The Presidency is Breaking Obama Even As Obama Has Broken the Nation

Commentary ^ | 8-16-14 | Peter Wehner

[afraidfortherepublic]

One of the nation’s best radio talk show hosts, Hugh Hewitt, interviewed Joe Scarborough, the host of one of the best political shows on television. According to Mr. Scarborough

This is a president that does go out of his way to show that he’s not paying attention to what anybody says. He’s going to do exactly what he wants to do, and he’s going to be stubborn about it. He is politically, he is either politically tone deaf or he just doesn’t give a damn. And I tend to believe based on everything I’ve heard from people who work inside the White House, and we’ve got a lot of friends there, and based on my friends who are senior Democratic senators, this president has checked out… He wants to be the next, I hear it time and time again from his close political allies. This man wants to be an ex-president.

So the president — with crises breaking out across the globe, the economy still staggering, and unrest and despair in America rising — seems to have grown bored with the job. This is on one level an astonishing thing; on the other, it has the ring of truth. I say that in part because Mr. Scarborough is speaking to Democrats, not simply Republicans, on this matter. His sources are excellent. Yet one also sees Obama’s indifference in how he conducts himself, as well as stories leaked by the White House about his “restlessness.”

What could possibility explain this attitude? It may be that Mr. Obama was drawn to the job not for the right reasons but because he viewed the presidency as a new mountain to climb, a prize to win, as a way to feed his unusually large ego (even for a politician). It may also be that Mr. Obama, with his presidency crumbling, is like a petulant child who wants to pick up his marbles and leave. He was fine serving as president when he was adored and well liked; now that things are going south he appears to have emotionally “checked out,” to use Scarborough’s phrase.

The problem with this is that Mr. Obama is disengaging (a) after having done extraordinary damage to America and (b) at a moment when the world is convulsing because of the void left by Obama’s (and therefore America’s) diffidence and passivity. An increasingly insouciant commander-in-chief is not what’s needed at this particular time, given the multiplying threats and increasing disorder in the world.

It’s very much beginning to look at if Barack Obama saw the presidency as primarily a way to satisfy his narcissism. What’s happened instead is the presidency is breaking him, even as he is breaking the nation.

[RichardW]

Joe has a penchant for speaking off the cuff and making stupid comments but he is really not a stupid person and his idea about dividing Iraq into three countries was probably about right. The idea of a united Iraq was always a lot of nonsense held together only by the force of a brutal dictator.

As I recall, he and McConnell worked out a budget deal in one afternoon because they are both professionals who know how to broker deals. The truth is that most politicians will do what is required to get reelected and keep the country on an even keel. Obama is just unqualified, incompetent but more importantly a clear and present danger to the Republic.

I’ve lived a long time but have never seen anyone like him and no one I have spoken to who I respect sees him any differently than do I.

Bring on Joe. He’ll be fine. And we might actually get some governance and some national self-respect back that is further going into the toilet with every passing day. The truth of the matter we may not be able to survive two more years of Obama. It really is that bad.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

You are 100% correct....Obama will never resign!!! He will take the Democrat Party down with him...politically!!!

[ballplayer]

2more years,God Help us all

[2ndDivisionVet]

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