Strange indeed is the sudden Democratic furor at Barack Obama. In fairness to the president, though, much of it seems to be a matter of scapegoating.
On the domestic front, for example, we forget that Obama “went big” on the stimulus, giving a number of speeches about the “historic” size of his “investments” and why we should not worry about the timid naysayers. At the time, he was widely praised for his audacity. He also went big on Obamacare, despite worries from party centrists. Again, he was praised for forcing through such a radically new program. In other words, few Democrats have tried so eagerly to advance the liberal domestic agenda. His appointments, the politics at the Department of Justice and the EPA, and his use of executive fiat to circumvent bothersome laws bear that out.
If Obama were enjoying a 60 percent approval rating and the economy were humming at 5 percent annual growth and 5 percent unemployment, the Democrats would be singing his praises despite his stumbles. The problem Obama poses to Democrats is not his policy but his popularity — in their ‘what-if’ minds, he is sinking because he did not do enough rather than far too much.
In other words, the furor comes not so much because he has embarrassed them on national security and seems increasingly detached from the job, but because that he nearly destroyed the congressional Democrats in 2010, often hovers below 40 percent in popularity, and has the potential to really do some big-time damage to the party in 2012.
But again, why is that? Rather than suddenly blaming Obama, self-introspection seems in order:
1) Why and how did an obviously inexperienced senator, with no record of past achievement, soar past a gritty and hard-working Hillary Clinton, who, with her husband, would have brought years of political savvy and success to the presidency?
2) Why did Barack Obama for years embrace and then as president reject the liberal critique of the War on Terror? Is there some chance that he, and millions of his adherents, saw it as politically opportune to embrace it when running for president, but essential to national security to abandon it when invested with the responsibilities of the presidency? If Obama was so wrong to flip on national security, where are Cindy Sheehan, Moveon.org, Code Pink, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and the Hollywood set?
3) Isn’t it possible that both the 2010 midterm disaster and the president’s current dismal polling are precisely because of his Keynesian policies (massive federal spending, record new debt, new regulations, and expansion of near-zero-interest money), which delighted many at their inception but have since disappointed most after their enactment? Blaming too much on not enough is an old logical fallacy.
Yes, Obama is inept politically, at least so far. But for many Americans that was clear years ago, and to be expected of any candidate with so little experience and, upon careful examination, so little record of actual business, legislative, or academic achievement. But remember, for all the jokes about his teleprompted eloquence and canned monotonous speeches, it is not all that easy to be eloquent on a teleprompter, and what now sounds trite, canned, and predictable, just three years ago brought paramedics to fainting audiences. The problem is not just Obama, but his rigid adherence to a statist economy that has terrified capital-laden employers into near complete stasis.
Were Obama to show the same flexibility on the economy as he has on the War on Terror (junk the Keynesian model, radically revise and simplify the tax code, address entitlements, talk up employers, prune regulations, and compromise on spending cuts), he still might revitalize the economy a bit — it’s hard to destroy the greatest economy in history in three years. Then, when his numbers improved, he would win Democratic adulation for his Clinton-like savvy.
After the Democrats were wiped out in 1994, liberals created a new set of myths to explain why they were suddenly on the fringe. They so deeply believed these myths they stuck with them in the teeth of public outrage over Obamacare.
They will retool their mythology, even if that means throwing The One under the bus. That's how religions work. The psychic payoff for liberals is not the results of their policies. It is membership in the faith and collection of good intentions that compose their catechism.
Reasoning with these people is pointless.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"They will retool their mythology, even if that means throwing The One under the bus"
Yes. Do remember that would-be messiahs are usually slaughtered by their own people.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama can't pivot like Clinton because he is still operating on the same sense of entitlement he had coming in: "I won." He actually thinks he's owed the ability to impose with universal acceptance and then move on. He still can't see that it has never worked in that way.
But here's the thing: Even Jimmy Carter understood the benefits of deregulation (although he would then go do stupid things like try to regulate the insurance industry and try to impose the Windfall Profits Tax). Obama's regulators have been working overtime, in most cases doing tremendous harm like doubling(!) CAFE standards, putting coal generating plants out of business and the like.
Obama will continue to fail as long as he continues to do the opposite of Reagan at every turn.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"The War on Terror" has continued for the most part for political expediency. Cynical, I know, but he had to keep up the appearances to insure reelection. Couldn't have all that go south before he was reelected. His domestic agenda was his only real concern and he's managed to get his programs in place, as the progressives wanted. They just don't work...never have.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDon't give him any ideas.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt was all intellectual lust. There never was any love. The O-gazam is over.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUnlike Clinton, Obama has been the victim of his own effectiveness. Clinton's disastrous health care plan never even came up for a vote; hence, he was never saddled with its consequences and could ride the wave of the resulting surging economy. Obama did enact his health care agenda, as well as a wildly irresponsible stimulus. He is therefore stuck with the consequences of his own successes, which have, at least for the moment, weighed the economy down like a ten-ton anchor. If only he'd been a little more inept early, like Clinton was, he might be in far better political shape right now.
Even as it is though, he seems to have settled in the mid-to-low 40s in popularity. That isn't such a big hill to climb between now and election day, especially if the economy manages to show even a hint of a pulse between now and then. As an insurace against that eventuality, Republicans would be well-served to hit him much harder and far more regularly on specific policy issues like, for instance, Obamacare. They need to keep the disastrous consequences of it ever being fully enacted front and center in peoples' minds.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'll bet Obama hits mid-thirties in approval after his got-nothin-new speech on Thursday.
But there is plenty of ammunition on Obama already with huge negatives: stewardship of the economy, country on the wrong track, CAFE standards, EPA in its entirety, his out-of-control Justice Dept. (Fast and Furious! New Black Panthers), amnesty-by-executive-order -- it goes on an on.
If only the Republicans could make it stick.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI doubt that mid to low 40's is accurate. I think it's more like mid to low 30's.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat I am worried most about is what will happen when Democrats finally realize the impossibility of re-election in 2012. One thing Democrats do not want to lose is power - they're still trying to rationalize what happened to them in 2010. (If I hear any more Koch bros. idiocy, I'm going to scream.) I'm not crazy enough to actually say what I'm thinking... but what happens exactly, when Obama outlives his usefulness to the DNC, and is worth more as a martyr than anything else. And if they could make the Tea Party look responsible, all the better. I truly am worried that they will take the blame game to new depths.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama can always be summed up, no matter the situation, no matter the aspect one might be examining, with the following:
Orthodox hard-left Democrat.
Obama can no more "junk the Keynsian model" than a Rabbi can dine on pork barbeque.
And with regards to m ilitary policy, Truman, JFK, LBJ, even Clinton in Yugoslavia, Democrats have been marching Amercian boys off to die in foreign meat grinders for almost a century. Doing so, by precedent alone, does not violate hard-left Democrat orthodoxy.
Finally, any "Democrat angst" I've observed has come from Clintonistas. To continue with a military metaphor, this "angst," IMO is the big guns off shore over the horizon softening the Kennedy/Daley machine beaches for a Clinton machine D-Day invasion.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe democrat Eloi are raging at losing their "free stuff."
The Republican Morelocks plan to keep what they have left.
The Post Office, with labor costs 4 times that of Fed Ex,
The Wisconsin teacher's unions with their self-greasing axle of health care and benefits,
Hoffa's unions, shrinking in size, building government designed cars for obama that nobody wants, exhorted to get rid of the republican (word excised), take them down,
Maxine Waters vows to send Tea Party families to "(you know where)"
while endorsing federal efforts to assume all home mortgages and subsidize her husbands bank, batting down real ethics charges against herself,
Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac suing banks over problems they, themselves created at behest of the democrats,
Immigration out of control due to 1964 law, spearheaded by Chappaquiddick Kennedy with support of democrat party, that did away with any controls,
LBJ's great society programs that destroyed the minority family unit, created huge make work jobs regulating and counseling the human wreckage that caused, entire schools of social work spawned as a result, a breakdown of civility,
All these things and much more are laid at the feed to the democrat party and those who vote for their candidates.
Yes, indeed, you (deleted) Hoffa, you are - indeed - going to have to take down us Tea Party (what you called us) to keep your flow of "free stuff."
Only then you will have to figure out how to pay for it before your membership comes for your head like some Zeta gang member. You, too Maxine.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe democrat Eloi are raging at losing their "free stuff."
The Republican Morelocks plan to keep what they have left.
The Post Office, with labor costs 4 times that of Fed Ex,
The Wisconsin teacher's unions with their self-greasing axle of health care and benefits,
Hoffa's unions, shrinking in size, building government designed cars for obama that nobody wants, exhorted to get rid of the republican (word excised), take them down,
Maxine Waters vows to send Tea Party families to "(you know where)"
while endorsing federal efforts to assume all home mortgages and subsidize her husbands bank, batting down real ethics charges against herself,
Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac suing banks over problems they, themselves created at behest of the democrats,
Immigration out of control due to 1964 law, spearheaded by Chappaquiddick Kennedy with support of democrat party, that did away with any controls,
LBJ's great society programs that destroyed the minority family unit, created huge make work jobs regulating and counseling the human wreckage that caused, entire schools of social work spawned as a result, a breakdown of civility,
All these things and much more are laid at the feed to the democrat party and those who vote for their candidates.
Yes, indeed, you (deleted) Hoffa, you are - indeed - going to have to take down us Tea Party (what you called us) to keep your flow of "free stuff."
Only then you will have to figure out how to pay for it before your membership comes for your head like some Zeta gang member. You, too Maxine.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"[...] it’s hard to destroy the greatest economy in history in three years."
But not impossible.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think the answer here is what would Spike Lee do in the same situation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse