Only now, facing all-too-deserved electoral walking papers does Obama stoop to practice politics with his sham budget posturing. Non-Rightist Americans are supposed to rally to his charade. “If you love me, support All the Movement tax cuts I am proposing my equally sham jobs air ball. Such contempt for America and Americans. It’s a Potemkin Village that no on could be bothered to actually build; tarps flutter in the wind from scaffolding merely hinting where the facade might have been.
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This kind of hollowness oddly can’t be faked. It can only come from a truly empty core, lacking conviction and the animalistic rut from enjoying the immersion and parry of actual politics. It’s been said that Obama’s various levels of psychological outsider status renders him inert, an observer and judge. Whatever the reasons, his detachment, disengagement and ineffectiveness are now historical fact. His ‘Jobs Bill’ and proposal to the decadent ‘Super Committee’ dashed off to staunch the bleeding in the polls and get the “Professional Left” to love him again. They’re stupid enough to do it, too. Or even chase Ralph, again.
The more charitable might say 3 years into his presidency and the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression, at least Obama is trying to act like the leader of a political party. One wonders what concoction will be served after these evaporate into diaphanous irrelevance.
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Comment says
@DrLeoStrauss
Bad politics – especially because the 9th district is somewhat anomalous. They gonna hate him no matter what he does – but if he showed some savvy and learned how to push people around a bit and get something in return, he’d gain respect.
DrLeoStrauss says
@Comment Domestic algebra made the decision all but inevitable, especially with the loss of Weiner’s district and numbers in Florida. Apart from how one views the on-again, off-again Administration Israeli strategy. Agree with you that it’s a decision with long term consequences.
Comment says
Very disappointed to read Obama gave Israel highly valuable bunker busting bombs without getting anything in return. That technology will now be on the open market in within a decade. Hope he doesn’t give the Paks f-16 and then beg them to love us.
DrLeoStrauss says
@Comment Maybe as long as one has fun and finds enjoyment, then the music’s doing something right. It’s a great a tune and works slowed down to recording speed, too.
Comment says
@Dr Leo Strauss
Saintee …. My Dear Annie. Got have heart made of steel not to love lyrics like that. Too bad I’m a terrible musician.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment Polka, baby! On initial listen, would be inclined to try the open tuning, even if accompanied and especially solo.
Comment says
FWIW – a great addictive song I am trying to learn on guitar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Jycofhny0
Dr Leo Strauss says
@jwb The points are cogently and persuasively presented, JWB, including your pov on our moniker.
This place benefits our close knit family when different perspectives open up room for broader, true conversations. And if this place truly belongs to all of us, then certainly all have a stakeholder’s standing to add, amend and improve things.
Dr Leo Strauss says
TPTB will call the race to forestall a long Republican primary? One view.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/09/21/gop_primaries
jwb says
@Dr Leo Strauss I think we agree more than you seem to want to admit, especially on the notion that Obama’s primary positive is that he is the best hope for buying us time and that time is the main thing that he is capable of buying us. If I have sympathy for Obama, it’s not because I think the man has been especially effective; it’s simply that I think the Presidency, always a difficult job, is today an almost impossible position, with no good options, often very bad ones, and a situation radically changed from the one he prepared for and campaigned on. Those aren’t offered as excuses—he certainly had many opportunities to have made better choices—but they do make me feel for the man.
Though you might not have been surprised by the Movement’s response, I can’t say that I quite predicted the intensity of the response, especially the extent to which neo-Confederacy would be allowed to appear; but I certainly have found nothing surprising about the general line of attack. I also was not at all surprised by the Left’s response to Obama’s election, which was in every respect predictable and repeats the mistakes, both strategic and tactical, the Left has made with every Democrat elected President since FDR. Nevertheless, every moment of time Obama buys us is a moment that the unforeseen might appear. That is the hope.
Whatever the history of the monicker Boy King, it simply does not work as caricature. This is an objective critique. It does not cut to the essence—either for Obama or for his one-time supporters. It didn’t work at the time; it does not work now. Far from hanging around the necks of the “shallow herds,” the caricature does nothing since it is incoherent, pointing to imaginary flaws in Obama’s character (or in his followers); at best the image is mere noise rather than the cutting image it needs to be. Your description in the post above—”This kind of hollowness oddly can’t be faked. It can only come from a truly empty core, lacking conviction and the animalistic rut from enjoying the immersion and parry of actual politics. It’s been said that Obama’s various levels of psychological outsider status renders him inert, an observer and judge. Whatever the reasons, his detachment, disengagement and ineffectiveness are now historical fact”—is actually cutting, draws blood. It does so because it is apt and points to elements that are recognizable. You need a name for this image. Boy King is not it.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@jwb Perhaps the conversation is due to temporal dislocation. We’ve tried to write about societal trends, culture and politics as animated by philosophy (even if unaware) since 2004/2005. Personalties have been (usually) highlighted as trend indicators, exemplars or viral meme vectors.
In 2007, our concern was how American politics could summon an organized, self-aware determination to restore liberal democratic republican politics. We warned then that Obama would not and could not do so. It gives us little joy that our warnings beginning in 2007 proved accurate.
Based on our long term involvement with the Movement we predicted unfortunately virtually the entire political tableau before us today, back in 2007. We ‘hoped’ in 2008-2009 to be proven wrong. It’s all there in the record.
We will continue to call him the Boy King. We dubbed him that in 2007-2008 for the superficial, blind enthusiasm and coronation by the DailyKos, netroots kool kidz, Katrina Nation types. Now we use the term to hang it around the necks of the shallow herds who enabled him.
None of which was or is an endorsement of McCain. We actually know McCain. We campaigned for him on the ground in South Carolina in 2000. We spent primary night with those who are closest to him. He was a different man, then. And from 2001-2003 we took delight working with his office and committee staff as he became the best Democratic senator. He and his staff relished beating down Trent Lott et al.
Those were glorious days. All good things come to an end. By 2004 ambition changed the man and he, to quote Brent Scowcroft, became someone we no longer recognized. So 2008 was an easy choice.
Going forward, we’ve been clear that Obama’s best gift now is to buy time. That’s a clear separation of Obama from his 2012 opponents. To think otherwise is to have wasted one’s time reading a word here.
Per earlier posts, we remain focused on what non-Rightists do to organize and prepare for a post-Obama world. The core of this blog is a ray of hope. Should this blog become another face-painted ‘fan’ rooting for the WWF ballet or (switching metaphors) horse race politics, then you know that ray is gone.
jwb says
@DrLeoStrauss Comment wasn’t directed at you as a criticism, nor urging horse race analysis, which would be absurd. It merely states a fact that you have not displayed sympathy for Obama and indeed have often displayed scorn; you have also not much examined, at least in what I have so far read here, where we stand today compared to actual alternatives to Obama. That does not seem to be the mission of this blog nor should it be (is sympathy in fact a productive way of assessing Presidential action? does it belong to effective political analysis? does it help us defeat the Movement?), so a lack of sympathy for the President and a lack of consideration of actual alternatives are not criticisms I would ever bring to bear on this particular blog. I have in fact only been critical of one remark you have made about Obama, the one about the Boy King, and my criticism was directed specifically at its lack of coherence as an image in the terms this blog espouses: the caricature does not accord well with nor effectively illuminate some aspect of the underlying political situation. I find that it obfuscates rather than clarifies, and that it obfuscates in ways that aid the Movement rather than hinders its further development. That’s why I objected to it, not because it was critical of Obama.
DrLeoStrauss says
If this blog is read as being just critical of Obama or not playing the artificial horse race game of he’s better than [McCain, 2012 opponent] it’s failed and its type in vain.
JWB, it’s Flash and sometimes load times can affect if the background renders, which is why it shows on the single page. It hiccups sometimes with Firefox and Safari, too, but not frequently.
jwb says
@Comment I’m also more sympathetic to BHO than our fine host, and I remain convinced that he was the least bad alternative in 2008 and will be even more so in 2012. Then, too, there has been a disconnect between BHO and many of his supporters from well before the election, something he clearly recognized but has not been able to address in any adequate way. And the left has generally been even worse than BHO in terms of strategic thinking. Which is what makes the whole complex so dysfunctional and utterly depressing.
@Dr. Leo Strauss: I’m using Chrome and when I look at this post from the home page the background image of the woman does not load; but it loads fine when I look at the post separately. Don’t know whether that was intentional or not, but thought I’d mention it.
Comment says
@jwb
Totally agree – I’ve always been a booster for BHO (unlike the good doctor), but I’ve always had feelings about certain flaws of his that I excused in light of his competition.
BHO has been very luck with having smarter and tough HRC as his only serious – But the times conspired against her and people wanted something new.
BHO’s is a bright guy in the way many attorneys and some academics are – But he was built up among fans as some sort Thomas Jefferson when he had too little knowledge and way too much faith in the credentials of the pseudo-meritocracy.
Had he actually pushed Wall St around a bit and showed them who’s boss, they would be dumping on him so much.
jwb says
I always thought having the former Harvard president as an advisor would be a problem for Obama. I’ve never been a fan of Summers, and knowing that Obama remains deep down not just an academic, but an academic of a particular temperament and with a certain pedigree, I just thought it would create a difficult dynamic, which it evidently did, if we are to trust Suskind’s account. What I still don’t get is Obama’s commitment to Geithner, who in the accounts I’ve read comes off a close second to Summers as lead jerk. I understand Obama might be worried today about getting another Treasury Secretary confirmed, but if these accounts are to be believed, Geithner should have been shown the door in spring 2009, with plenty of time to get someone else in the seat.
Comment says
Doesn’t bother me that BHO makes mistakes – like having Volcker hanging around like a unwanted cuticle instead of having him as the one advisor with heft to do controversial stuff. Hope he can learn
Funny if Perry gets the nom it will be this MoDo fantasy land of dim witted macho decider against the egghead with a much yoke and lack of spine. This after a terrible decade of regress.
DrLeoStrauss says
Obama Gets Rolled
A recurring theme is Obama’s utter failure of leadership. The president is incapable of making a decision; on the rare occasion when he does, he is ignored, as in the Citi case. During a meeting in March 2009, an annoyed Obama left the room to get dinner and said he wanted a decision when he returned. Emanuel promptly took over, saying, “Everyone shut the f— up. Let me be clear—taking down the banking system in a program that could cost $700 billion is a fantasy.” Romer told Suskind that was the point where Emanuel violated his famous rule to never let a crisis go to waste—with Obama abdicating decision making, his chief of staff had decided on the status quo. “The bottom line is Tim and others at Treasury felt the president didn’t fully understand the complexities of the issue, or simply that they were right and he was wrong,” Alan Krueger (a former deputy Treasury secretary recently appointed to replace Romer as head of the CEA) tells Suskind. It’s a recurring pattern throughout the book: Obama voices a preference, his advisers overrule him, and he never says boo about it. Elsewhere, he allowed himself to be dictated to. Peter Orszag recalls Summers telling Obama, “I’ll make my argument first; you can go after me.” Orszag was incredulous that the president allowed a subordinate to talk to him that way, and shocked that he didn’t say, “I made that decision a week ago. Just do what I say.” As Volcker put it, “Obama is smart, but smart is not enough. Leadership is another thing entirely, about knowing your mind enough to make real decisions, ones that last.”
The Revolt Against Larry Summers
Eventually, much of the anger within the West Wing became focused on Summers. Typically brusque and always convinced on his own superior intelligence, he’d made himself the gatekeeper for all economic information going to the president, which effectively gave him control over all domestic policy. That infuriated other advisers with competing views, who found they simply couldn’t get to Obama. “Larry would frame an argument as A versus B, and that would sound right unless you were someone with deep enough mastery of an area to know that position D represented the real counterpoint and the best policy position was probably C,” said Krueger. Summers had become even more cantankerous after Obama reappointed Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman, depriving Summers of the job he thought he both deserved and had sewn up. It was mild-mannered Obama adviser Pete Rouse who finally gave Summers the hook, penning a memo to Obama that made the case for his removal.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/19/ron-suskind-s-confidence-men-speed-read.html