an angry Kennedy jumped up, denounced the speaker, and left the event. Asked by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. why he avoided criticism of McCarthy, Kennedy said, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero."

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

An idiotic assessment by Barone, and completely erroneous conclusion.

I’ll say for the millionth time, don’t confuse Obama’s evil for incompetence.

Obama is Soros’s hand-picked minion and is doing exactly as Soros orders. He is not clueless. He is not obtuse. He is deliberately installing socialism and destroying the institutions necessary to install US socialism.

Articles like this are stupid because they further the lie that Obama is incompetent. OK, maybe such articles have use to place doubt in the minds of the ignorant and weak-minded. Maybe such articles are useful to paint Obama as incompetent to the masses of sheeple who can’t accept that he is an anti-American Muslim radical socialist who is doing Soros’s bidding. To that extent, maybe it is better to propagate a useful lie than a useless truth.

But it is still a fact that Obama is evil, not incompetent. He is not clueless. He knows exactly what he is doing. While he is out golfing or goofing off or missing important meetings, he has an army of communist at every level of US government entrenching socialism by codifying policies, installing massive numbers of new regulations, and hiring socialists to key bureaucratic positions that the GOP will never ferret out.

[Liz]

Thanks for the info on Kennedy/McCarthy. Of course, Mass/etts loved McCarthy-—it is an Irish stronghold.

BTW, many people confuse the Army-McCarthy’s hearings..... with the HUAC hearings-——and b/c Sen McC was a staunch anti-Communist.

The image of Sen McCarthy holding up a sheaf of papers saying they were lists of Communists in govt are still milked by the anti-McC crowd so that it resonates in the American consciousness.

[Liz]

Every so often the movie is shown on one of the cable movie channels-—that’s where I saw it.

[Condor51]

*** Every so often the movie is shown on one of the cable movie channels-—that’s where I saw it. ***

Yeah. I'll check out all the movie channels I have and HULU too. It has to be 'out there' somewhere.

[Liz]

Movie trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcPQ9gww_qc

Also click on crucial scenes on that page

[driftless2]

Obama is the the most pitiable of all ignoramuses. He doesn’t know how dumb he actually is. Like virtually all academic lib/progressives, he firmly believes he knows how the world works. In fact, he knows very little about anything except how to get elected. An ignorant person is someone who simply doesn’t know the particulars about a given subject. A truly stupid person is incapable of learning the particulars. Obama falls in the second category.

[driftless2]

He aint no Bill Clinton. Clinton was an opportunist, not an ideologue. Clinton would put his finger in the wind to see what policies he should follow. Obama is an ideologue. Facts do not matter to Obama.

[Liberty Valance]

A bit late Mr. Barone. FR made the Obama/Chauncey Gardner comparison within his first 100 days in office.

[MinuteGal]

Good one, Badgerlandjim!p>Leni

[RichInOC]

Like Chance, Barry is borderline brain-damaged.

[KansasGirl]

You sure can tell Michael Barone’s distaste for Obama has grown over the last 2 yrs.