This touches on the still-essential question that historians will write books about: How did the president lose the room? How did he lose popularity?
The leftward edge of the left says he did it by being too accommodating, by trying for a bipartisanship that doesn’t exist. The rightward edge of the right says he did it by revealing his essentially socialistic agenda. The center has said, in polls and at the polls, that it didn’t like his administration’s first-year obsession with a health-care bill that was huge, costly and impenetrably complicated, and would be run by those people who gave you the DMV and the post office.
The political class this week blamed it on the Chicago Mafia, the longtime Obama friends and associates who surround him in the Oval Office. But even that doesn’t explain it. What did they do wrong? And why do people think Mr. Obama’s advisers are different from Mr. Obama?
Washington’s pundits have begun announcing that the White House is better at campaigning than at governing, but that was obvious last summer. The president and his advisers understand one thing really well, and that is Democratic primaries and Democratic politics. This is the area in which they made their careers. It’s how they defeated Hillary Clinton””by knowing how Democrats think. In the 2008 general election, appealing for the first time to all of America and not only to Democrats, they had one great gift on their side, the man who both made Mr. Obama and did in John McCain, and that was George W. Bush.
But now it is 2010, and Mr. Bush is gone. Mr. Obama is left with America, and he does not, really, understand it. That is why he thinks moving to the center would be political death, when moving to the center and triangulating, as Bill Clinton did, might give him a new lease on life.
And in one of what are surely the greatest economic challenges of the past two centuries, we have an administration almost completely devoid of people who have [i]ever[/i] managed a business, tried to cut costs, struggled to make payroll, decided to hire or lay off …
It is an administration replete with people who have never produced more than a speech, a paper, or a video. Not only Mr. Obama, but nearly everyone in his coterie of advisers is completely lost in the realm of economics, enterprise, and job creation.
Like most people out of their depth, the Obama team has retrenched to petty-control-freak micro-management, which in this case only reinforces their growing reputation as Nanny-State interventionists.
[blockquote]He seems a man who is certain he is right, in the long term if not in the day-to-day.[/blockquote] Couldn’t the same thing have been said about Bush? Didn’t Bush employ that same certainty that he was doing the right thing in Iraq. And didn’t both Bush and now Obama have toxic advisers that paint them into a corner?
I trust secretary of defense General David Petraeus and Robert Gates, because they are above partisan politics and have served both presidents well.
Dcn Dale, I might agree with you re: Bush, others might not. I’m not sure what your point is. Surely you don’t mean to say this is a good quality?
Also, Gates is SecDef; Gen. Petraeus is the Commander, U.S. Central Command.
Finally, in addtion to Sec. Gates, I think Secs. Duncan (Ed), Shinseki (Vet.Affairs) and Salazar (Interior) are all good choices. Sec. Hillary Clinton has surprised me – not that she’s outstanding, just not terrible (and she evidences a higher degree of competence than the President). OTOH, Geitner (Treas.) AG Holder, Napolitano (Homeland Sec.), and Orszag (OMB) have been horrible. These four and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel must go if the President has any hope of rescuing his failing presidency. Failures lurking in the wings are Hilda Solis (Labor), Kathleen Sebelius (HHS), Ray LaHood (DOT) and Lisa Jackson (EPA), all politicos and not real administrators.
#3. William Pl Sulik,
[blockquote]I’m not sure what your point is[/blockquote] I don’t see Bush as any less and ideologue that Obama. I just happened to agree with Bush more than I do Obama.
[blockquote]Also, Gates is SecDef; Gen. Petraeus is the Commander, U.S. Central Command.[/blockquote]
Oops. I sit corrected.
I guess voting for a guy who was not quite sure if he was right wouldn’t have been that attractive………… seems a basic quality that someone who wants to lead should have a clear of ideas about where they want to lead everyone – nothing wrong with that in itself, but the program may be flawed.
Having made a decision on what to do about Iraq, Bush stuck to it, got better advice when the policy appeared to be failing, and persevered. On domestic issues, to the frustration of many conservatives, he compromised, increasing the size of the government and the debt. Obama, on the other hand, came in as an ideologue about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has moved in Bush’s direction as he became familiar with the reality. It’s on domestic issues that he has proved more ideological, and there are no signs as yet of his moving to the center there.
I agree on William P. Sulik’s (#3) list of Cabinet officers, good and bad, with the exception of Hillary Clinton, who has been surprisingly ineffective at State. I suppose it may be difficult to operate with the White House even more ineffective in foreign affairs. But still, I thought she’d have more clout, and she must have thought so, too, when she resigned from the Senate.
As is so often the case, I think Katherine has it right.
I agree with Katherine as well. IMO, Bush has a far greater grasp of, and regard for, American history and the Office of POTUS than does Obama. Bush certainly had faults, but Mr. Hope N. Change is no improvement by a very long shot.
Wasn’t Peggy Noonan an Obamasoxer at the time? How did such an astute observer forget that fundamental rule, that a politician should be judged by his (in)actions, not his words?
But AZUSA, words were all that he had! If the majority of the electorate had paid attention to Obama’s record of “(in)action” it would have been a long time before he reached the White House.
#10: I know, I know… But the electorate did have his (non) voting record, if they cared to find out, & the MSM cared to (not) discuss it …
#10, Nikolaus, “But AZUSA, words were all that he had!” Right. And that still seems to be all. I see no evidence of his taking control of the legislative process. Even this planned “bipartisan summit” will apparently have a Democratic House/Senate agreement in place before it begins. He has acted as the communications leader, leaving details to the Congressional majorities. Neither the communications nor the Congressional leadership is making much progress with the public. Since he has ceded details, the ideologies of the Democratic leadership are by default his. I don’t know how Peggy Noonan missed seeing this coming. Like so many others, she got swept up in emotional responses in the campaign season and forgot to look beyond that.