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Date: Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 9:45 AM
Subject: Fw: At least Jimmy Carter only served one term
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Excellent article about the state of our country.
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Peggy Noonan...WSJ 7/5/14
I don't know if we sufficiently understand how weird and strange, how historically unparalleled, this presidency has become. We've got a sitting president who was just judged in a major poll to be the worst since World War II. The worst president in 70 years! Quinnipiac University's respondents also said, by 54% to 44%, that the Obama administration is not competent to run the government. A Zogby Analytics survey asked if respondents are proud or ashamed of the president. Those under 50 were proud, while those over 50, who have of course the longest experienced sense of American history, were ashamed.
We all know the reasons behind the numbers. The scandals that suggest poor stewardship and, in the case of the IRS, destructive political mischief. The president's signature legislation, which popularly bears his name and contains within it the heart of his political meaning, continues to wreak havoc in marketplaces and to be unpopular with the public. He is incapable of working with Congress, the worst at this crucial aspect of the job since Jimmy Carter, though Mr. Carter at least could work with the Mideast and produced the Camp David Accords. Mr. Obama has no regard for Republicans and doesn't like to be with Democrats. Internationally, small states that have traditionally been the locus of trouble (the Mideast) are producing more of it, while large states that have been more stable in their actions (Russia, China) are newly, starkly aggressive.
That's a long way of saying nothing's working.
Which I'm sure you've noticed.
But I'm not sure people are noticing the sheer strangeness of how the president is responding to the lack of success around him. He once seemed a serious man. He wrote books, lectured on the Constitution. Now he seems unserious, frivolous, shallow. He hangs with celebrities, plays golf. His references to Congress are merely sarcastic: "So sue me." "They don't do anything except block me. And call me names. It can't be that much fun."
In a truly stunning piece in early June, Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown and Jennifer Epstein interviewed many around the president and reported a general feeling that events have left him—well, changed. He is "taking fuller advantage of the perquisites of office," such as hosting "star-studded dinners that sometimes go on well past midnight." He travels, leaving the White House more in the first half of 2014 than any other time of his presidency except his re-election year. He enjoys talking to athletes and celebrities, not grubby politicians, even members of his own party. He is above it all.
On his state trip to Italy in the spring, he asked to spend time with "interesting Italians." They were wealthy, famous. The dinner went for four hours. The next morning his staff were briefing him for a "60 Minutes" interview about Ukraine and health care. "One aide paraphrased Obama's response: 'Just last night I was talking about life and art, big interesting things, and now we're back to the minuscule things on politics.' ''
Minuscule? Politics is his job.
When the crisis in Ukraine escalated in March, White House aides wondered if Mr. Obama should cancel a planned weekend golf getaway in Florida. He went. At the "lush Ocean Reef Club," he reportedly told his dinner companions: "I needed this. I needed the golf. I needed to laugh. I needed to spend time with friends."
You get the impression his needs are pretty important in his hierarchy of concerns.
This is a president with 2½ years to go who shows every sign of running out the clock. Normally in a game you run out the clock when you're winning. He's running it out when he's losing.
All this is weird, unprecedented. The president shows no sign—none—of being overwhelmingly concerned and anxious at his predicaments or challenges. Every president before him would have been. They'd be questioning what they're doing wrong, changing tack. They'd be ordering frantic aides to meet and come up with what to change, how to change it, how to find common ground not only with Congress but with the electorate.
Instead he seems disinterested, disengaged almost to the point of disembodied. He is fatalistic, passive, minimalist. He talks about hitting "singles" and "doubles" in foreign policy.
"The world seems to disappoint him," says the New Yorker's liberal and sympathetic editor, David Remnick.
What kind of illusions do you have to have about the world to be disappointed when it, and its players, act aggressively or foolishly? Presidents aren't supposed to have those illusions, and they're not supposed to check out psychologically when their illusions are shattered.
Barack Obama doesn't seem to care about his unpopularity, or the decisions he's made that have not turned out well. He doesn't seem concerned. A guess at the reason: He thinks he is right about his essential policies. He is steering the world toward not relying on America. He is steering America toward greater dependence on and allegiance to government. He is creating a more federally controlled, Washington-centric nation that is run and organized by progressives. He thinks he's done his work, set America on a leftward course, and though his poll numbers are down now, history will look back on him and see him as heroic, realistic, using his phone and pen each day in spite of unprecedented resistance. He is Lincoln, scorned in his time but loved by history.
He thinks he is in line with the arc of history, that America, for all its stops and starts, for all the recent Supreme Court rulings, has embarked in the long term on governmental and cultural progressivism. Thus in time history will have the wisdom to look back and see him for what he really was: the great one who took every sling and arrow, who endured rising unpopularity, the first black president and the only one made to suffer like this.
That's what he's doing by running out the clock: He's waiting for history to get its act together and see his true size.
He's like someone who's constantly running the movie "Lincoln" in his head. It made a great impression on him, that movie. He told Time magazine, and Mr. Remnick, how much it struck him. President Lincoln of course had been badly abused in his time. Now his greatness is universally acknowledged. But if Mr. Obama read more of Lincoln, he might notice Lincoln's modesty, his plain ways, his willingness every day to work and negotiate with all who opposed him, from radical abolitionists who thought him too slow to supporters of a negotiated peace who thought him too martial. Lincoln showed respect for others. Those who loved him and worked for him thought he showed too much. He was witty and comical but not frivolous and never shallow. He didn't say, "So sue me." He never gave up trying to reach agreement and resolution.
It is weird to have a president who has given up. So many young journalists diligently covering this White House, especially those for whom it is their first, think what they're seeing is normal.
It is not. It is unprecedented and deeply strange. And, because the world is watching and calculating, unbelievably dangerous.
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Has Barack Obama managed our country well? As we close in on the end of his presidency, we now have the data in to judge his effectiveness. And the American people have lost faith in him.
Where the conservative tadio talk show hosts correct about Barack Obama's management ability? Bill O'Reilly: Video Center - Talking Points Memos
Was Romney or Obama correct about Iraq? http://youngcons.com/if-you-
And how about Obama's pledge to cut the deficit in half during his first term: http://www.youtube.com/
And don't forget this quote on July 3, 2008, at a campaign event in Fargo, N.D. in which he set the standard for his presidency. “The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents -- number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child.” “That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic,” said candidate Obama. Through only his first six years of presidency, debt is up $6.666 trillion under Obama. And let's not forget the fact that he has two years to go. Unless the last two years are surpluses, under his standards he is both more "irresponsible" and "upatriotic" than any other president in our country's history.
Now the headlines read "Why is Obama’s foreign policy now polling like Obamacare?".
In the end, only the uninformed or liberals who want the government controlling more of our lives are left supporting Obama. Obama's lack of management has left our country saddled with debt, bogged down with implementation of a health care plan that is a mess, and a weakened position in the world. We have a long way to go to get our country back on track. History will ultimately judge this President, and based upon the results, it does not look good for him. But more importantly, it does not look good for us as a country.
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6 comments:
Peggy Noonan? Really?
The participation trophy of opinion columns is all you've got?
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/16/hack_list_no_8_peggy_noonan/
I saw Peggy Noonan on George Stephanopolis on Sunday. I used to watch the Sunday morning talk shows regularly, but it is hard to tune in to them anymore when this is the kind of guest they have. You hear the exact same things from Republicans on these shows that you can hear by tuning in to Fox News or Limbaugh et al, so why bother? Its just the same talking points, its just the same Obama bashing. There is no attempt to move the conversation along. They are satisfied with this level of dumbed-down commentary. This Noonan column is more of the same. There is little of value here, just emotional reactions to her own fantasies. Lines like: "Barack Obama doesn't seem to care about his unpopularity." I'm sure wingers think each new insult they come up with for Obama is a great leap forward. If I'm frustrated and weary of it, I know the president must be extremely weary of this repeating circle of nonsense. I wouldn't blame him for trying to get some joy out of his presidency once in a while-if any of this is even remotely true.
Peggington Noonington the Third is infamous for fantasizing about what a democrat is thinking or feeling and then snootily bashing them for it.
Dame Peggitha Nooningtonhampshire? Oh really? Guess it's ok if you like listening to an elitist hack way past her sell-by date whiiiiine endlessly about Obama, who has declared that his "role model" is none other than Ronald Reagan, whom Noonan idolizes.
Noonan's only good at drinking while downing various prescription meds.
Why anyone can be bothered to take her drivel seriously is beyond me, but that's the rightwing mind-set. Endlessly - and boringly - bash Obama while offering No. Real. Solutions.
Boring. Bah Humbug.
No big fan of Obama, but even much less of a fan of Noonan the putrid.
He is steering the world toward not relying on America. He is steering America toward greater dependence on and allegiance to government. He is creating a more federally controlled, Washington-centric nation that is run and organized by progressives.
Noonan parrots tired over-used rightwing "talking points" mainly because she's likely too stoned and/or drunk to do anything approaching original thought. And why not? When you are as firmly entrenched in the rightwingnut welfare circuit, like Noonan is, why bother to do any heavy lifting when pooping out the usual Rush-inspired racist bashing is all that's required for collecting a hefty "pay"-off check.
Links or it's mostly b.s.
Yes, I'm sure it is historically unprecedented to have a least popular President since WWII. I guess we have never had least popular Presidents before.
So, uh, I'm confused. How did this old column about Dubya get printed with Obama's name? Traveling a lot, "running out the clock," opining about how unconcerned he seems? It all sounds very familiar.
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