It was fashionable at the end of the 1970s, after a dreary parade of presidential failures punctuated by Jimmy Carter, to say the presidency had grown too unwieldy. The historian Barbara Tuchman spoke for all the academic and journalistic believers in the theory of the impossible presidency when she mused, “Maybe some form of plural executive is needed, such as they have in Switzerland.”
Ah, yes, the wonders of the plural executive. Why didn’t that occur to James Madison?
Pres. Barack Obama has belatedly joined the ranks of presidential fatalists. The job isn’t too complex necessarily; it’s too damn influential. According to the New York Times, Obama has been telling aides that it’d be easier to be president of China. No one hangs on Hu Jintao’s every word, or expects global leadership from a grasping, one-party state that has never been a beacon to the world.
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In the history of presidential lamentations, this has to rank among the most pathetic. It brings to mind the affecting scene from The King’s Speech when Colin Firth, playing the stammering monarch-to-be, breaks down and weeps at the prospect of the crown being thrust upon him: “I’m not a king.” Except Barack Obama campaigned for two years straight to be president of the United States — and doesn’t stutter.
The proximate cause of Obama’s angst is the crisis in Libya. Obama announced that Moammar Qaddafi must go, and proceeded to do nothing that might give his words any bite. The administration is still agonizing over the no-fly zone, even as Qaddafi routs the rebels. The no-fly zone isn’t a panacea — realistically, it’d only be a way station to more robust military action. Perhaps the administration wants to rule it out. Fine. But decide already. If Obama wasn’t going to aid the rebels in any way — not even recognize their provisional government, not even arm them — he should have modulated his words accordingly.
Obama lacks executive flair. Talk to New Jersey governor Chris Christie and he will tell you at length how much he loves making decisions. It’s hard to imagine a Chris Christie enjoying life as a legislator. Obama came to the presidency after a political career spent marinating in senates, first in Illinois, then in Washington.
Osama bin Laden famously talked of the weak horse and the strong horse. Obama is the show horse. As a U.S. senator, he distinguished himself more by saying things than by passing legislation. In the White House, he has replicated his role as the non-legislating legislator on a grand scale. His successes have been as the leader of the Democrats in Congress, although even here, the word “leader” applies only loosely. He set the broad goals and gave the speeches; otherwise, he let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid run riot.
The stakes of Obama’s self-imposed passivity aren’t as dire as those of Pres. James Buchanan, who pleaded powerlessness as the country fell apart around him on the cusp of the Civil War. William Seward commented acerbically: “[He] shows conclusively that it is the duty of the president to execute the laws — unless somebody opposes him; and that no state has a right to go out of the Union — unless it wants to.” Nor has President Obama reached the depths of a Jimmy Carter, who literally disappeared in the run-up to his infamous 1979 “malaise” speech.
At the dawn of America’s global power, a bumptious Theodore Roosevelt raced to make America’s influence felt around the world — and earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. President Obama gives off a sense of world-weariness and exhaustion with America’s leadership — and has earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. He reflects the deep vein of declinism running through the country’s elite, the same class of people who pronounced the presidency uninhabitable just as Ronald Reagan arrived to prove them wrong.
Today, as in the late 1970s, the job isn’t too big, nor is the country too powerful: The man is too small.
Spot-on. Before the election, we said repeatedly that Obama has been handed everything he's ever had in his adult life, so he's never had work at a real job. We also said "experience counts." We were exactly right. Question is, how are there so many sheep that were so wrong about him?
"Nor has President Obama reached the depths of a Jimmy Carter....."
Oh, I'm not so sure about that. It is difficult to judge the full ramifications of a presidency until it is several years past, but this Obama tenure certainly seems to be shaping up to be rather awful.
Unfortunately, our dear leader seems unable to make a decision only when it pertains to foreign or military scenarios. He is more than willing to make decisions when it comes to our day-to-day activities such as driving our cars, heating our homes, buying insurance. He is very willing to hit us directly in the pocketbook in order to directly weaken us as individuals. His lack of action on the foreign front has the same effect however. This serves the same purpose - to weaken us as a Country.
Obama is not just whiny - he's uneducated, utterly lacking curiosity and not at all smart. He is simply not interested in anything except the dressing up part of his position. He is a useless, damaging placeholder of a President. He might be an airhead, but he's brought along with him a lot of truly dangerous individuals - Geithner, Warren, Holder, Solis, Jennings, Salazar.....
To get him un-elected we have to look to what got him elected and have a strategy to answer: unions and fraud. He would not have been elected, on his own, without those.
The man doesn't have "it," period. Unfortunately, too many of our educational elite don't have "it" either. Surround yourself with people who are guaranteed position, salary, benefits and are free to do what they want, than you have nothing that made this nation great.
We are a nation of doers, thinkers, inventors, problem solvers and this man at the top has absolutely no clue as to what we can do. Zero
He needs to go but we also need to see more chutzpah from our leaders.
As is so often the case, the writer has missed the deeper point. The President is not ineffective or stupid. He is anti-American. He is doing all that he can to bring this country down, and he is doing it remarkably well.
Perhaps we should try to replicate Tahrir Square, to fill Washington with protesters demanding that Obama go. One wonders, how many Americans would it take to get him to go into volutary exile on Oahu?
Hmm. Sweeping Health Care reform, Financial reform, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the stimulus package, START II, etc. Yeah, the President hasn't passed ANYTHING. (sigh)
Plus, I'm pretty grateful that Obama gets that the last thing we need is another war in a muslim country.
I do not blame Obama. He gave every indication he would be a destructive president, to our economy, our excellence, our sovereignty and as a poor leader in world affairs. Every association, every speech and every answer in a debate predicted that he would be a destructive influence to all that makes this country great.
I blame the voters who overlooked all of what was there to see, the pundits who either agreed with his hateful world view and economic views or did not answer them effectively enough to get him to lose the election, and I blame the McCain strategy. McCain was too much of a gentleman.
I blame my liberal friends who think all is well when the evidence is there and they just prefer to hate Bush.
We are at war for the soul of this country and the free world. And Obama is on the wrong side.
Good piece you have written here. But what do we do now? We must be sure that we nominate someone who can articulate these thoughts well enough to overtake and vote out this administration.
What is it going to take to get voters to see what a disaster this presidency is? As you say he wanted to be president and now he is merely the whiner in chief.
All states with crossover primaries must be pushed to the end of the line or we will get another McCain, a fine man, but not the kind of guy we need to fight this fight.
Interesting that liberals would decry that the job is too large for one man (or woman). At the same time, they cannot fight their impulse to make the executive branch larger in scope and size. Perhaps these tendencies illustrate much about their ability to manage.
SmithersJones,
"Hmm. Sweeping Health Care reform, Financial reform, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the stimulus package, START II, etc. Yeah, the President hasn't passed ANYTHING. (sigh)
Plus, I'm pretty grateful that Obama gets that the last thing we need is another war in a muslim country"
Fair enough, lets look at them.
HealthCare reform: Designed by Congress with little input from the President.
Financial Reform: See above.
Stimulus: See above.
Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal: He campaigned on this and deserves the credit, or blame, for it.
Stimulus Package: Designed in Congress with little Presidential input.
START II: I think you meant New START, he owns this one too.
As far as not getting into another war in a Muslim country I am onboard with you. However, if that is his goal he needs to match his rhetoric to his actions. The cognitive dissonance between what he says and what he does simply makes the United States look weak.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration is doing its best to ensure that all future presidents will have limited ability to act decisively: Stagflation, crushing debt and a military that will have to be downsized due to budget constraints will make all future presidents the equivalent of their European counterparts.
The country is at a 'tipping point', and two more years of an Obama administration is two years too many. Four more years...well, I don't want to ruin the rest of my day by contemplating four more years.
The only solace I can take during this Obama debacle is my belief that the American people possess the spirit that will allow them (us) to recover from it.
I hope that I'm right.
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