11/20/2010

Has The Eagle Landed?

"...What's missing with this president is power—a strong grasp of the powers he possesses and the willingness to govern the country with them. During the past two years, this missing quality has been consistently obvious in his rhetoric and substantive policy positions. There is a cloying Boy Scout quality in his style of leadership—the troop leader urging boys to work together on their merit badges—and none of the pigheaded stubbornness of his "I am the decider" predecessor, nor the hard steel of Lyndon Johnson or the guile of Richard Nixon.

Obama has patience and the self-confidence not to insist that his solution is the best and only one. On many vital questions, he went so far as to not even say what his solution was. Such a governing style is too nice for real-life politics, where Boy Scouts get their heads handed to them..."

William Grieder
Obama Without Tears
The Nation

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why can't Obama start standing up to Rush, the Tea Party and Republicans, like he did to Hillary?
I never thought I'd say this but, he's too eager to compromise with those who are uncompromising.

Sunny Badger said...

Personally, I think it's a waste of time for Obama to counter attack the right-wing, talking idiocracy. It's like a heckled baseball player going after the hecklers in the stands. Obama has made a couple of swipes at Beck, etc. and it never works out in his favor.

Here's what Obama said in an interview on CBS with Harry Smith in April 2010:

"Well, I think that when you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, [their "on-air vitriol"] is pretty apparent, and it's troublesome ... But keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out. It happens often when you've got an economy that is making people more anxious, and people are feeling like there is a lot of change that needs to take place. But that's not the vast majority of Americans. I think the vast majority of Americans know that we're trying hard, that I want what's best for the country."

Ignore the idiots. Speak up about the issues, hammer on the facts and point out the lies. Use the bully pulpit.

Roadkill said...

"On many vital questions, he went so far as to not even say what his solution was."

I think that is true, but probably for different reasons than the guy who wrote it.

The fact is, President Obama doesn't really have many solutions. His entire presidential campaign was an amorphous stew of "hope, "change," and "Yes we Can!" No specifics, no answers, no solutions. Just a feel-good (I'm not GW Bush) movement that, upon closer examination, is rather vacuous.

Charismatic leaders who don't have a lot of good ideas of their own need people around them who do. That's another problem besetting President Obama - he doesn't have many good idea people around him either. So things get left to Congress, where committees design horses that look like camels, bills get rammed through on party-line votes, and major legislation polls in majorities for repeal.

The only face-saving explanation remaining, I suppose, is to float the idea that "the smartest guy in the room" is just too gracious and deferential to impose his own well thought out solutions on the country.

Darn, if only the President wasn't so darn modest!

Sunny Badger said...

RK:

Obama sounds like the GOP aka The Party of No. Perhaps there are no solutions only elected positions to fill.