On Obama’s Emotional Detachment and the Economy
Welcome Instapundit Readers!
One could say that of the many factors contributing to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, perhaps the most important was that he came across as calm during the market meltdown in the midst of the presidential campaign while his Republican rival appeared erratic. But, maybe his calm demeanor was not that of a leader showing he could keep his cool in a crisis, but a of man with little ability to show emotion, a man who was somewhat detached from his fellows and their difficulties.
As long as the difficulty doesn’t impact him personally, the president maintains his cool facade.
Sometimes, when he tours areas which just experienced a disaster, it appears he’s going through the motions, visiting the town and talking to the people not because he feels their pain (to borrow an expression of his most immediate Democratic predecessor who really could make it appear that he did), but because this is what a president does. Or, perhaps, he’s just not as media savvy in such situations as was Bill Clinton.
But, then there’s this. Just moments after honoring those who gave their all for our freedom on Memorial Day, he heads off for the golf course for yet another round. I don’t begrudge him his leisure and grant every president should enjoy some recreation on his days off, but did Mr. Obama consider how it might appear if he headed off for the links on the day when we’re supposed to be honoring those who died in this nation’s service? Maybe he just thinks the media will cover for him.*
These thoughts came to mind as I caught this post on Instapundit. Glenn links a post on Powerline where John Hinderaker, commented on Michele Bachmann’s observation about the president’s apparent absence of empathy:
That Barack Obama is without a clue when it comes to the economy is no revelation, but that he lacks empathy–traditionally a Democratic refrain–is a bold and interesting twist. The fact is that Obama does often seem to be weirdly detached from the problems he ostensibly is trying to solve.
Read the whole thing. When it comes to the economy, Obama doesn’t seem as engaged as he was during the push to overhaul our nation’s health care system. Perhaps, he he just assumed the “stimulus” would work as (his administration) advertised and can’t grapple with its failure to meet its expectations. Why else would he forego his regular (i.e., daily) economic briefings, holding only one in the past month?
Is he really that indifferent to the nation’s economic health?
In some of his speeches lately, he seems strangely dispassionate, only showing emotion when criticizing his critics. Now, to be fair, I don’t watch all that much television, catching the president primarily when I look up from a cardio machine at the gym. Or occasionally when I have FoxNews on at home.
Lately, he doesn’t seem very engaged, almost as if he doesn’t really like his job. That said, he does like the perks the title allows and the prominence it provides. (More on this notion anon.)
*UPDATE: And it seems that they do as Jim Geraghty reports:
The New York Times sports page, covering the U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club, in Bethesda, Md., writes about politicians who don’t want to be seen playing golf, noting, “with two wars, a tight economy and a high national unemployment rate, the prevailing belief is that constituents do not want to see their representatives having fun at the golf course.”
. . . .
Unmentioned is that the round with Boehner Saturday will be the president’s 73rd round since taking office, and the twelfth straight weekend.
Read the whole thing. (It’s not very long)
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He doesn’t feel our pain because aside from polls, it doesn’t effect him. He lives in a world of opulent luxury and excess, he has never gone hungry or worried about not being able to provide for his family. Ever.
Comment by Zilla — June 17, 2011 @ 6:53 am - June 17, 2011
He has never provided for. He has always been provided with.
Comment by TnnsNe1 — June 17, 2011 @ 7:17 am - June 17, 2011
Well, Obama believes the leftist-academic narrative about our problems: that Americans are stupid to elect Republicans, and if only leftist academics would be listened to as they decree prosperity etc., then problems will vanish.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 17, 2011 @ 10:15 am - June 17, 2011
Obama emits a dull cadence moving day by day. And so he will continue until his term is over, whether it be 2012 or 2016.
Obama lit the way for his lemming-like adorers by the glimmer of his candle, but their lot is neither of his making nor his concern. He utters the bromides and boilerplate and then retreats to private pleasures.
If this is a poorly played drama, so be it. Obama’s time on the stage is his to direct and play out. He has organized his White House community and if they have failed, it is not his responsibility.
Either people rise to the call of “hope” and “change” or they fail Obama. There is no more he can do or be asked to do.
He will move on to protected, privileged retirement without a care for looking back. He has organized the one community that means the most to him: himself.
He is a passing comet from out of the dark on a mission to nowhere except back into the dark. Any disruption he may have caused in passing is merely evidence of his existence.
Comment by Heliotrope — June 17, 2011 @ 10:15 am - June 17, 2011
I never knew Annie was quoting Shakespeare.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 17, 2011 @ 10:43 am - June 17, 2011
Obama is detached on the economy because he knows his policies have failed, and is out of ideas for policies that wont fail (since those would involve embracing the free market). Nobody wants to be constantly reminded of failure everyday, thus no daily economic briefing, and detachment from the economy..
Comment by richard40 — June 17, 2011 @ 10:52 am - June 17, 2011
@ richard40,
I’d not say that ‘Nobody wants to be constantly reminded of failure everyday’ I accept my failures and learn from them. That’s the part that President Obama doesn’t want to do, learn from mistakes. I feel that he’s scratching his head, wondering why his radical theories, straight from his terrorist and truther friends, aren’t working like they said they would.
(Or worse, they’re working exactly like he wants them to.)
Comment by The_Livewire — June 17, 2011 @ 10:56 am - June 17, 2011
Is it possible that destroying our economy as we know it was the goal all along? I’ve always had the feeling that he’s quite happy with higher gas prices b/c it advanced his clean energy agenda. Government control requires dependency. People are only dependent when they are poor.
Comment by Lily — June 17, 2011 @ 11:09 am - June 17, 2011
I think you might be misinterpreting the reason for his detachment. It’s not that Obama’s policies have failed and he doesn’t know what to do, but rather the opposite. His policies have worked exactly as planned, and he’s just waiting for the fruit to fully ripen.
Comment by 5th Level Fighter — June 17, 2011 @ 11:16 am - June 17, 2011
5th Level Fighter: that ‘s what I think. After all, why wouldn’t he take the good ideas out there – or at least try them? He had no problem going with Bush’s foreign policies, even after he promised he wouldn’t? He could try some of the GOP ideas, now.
Comment by Lily — June 17, 2011 @ 11:24 am - June 17, 2011
Is it possible that destroying our economy as we know it was the goal all along?
Well, just to give a couple of examples, the progressive left wants us to eat less and drive less. Obama’s policies have driven the prices of food and gasoline up dramatically.
Coincidence?
Comment by V the K — June 17, 2011 @ 11:24 am - June 17, 2011
Enforced scarcity is the only way that Obama can sell his “green energy” pipedream. He’s intent upon rigging the game so that we have no other way out.
If there is one thing which warms a socialist’s heart, it’s control. I agree with those who state that he knows exactly what he’s doing. He boasted about it while he was a candidate.
It’s up to us to see to it that his grand plan backfires.
Comment by Mike C — June 17, 2011 @ 11:45 am - June 17, 2011
Obama’s detachment is now a liability; he’s so out of touch that it’s frightening sometimes. Furthermore, Obama does believe he’s above the law which doesn’t help his case. The detachment will be a good political angle for 2012.
Comment by Sebastian Shaw — June 17, 2011 @ 11:47 am - June 17, 2011
Obama has been coddled by left wing institutionalism and wealthy radical benefactors nearly his whole life, never having to hold a real job or run an actual business that creates anything of value. He has literally grown up as a modern day leftist intellectual aristocrat and has no empathy because he’s had no real contact to those who actually do the work to produce in this country. It’s a sad tale indeed, and one that’s reflective in his aloofness.
Comment by forrest — June 17, 2011 @ 11:49 am - June 17, 2011
How sure are we that he will run in 2012? Will he just take donations and then announce that he “wants to spend more time with his family” Just wondering.
Comment by MassJim — June 17, 2011 @ 12:11 pm - June 17, 2011
Whoever thought we would live to see the day when Russia was abandoning socialism while the USA was embracing it.
Comment by V the K — June 17, 2011 @ 12:32 pm - June 17, 2011
He never wanted to be President, he wanted to be seen as President. The big jet, the limos, the parties, yes, he’s for that. The work? That’s someone else.
Comment by Peter — June 17, 2011 @ 12:56 pm - June 17, 2011
At least Pelosi has a business, she understands the economy even as she (imho) is trying to undermine it. Obama is from Chicago which is slouching towards Detroit.
Chicago has become another welfare state, tax everyone to give to the growing proud poor. And it’s a santcuary city so it’s a beacon to illegals with no jobs skill and needing finacial aid. So it just adds to the population of people NEEDING finacial aid without ADDING finacial growth. I desire a better computer, but the need does not me one comes to me. If I get the money, then I can get a better computer.
Obama doesn’t understand finacial growth, most Democrats in big citires don’t. For them taxing is easy, the businesses to tax are THERE NOW, how they came about doesn’t matter and the fact they could relocate to a state with more favorable taxes doesn’t register. Tax everything, like Detroit politicans did. And there are still politicans in Detroit, still able to get money for a rusting city with a dwindling population. See how much they paid for nice chairs when a high illiteracy rate. As if hearing about nice expensive chairs will bring people into the library for help learning to read. It’s not about the library’s patrons, it’s about the money for the chairs, and someone is in charge of the money, so that person has some power. It’s about the power so if money is wasted on chairs for nobody to sit in who cares?
That is the basic problem of our Democratic government right now.
Comment by Brush — June 17, 2011 @ 1:42 pm - June 17, 2011
He first rammed through a whacking big lump of deficit spending to suck capital from the private sector into government bonds, then he passed a massive health care bill to terrify businesses into not hiring. Since the acts involved have had exactly the results that any unbiased economist would have predicted, why should Obama worry about checking every day that his policies are producing what presumably were the intended, if unadvertised, results?
Comment by Steven E — June 17, 2011 @ 2:04 pm - June 17, 2011
Obozo is a LEFTIST. Always remember that. When you or I come up with a great idea – and it doesn’t work – the first thing we do is look for what was wrong with the idea. A LEFTIST never does that. The idea was perfect. We didn’t spend enough money. Or, we didn’t try it long enough. Or, we didn’t try it hard enough. Or, some evil people are out there blocking the idea from being successful. The one thing they never do is examine the basic idea.We can see how badly statism has failed wherever it has been tried. But the leftist still insist that we give it one more try. Obama raids college faculties for economics advisers. As if someone who has spent their entire adult life in the rarefied precincts of academia has anything resembling a clue. You would think that the POTUS economic council would consist of successful businessmen, people who have started working businesses from the ground up.
Comment by Mike Giles — June 17, 2011 @ 2:09 pm - June 17, 2011
He’s out of touch because his whole existence has been in the world where you are given money and jobs and acclaim instead of earning them.
Comment by bandit — June 17, 2011 @ 2:47 pm - June 17, 2011
If you ask a socialist what business is for, they will tell you that’s where taxes come from. If you ask an intelligent person what business is for, they will tell you that’s where jobs and wealth come from.
‘Nuff said.
Comment by TooMuchTime — June 17, 2011 @ 2:51 pm - June 17, 2011
“A man in arrears to his creditors will cringe at the very sight of a checkbook.” — C.S. Lewis
Obama is such a man, though the finances he’s mangled are not his own.
Comment by Francis W. Porretto — June 17, 2011 @ 4:43 pm - June 17, 2011
Has to be. Our Bill Nelson has sided with the Socialist Bernie Sanders to attack the oil speculators which, if eliminated, could create European style prices, gas shortages or both. If they gave a crap about lowering gas prices, they’d push measures to strengthen the dollar.
http://tinyurl.com/3dzjvqx
Comment by TGC — June 17, 2011 @ 7:59 pm - June 17, 2011
Complete bait and switch. Anyone that saw his Fort Hood speech wont soon forget.. Some can see he is absolutely uninvolved in anything – no trace of that studious brilliant guy, just living large for Obama..
He’s not involved because he just doesnt care about USA. well, actually he does – he’s for the other guys, so little reason for him to get involved.
This is the guy who goes to war in Libya, by electronic pen on way for holidays. Without authorization. Nobel prizewinner!
He’s a sham.
Comment by dd — June 18, 2011 @ 2:21 am - June 18, 2011
[...] On Obama’s Emotional Detachment and the Economy When it comes to the economy, Obama doesn’t seem as engaged as he was during the push to overhaul our nation’s health care system. Perhaps, he he just assumed the “stimulus” would work as (his administration) advertised and can’t grapple with its failure to meet its expectations. Why else would he forego his regular (i.e., daily) economic briefings, holding only one in the past month? [...]
Pingback by Daily Dive 18 June 11 | adeliemanchot — June 18, 2011 @ 5:17 pm - June 18, 2011
Dan… Congrats on the Instalanche! It’s always nice when that happens.
Comment by Sonicfrog — June 19, 2011 @ 2:33 pm - June 19, 2011