Barry's dilemma, the world is watching!
What would the Penguin do to take over Gotham?
Of course, the fish eater was much more transparent!
Why Obama's rhetoric doesn't work...
Matthew Continetti, The Weekly Standard
Since he first appeared on the national stage in the summer of 2004, Barack Obama has stood for national unity. He has said he believes in compromise. He has advertised himself as a post-partisan president who will bridge the divide between liberals and conservatives. During the campaign, Michelle Obama went so far as to say that her husband would fill the "hole in our souls." The country is "fed up," the president said in his July 25 address to the nation, "with a town where compromise has become a dirty word."
Whether Obama truly believes in national unity, or simply says these things for political gain, is irrelevant. Let's assume Obama wants to be a statesman of import who leads the whole country, not just a political party. If that's the case, why does he consistently undermine his calls for unity by pitting one group of Americans against another?
Consider the president's speech this week on the debt ceiling. I can't remember a more transparently cynical attempt by a president to position himself for reelection. On one side, Obama says, are himself, the majority of Americans, and Ronald Reagan, all of whom support a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction. On the other side are "a significant number of Republicans," the "wealthiest Americans," the "biggest corporations," and all those who want to "place a greater burden on working families."
In just a few words, Obama divides the country by party, class, and aspiration. The message of his speech is not that reducing spending will enable all Americans to thrive. In Obama's world of zero-sum politics, one group prospers at another's expense. In the name of fairness, Obama seeks to lead the majority ("middle-class families") against the minority ("millionaires and billionaires").
Obama not only subverts his stated purpose of unity. He threatens his larger purpose of reelection as well. For much of our history, Americans have shown distaste for class-based populist appeals, whether on the right or the left. They have consistently preferred a consensus model of politics in which "a rising tide lifts all boats" and the divide between rich and poor is less important than the American dream of self-improvement. The message that "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America" helped Obama win the White House in 2008. His abandonment of consensus politics for coalition politics may help him lose it in 2012.
From Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt, NRO
Come On, Man, Write It Down Before Somebody Forgets It
[Chuck] Todd asked Carney about the White House's reluctance to release its plan to deal with the national debt and raising the debt ceiling. Carney acknowledged the White House was playing games. "We're showing a lot of leg," he said. When Todd pressed for details -- "Why not just release it?" -- Carney seemed surprised. "You need it written down?"
What a difference two years makes. In the spring of 2009, with Republicans in the minority in the House of Representatives, the White House and its Democratic allies were demanding specifics. The House GOP had to produce an alternative budget, the White House demanded, in order to show that they were serious about governing.
To paraphrase the CBO, they can't score a lot of leg.
Guy Benson is left incredulous:
Yes, actually, wedoneed "something printed." Since his unmitigated failure of a budget was unanimously defeated in the Senate, this president has refused to offer a specific plan of his own on virtually anything at all. Instead, he talks about "visions" and "contours" and "frameworks" -- and tries to blame his opponents when his poor leadership is exposed. Over the last five days, the president has (a)undermined a bargain with John Boehner by introducing an unacceptable eleventh-hour condition, (b) rejected "out of hand" a bipartisan compromise that he found to be politically unpalatable, and (c) delivered a speech that painted his opponents as the intractable extremists. In light of this behavior, it's entirely reasonable for Americans to wonder what, precisely, Barack Obama's proposed solution might be. Today, the White House dismissively waived off that question as a GOP talking point and condescendingly inquired if the journalist who dared to ask it was capable of taking notes.
I'll close with an unsolicited word of advice, and a friendly reminder from the CBO director. The advice: When you're already plumbing new depths of unpopularity, dialing up your arrogance isn't a winning strategy. Even David Brooks finds it unseemly.
At Pajamas Media, Bryan Preston sees this as another manifestation of the legendary Obama work ethic:
Yes, Jay, the American people elected your boss in the hope that he might occasionally do his job. Show his work. Demonstrate a little competence once in a while. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently it is. As we blogged yesterday, Obama's bizarre reticence to lead is as much a headache for his own party as it is for the GOP. Maybe more, since Reid et al just can't come out and blast him the way they would a Republican president. So Congress sidelined him over the weekend, but as long as he's the president he can't really be sidelined: He has to sign something.
And agitate against whatever is heading for his desk before he signs it,of course. |
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