As many have remarked here, Barack Obama has a strange habit of acting like somebody else has been president these past years. It’s really odd.
In his speech on the VA, the president said that he would not stand for things that he clearly and undeniably has stood for some years now, and swore that he would not tolerate that which has has been tolerating since 2009.
He’s been described as acting like a bystander to his own presidency, but it’s more like he’s a victim of it, as though the presidency were this terrible thing that just happened to him one day that he’s now courageously dealing with.
His demeanor is that of a man who has been diagnosed with cancer who puts on a brave face, gets up every morning, and reiterates his determination to “beat this thing.” (Not that I don’t think the presidency is a cancer, but that’s a point for a different post.)
It’s a remarkable talent he has. When he was getting beat up politically for his association with that goofy racist clergyman, he lectured us on the evils of racism, as though we’d been the ones sitting in on those hateful sermons. Every time he has some spectacular screw-up, which seems to be about once a quarter, he pronounces himself outraged, as though he had not failed us but had been failed himself.
So Barack Obama has sworn that he will not tolerate the incompetence of the Obama administration. I’d like to think that that means he is going to resign, but I don’t think that’s what he meant.