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The Mis-Education of a
President Part Two of Three By Dave Andrusko Good evening, and thanks once again for reading Today's News & Views. Part three brings you to speed on the latest political news. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), Wesley Smith wonders why there is so little news about adult stem cells. Liz Townsend reports on the latest legal struggles of abortionist Steven Brigham. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.
When I first started to write today's smorgasbord of political news, it was going to include such items as the growing/widening/burgeoning backlash to pro-abortion President Barack Obama's demagogic assault on the Chamber of Commerce and other groups such as American Crossroads. For example, after "a week in which Obama led Democrats in attacks on the group, which is affiliated with GOP strategists Ed Gillespie," American Crossroads "has raised over $13 million since coming under attack from President Obama," according to the Hill newspaper. And that says nothing about the criticism from all point of the political spectrum for Obama's evidence-free attack. I was also going to write about how "Republicans are winning eight out of 10 competitive open House seats surveyed in a groundbreaking new poll by The Hill." Which "Taken on top of 11 GOP leads out of 12 freshman Democratic districts polled last week, The Hill 2010 Midterm Election Poll points toward 19 Republican victories out of 22 races, while Democrats win only two and one is tied." Or how Obama is largely focusing on friendly audiences and/or fundraisers while sending out Vice President Joe Biden to do the heavy lifting. And so forth. Then I found out that the New York Times has posted a story that will run Sunday in the New York Times Magazine, titled "Education of a President" and this post suddenly had a new focus. [You can read this at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17obama-t.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all]. While lengthy, it is well worth your time, so let me just hone in on some impressions. #1. Obama is as supremely self-confident as ever, and will remain so no matter how much of a spanking his party absorbs next month. He really believes that his "problem" was that he was too good for Washington with its "politics" of deal-cutting and glad-handing. Others might disagree with this grandiose opinion of himself. Peter Baker, who wrote the sympathetic Times Magazine piece, seemed of two minds. "Perhaps that should have come as no surprise ["disillusionment" among supporters that he had met on the campaign trail]. When Obama secured the Democratic nomination in June 2008, he told an admiring crowd that someday 'we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.'" #2. Obama is sensitive to criticism of his once-vaunted speaking style and for his aloofness. He tells Baker of former President Clinton's low approval ratings at an equivalent point in his first term. "And I don't think anybody would suggest that Bill Clinton wasn't a good communicator or was somebody who couldn't connect with the American people or didn't show empathy," he says defensively. #3. At the same time he hopes to experience the same kind of comeback Clinton had after his party was steamrolled in 1994, others around Obama are less optimistic. "Yet even if the White House saw it coming [the precipitous drop in approval ratings], this is an administration that feels shellshocked. Many officials worry, they say, that the best days of the Obama presidency are behind them." Why? Everything and everybody is to blame except Obama and such policies as the abortion-ridden, rationing-promoting ObamaCare. "In this environment [partisanship, minute-to-minute media coverage, lobbyists, etc.], they have increasingly concluded, it may be that every modern president is going to be, at best, average." Please! #4. In back-to-back sentences, one of Obama's core weaknesses is unintentionally exposed, even though the first sentence misses it altogether. "The biggest miscalculation in the minds of most Obama advisers was the assumption that he could bridge a polarized capital and forge genuinely bipartisan coalitions," Baker writes. Onus, clearly, is on the wicked Republicans. Next sentence, "While Republican leaders resolved to stand against Obama, his early efforts to woo the opposition also struck many as halfhearted." Republicans (and later some conservative Democrats) stood against him because his policies were far out of the mainstream. When Obama made only gestures in the direction of finding "common ground," what conclusion would YOU draw? That he intends to steamroll you, what else? #5. Final point--there is a common thread. Obama freely expresses contempt for the "Washington culture," which most assuredly includes Republicans, an attitude of smug superiority worsened by an infinite confidence in his own powers of persuasion. If his opponents don't fall down to their knees, overcome by his eloquence, it can only be because they are intent on "poisoning the well," not that they flatly disagree with, for example, ObamaCare. Speaking of what might happen in his dealing with Republicans in 2011, Obama patronizingly tells Baker, "It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible." Not a lot of evidence there that he has given much, if any, thought to what Baker calls "the basic elements of the program," including ObamaCare. A piece very much reading and reflecting. Regardless of what happens November 2, we will have a formidable opponent in the White House who seems to have learned only one lesson: history will recognize his genius, even if the voters draw a different conclusion. |
