Note* This writer is no conservative,tea partier, or KKK representative. :lol:
Friendly Advice to the Whiner-in-Chief
We know you're still new at this, but welcome to the rough world of national politics, President Obama.
September 8, 2010 - by Alex Knepper Share |
“They talk about me like a dog,” President Obama said of his Republican critics.
It’s easy to remember that the president is still new to this thing. Normally when politicians talk like that, the standard response is: “Welcome to national politics, buddy. It can hurt during the first few years.”
The tea party movement is getting under his skin. That’s not good. Statesmen have to remain above it all. They can’t ignore legitimate concerns, but they can’t get dragged down into the caprice of the media cycle, either. Before he lost his bearings, Chris Matthews offered this sagely advice to politicians who found their fortunes waning: “Don’t get mad, don’t get even: get ahead.” Obama chooses to get mad. “No Drama Obama,” indeed.
It’s been said that some people ascend to the presidency because they want to do something, while others fight for the job because they want to be someone. That is: some men come into the office captured by a vision of what the world should look like — Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan can be counted among them — while others, usually less consequential, want to be president simply because it’s another notch in their belt. Think George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton (and Mitt Romney). The tea party movement thinks that Obama is in the former camp: that he is trying to remake America in a socialist image. They are wrong. Men with a vision don’t let the cries of protesters shake their poise. Rather, they tend to believe, much like George W. Bush did, that the course of history will vindicate their choices. Obama, interestingly, seems not to believe this. Instead — and this is not just bad for the Democrats, but for the country — he is panicking.
Obama came into office drunk on his own hype. He thought that he was bigger than the job; that his charisma and cool alone could shape history. (“This campaign is about you,” his campaign’s website said. That’s a good tip-off: whenever someone says that it’s not about them, it’s always, always about them.) Now, he’s a human being: nobody — not me, not you, and not Barack Obama — can be anesthetized from the egomania that must come with reading about how his words and deeds can shape a generation’s legacy. But whose idea was it, after all, to send a man with such an astonishingly thin paper trail to lead Western civilization during a period of war and recession? Well, it was his. It was Obama’s idea. The thing about our system is this: you don’t inherit the job. It doesn’t fall into your lap. In the final analysis, you nominate yourself for the job. Obama kicked off his own campaign from Illinois in January 2007. He’d been in high office for two years, and already he’d decided that he was such an important figure that he really ought to be president.
With each passing day, it’s hard to remember the Obama who convinced half of the country to join him in his delusions of grandeur, the Obama whose speechifying could wow even the most stone-faced critic. I recall, on the night of the Iowa caucuses, speaking with a colleague: “I really don’t see how we’re gonna beat this guy,” he said, and I grimaced, knowing he was right. The man really was inspiring. And people were very committed to this narrative, too: the Jeremiah Wright issue, for instance, was simply disappeared with a razzle-dazzle speech. Poof! — Away it went, into thin air, like it never even existed.
Alas, the charade, beautiful as it was, couldn’t hold. Obama has found that the inertia of his oratory won’t budge that stubbornly persistent unemployment rate. The Taliban doesn’t care one whit about his being the first black president. Scott Brown won’t resign simply because Obama accuses him of being a force against hope. Abroad, the narrative of history won’t vanish the problems of the here and now. Domestically, the institutions are too much for the man’s arsenal of verbiage. Our civic traditions are too entrenched to be knocked down by one man, however important he thinks he is. The system, after all, is designed to stop change that’s too rapid. Trying to steamroll your agenda through is, historically speaking, a pretty inept way of getting something done. That’s what our separation of powers is all about. “Party of No” is no misnomer — a strong opposition party is vital to a potent republic. Criticism of the powerful must be unrelenting. If the agenda is strong enough, it will withstand the force of the assault. Obama’s simply upset that his agenda can’t withstand such a withering attack.
Poor Obama: he’s not used to dealing with such withering attacks. He simply has no idea what to do. Such a neophyte is he — both in practice and in worldview — that he is actually flabbergasted that his critics speak harshly of him. This is, I’m sorry to say, total amateur hour. But he is, after all, an amateur. Harry Truman — never an amateur – is often attributed as putting the advice succinctly: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
Alex Knepper is an undergraduate at American University. He has been featured by the CBS Early Show, National Public Radio, the New York Times and spotlighted internationally by the Human Rights Service of Norway. He is a member of the Independent Gay Forum. After years of seeking a label, he currently deems his political and cultural beliefs unclassifiable and anti-ideological.