tunnelvision69
New member
Subject: Another Failed Presidency
An article from American Thinker by Geoffrey P. Hunt
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly
failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen
several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed
presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the
vernacular, spat out.
Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove
into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned
in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially
restored by his triumphant overture to China.
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And
failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most
importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The
incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her
finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the
American people, and may indeed loathe them.
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has
lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman
of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that
Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor
articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity
and lack of shame.
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a
new president riding in on a wave of precedented promise and goodwill
have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His
poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans
have now seized a five point advantage.. This truly is unbelievable.
What's going on?
No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a
narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it
fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this
self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have
an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful
presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects
with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an
authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a
positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those
presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem
stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are
aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with
our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.
But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony,
knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and
woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of
course.. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile
is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from
delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect
and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right
and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are
not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make
sense and don't correspond with our experience.
In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement
of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers,
energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors,
nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else
who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press
conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For
those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time;
if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in
1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms
for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally
abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress,
there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president
again two short years after that. Yes, small presidents do fail,
Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps
rolling along.
Margaret Thatcher: "The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later
you run out of other people's money."
"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own."
-- Unknown
:USA::USA:
An article from American Thinker by Geoffrey P. Hunt
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly
failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen
several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed
presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the
vernacular, spat out.
Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove
into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned
in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially
restored by his triumphant overture to China.
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And
failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most
importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The
incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her
finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the
American people, and may indeed loathe them.
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has
lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman
of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that
Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor
articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity
and lack of shame.
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a
new president riding in on a wave of precedented promise and goodwill
have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His
poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans
have now seized a five point advantage.. This truly is unbelievable.
What's going on?
No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a
narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it
fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this
self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have
an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful
presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects
with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an
authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a
positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those
presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem
stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are
aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with
our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.
But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony,
knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and
woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of
course.. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile
is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from
delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect
and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right
and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are
not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make
sense and don't correspond with our experience.
In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement
of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers,
energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors,
nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else
who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press
conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For
those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time;
if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in
1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms
for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally
abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress,
there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president
again two short years after that. Yes, small presidents do fail,
Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps
rolling along.
Margaret Thatcher: "The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later
you run out of other people's money."
"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own."
-- Unknown
:USA::USA:
