If you want to know why Jennifer Rubin is one of my favorite blogresses, just read this piece she posted yesterday on Obama, The Endless Campaign.
UPDATE: Okay, I probably should say why the piece struck me as being so insightful. Remember how the Democrat campaigned as being a new kind of post-partisan president? And then just look at how he’s governed, constantly attacking Republicans, regularly blaming his predecessor for the mess he inherited as if someone forced the job on him–and he hadn’t spent two years campaigning for it.
And we gotta admit, he ran a pretty good campaign and generally came across well on the campaign trail. So, maybe that’s why he keeps at it, keeps campaigning, that is. As Rubin writes (and this the essence of her spot-on post):
Obama and his grouchy adviser David Axelrod complain bitterly of the nonstop campaign, the partisanship of Washington, and the nonstop news cycle. But they most obviously are perpetuators of all three, and rely on campaign tactics (attack, attack, attack) in lieu of other skills — reasoned persuasion, real compromise, and legislative craftsmanship. They do it endlessly, campaign that is, because this is what they know and this is what they were good at. That it’s ill-suited to the task at hand and ultimately has diminished the president’s standing seem not to matter. Again and again Obama returns to the stump. What else is he to do? He’s proved unable to convince Blue Dogs of the merits of his bill.
Barack Obama seems obsessed with his opponents because he’s better at running against something than he is at running anything.
Dr. Utopia is the most partisan POTUS in my lifetime. None have been like him. Not even Jimmah the dimbulb
Obama knows how to campaign, but has no clue as to how to govern. What a joke this man has become.
Because his campaign in ’08 was so successful, I think there’s a tendency to believe that he’s a more brilliant campaigner than he is. And no one seems to believe in Obama’s campaigning brilliance more than Obama himself. But he beat a Hillary campaign that wasn’t expecting a serious challenge (and that was arguably his more surprising victory in ’08), he beat a Republican who was dragged down by an unpopular incumbent and collapsing economy, and he was able to benefit from Americans’ noble desire to elect a minority president. With no Hillary resting on her laurels and no Bush “third-term” to run against, he flounders on the campaign trail. I have no fear of Pres. Obama going out to campaign for this cause or that cause because I know that the average American isn’t interested in what he’s selling and have realized that he said whatever it took to get elected and that he thinks Americans are stupid enough to forget things he said before. He certainly doesn’t know how to govern, but even his ability to use the bully pulpit as president is average at best. Perhaps if the economy turns around or Republicans have a major scandal or he has some major success in international relations or national defense, he’ll regain his mojo, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his popularity continues to drop between now and November 2012.
Why do people keep talking about Obama’s intelligence? We have zero evidence that the man can accomplish anything whatsoever.
I have always been perplexed about this common thread of Democrat presidents and their smarts. John F. Kennedy was flip, urbane, charming and armed to the teeth with ghost writers. But his presidency was a flop. Jimmy Carter was credited with being a brainiac. Clinton was the ultimate politician, Rhodes scholar and so smart he could cook dinner with his brain waves. And now Obama. I left out Johnson, because that smart, wiley old fox got his reputation ripped by his own party when he lost them over Viet Nam. He was probably the only one of them who really knew how to play the game.
Obama wants the trappings of President and the adoration of President and all with no blame, extra effort or productive energy. He is a sham. Now let him take his kids to Indonesia on their Spring break and style around in the limousine. We won’t miss him, because fills no useful function and his teleprompters need oiling anyway.
He is an empty slate, empty suit that people project their wishes and desires onto.
Wouldn’t mind if he got lost for a while in Indonesia.
Totally insane, totally wrong. Obama has been bending over backwards for the Republicans. He watered-down his stimulus bill, he’s stripped healthcare reform of most of the things that liberals wanted in it, and he’s basically continued almost all of Bush’s preventive detention and war policies.
The ‘permanent campaign’ is a feature of the Republican party, who despite all of the things they’ve been given by Obama and all of the concessions he’s made to their policies, absurdly insist that he hasn’t, and that’s he shut them out of the process, and that all he does is attack them all day.
The reason that Obama is such a bad President is because he somehow failed to recognize this fundamental characteristic of modern conservative politics. You’re setting yourself up for massive failure if you insist on doing everything collaboratively with a group that not only does not want to collaborate with you, but wants you to fail. He’s been giving Republicans much of what they’ve been asking for but is still be labeled a socialist radical that wants to subvert the Constitution and might not be a citizen anyway. These miscalculations are going to make him one of the worst Presidents of all time.
One look at Obama’s legislative record would tell you he has no interest in, let alone talent for, governing. One does not vote “present” more than a hundred times unless one is a). not really interested in the process enough to form an opinion, or b). trying to hide who you really are. In Obama’s case it’s a bit of both. As others have said, this “politics as a forever war” is just about all he knows how to do. Governing is not something he is really capable of.
Thank you for the pro totalitarian, pro-innocent killing constitutionally ignorant pro child rapist as cultural icon point of view, Levi.
Except for tort reform, interstate competition, health savings accounts, tax incentives, deficit reduction…
There! you have been informed. All Republicans can now consider themselves thoroughly mooned by the POTUS.
and he’s basically continued almost all of Bush’s preventive detention and war policies.
Which you, your fellow liberals, and Barack Obama screamed were grounds for impeachment and imprisonment as a war criminal.
So enforce it, Levi, and state that Barack Obama should be impeached and imprisoned. Otherwise, you’re just demonstrating what an amoral, corrupt, lying hypocrite that you and your fellow liberals are.
Not that this surprises us, given your support of drugging and raping children, but it’s quite fun to watch your attempts blow up in your face.
If our Founding Fathers were as devoid of civility and as unwilling to compromise as today’s bloggers, we would be lucky to have gotten to our independence from Great Britain before India did. Republicans and conservatives used to be willing to reach across the aisle to work with even liberals the ilk of Teddy Kennedy. Now, I see a deep divide, with people choosing demagoguery ahead of patriotism. The internet, with its deep impersonality and anonymity, allows for people to forego the better angels of their natures and demonize the other party. As you slowly kill our country with your refusal to engage in the necessary acts of working together to find common ground, you may choose to remember the words of Ben Franklin, still relevant today as we face daunting problems and difficult decisions: “We shall hang together or surely we shall all hang separately”.
#12: reach across the aisle? What?!
Reaching across the aisle means John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and the usual RINOs conspiring with the left to destroy this country’s culture and working class – to surrender our liberty.
In other words, Republicans are bipartisan (as if that magically confers warm and fuzzy goodness) when they agree with the left. They’re evil when they stick to principle.
Same thing never applies to the Dems (unless, like Bart Stupak, they deign to represent their constituents instead of bowing to the will of Nancy Pelosi and the SEIU in which case they are also deemed evil haters).
When was the last time we saw the left “reaching across the aisle” to embrace any of the conservative agenda?
I don’t want my representative working “with even liberals the ilk of Teddy Kennedy”. What is there to work with?
Working to find common ground is fine on some issues but there are issues where there is no such thing as common ground. There is simply right and wrong.
In the case of the so-called healthcare debate (I say so-called because healthcare is not the end game), the GOP has offered plenty of substantive ideas… all DOA as far as the Dems.
Now we have the Dems proposing to further defecate on the Constitution by “deeming” bills to have been passed that have not been voted on and presented to the Prez. for signature*. And you guys accused Bush of shredding the Constitution?
* See: Article I, Section 7.
Yes Charlie, because I’m sure you praised President Bush for his reaching across the aisle for medicare D, NCLB, bipartisan support for the liberation of Iraq and re-nomination of Clinton era appointees.
Bi-partisan does not mean ‘do whatever the democrats want.
If our Founding Fathers were as devoid of civility and as unwilling to compromise as today’s bloggers
You mean like Barack Obama claiming that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy and that her husband was having incestuous sex with their daughters?
Our Founding Fathers had slaveholders and abolitionists being able to find common ground around shared concerns and interests. If they were able to reach across the aisle with such divergent interests and concerns, why would you feel that it is somehow antithetical to the well being of your representation to be willing to strike compromises? Mature adults understand that people carry into complex relationships a variety of opinions, values, beliefs and perceptions, and the shared work is to engage together in sorting through those things to find what is of true worth. No one of us is the receptacle of all wisdom and all knowledge. We require others with different viewpoints to help us examine the errors and shortcomings of our own perspectives. This is otherwise called the democratic process, and it is best entered into with the humility that differentiates our system of government from totalitarianism and fascism.
Being a member of a democracy, however, holds its responsibilities over and above a measure of humility about the extent to which one is capable of absolute certainty concerning the “right” way to run a country. It requires that we work to persuade and be persuaded in what might be the right answers for our country’s problems at a given point in time. Absolute certainty about one’s principles and intolerance of other points of view is not necessarily a strength in such a system.
Ronald Reagan was a good example of a principled conservative who understood the importance of civil process. As much as his ideas would differ from those on the left, he would approach his political adversaries with respect and a willingness to listen, be persuaded, and compromise. There are important components to the conservative point of view for the well being of the republic.
Liberals and progressives have generally been the originators of creative new solutions to difficult problems. The Founding Fathers were all progressives, as were the voices that advocated for women’s rights, the abolition of slavery and the end to Jim Crow: all voices to move to new and sometimes radical positions that were needed to address festering problems. But conservative voices have always been the bedrock that ties us to our most durable values, holding back progressives from traveling too far, too fast.
In the exchanges between these two competing forces, we have tended to find a workable balance. Progressives have moved the country forward in ways that were essential for our progress, conservatives have held in check the ideas that were too radical or too far forward for the public to bear. With one or the other of these two forces being absent, the country is weaker, less stable and less adaptable.
This is why I voice concern at the increasing forces that seek to take strident positions and impugn compromise and shared work as weakness and lack of principle. Contempt, disgust, and self-righteous anger at one’s opponent is a measure of weakness and desperation – narcissism in lieu of statesmentship. Compromise and shared dialogue are essential to our well being as a country, as much so as any other value that we honor. The idea of E pluribus unum is a coming together of many voices into a set of positions formulated by all in a shared, civil process, not by those who shout the loudest or speak of their counterparts in the most powerful or vilest voices.
I pray you take seriously what a wondrous – and delicate – thing this amazing democracy is, and protect it by reaching out to those who disagree with you with approaches that invite shared examination, not revulsion and counterattack. Not only is this the morally correct position to take – in my most humble opinion – but also the most effective position to take. Someone who is defending themselves from an attack is generally less inclined to take in the wisdom of even your most well-founded positions. Ronald Reagan knew this well, Abraham Lincoln was a master of this understanding, and all of us can profit from this right now, when we have great work to do and a need for all of our forces to be working together for our shared
Glad to see Levi and other lefitsts are coming around to call Obama one of the worst Presidents ever. In his new book Karl Rove said when they had dealing with Senators in the Bush 43 WHouse, Barack Obama was the least prepared, least engaged person in the room. Frequently saying “I’ll just listen to the opinions stated here and chime in when I’ve an opinion.” And invariably he didn’t.
I continue to say, the Obama saga will go down in our history as an extraoridinary story of a man unqualified to serve. And he went on to prove it.
Charlie74+1/2:
Reaching across the aisle goes both ways. Obama declares what is off the table …… i.e. “the failed policies of the past” ….. so Republicans are supposed to go to his table and suggest napkins color coordinated with the flowers?
The whole “reach across the aisle” theme is bogus to the max when fundamental principles are at play.
In case you did not notice, the Democrats dug themselves in on Iraq. That is their right and I accept that Democrats and Republicans have real differences there. The Democrats set out to make Iraq “George Bush’s Viet Nam.” (Teddy Kennedy said that….. you can look it up.) So, the Republicans had to forge ahead fighting in Irag and battling the Democrats in Congress.
Now we have Obama and his nationalized health care and fundamental transformation of the United States into a community organized socialist big government state. Why is it suddenly incumbent on the Republicans to ditch their principles and “reach across the aisle?” Especially when so many Democrats are running away from Obama socialism themselves?
Stop with the founders, already. You have no ground to argue Constitutional principles so long as your crowd invents ways to force nationalized health care on us without any regard to the Constitution.
Now, Charlie, please explain how the whole health care “reform” has been open, transparent, ethical, targeted, and business as usual. At the very least, Bush got Kerry, Clinton, Kennedy, Durbin, Reid, Schumer, Biden, and the rest to vote for going into Iraq. Or, maybe, in your mind, they just crapped on their principles so they could “reach across the aisle.”
Funny thing about our Founding Fathers and civility though.
Charlie, I applaud the civility and sincerity of your words, but must disagree on their substance.
Pelosi & Co appear ready to enact the so-called “Slaughter Solution,” fully aware of its illegality and toxic political consequence. While this is offensive in and of itself, the truly infuriating gall of these people to attempt such a trick, whilst assigning the blame for it on their opposition is unconscionable.