THE ALL-AMERICAN BARACK OBAMA TRAVELING DISASTER SHOW
We’re a month short of a year since Barack Obama took office with sky-high approval ratings and the people prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on a range of issues from the economy, to health care reform, to the environment.
I think in order to be fair, we should acknowledge that unlike George Bush, Barack Obama has tackled head on some very difficult, and divisive problems at the outset of his presidency. In contrast, looking at Bush’s situation prosaically, he got some popular legislation passed prior to 9/11 (tax cuts and No Child Left Behind) after which point his popularity rose to spectacular levels as a result of the attacks on America.
It’s easy for a president’s approval ratings to remain high if he doesn’t do anything controversial or is in office during a national security crisis. But president Obama did not have that luxury. He made a deliberate, calculated decision to tackle an economic crisis with a massive expenditure of funds, address global warming by getting the House to pass a carbon trading scheme, and tried to ram a gargantuan health care reform bill through the Congress.
We can argue the merits or demerits of what the president was attempting to do, but what is not at issue is that by addressing these controversial matters, Obama’s approval ratings were bound to drop.
But drop this far?
In December’s survey, for the first time, less than half of Americans approved of the job President Barack Obama was doing, marking a steeper first-year fall for this president than his recent predecessors.
Also for the first time this year, the electorate was split when asked which party it wanted to see in charge after the 2010 elections. For months, a clear plurality favored Democratic control.
The survey suggests that public discontent with Mr. Obama and his party is being driven by an unusually grim view of the country’s status and future prospects.
A majority of Americans believe the U.S. is in decline. And a plurality now say the U.S. will be surpassed by China in 20 years as the top power.
The president’s approval stands at 47% in this WSJ/NBC poll. That’s probably higher than it should be from the standpoint that the president is failing on a number of levels:
* The “stimulus bill,” the writing of which was outsourced to Congress, has not had the anticipated results and a majority of Americans now see it as something of a boondoggle.
* Cap and Trade/Global Warming was in trouble before Climategate with the public becoming increasingly skeptical of both the problem and the solution. Again, the president depended on his congressional lieutenants to carry the load to the point now where any action on the bill is on life support in the senate.
* Health care reform is currently in meltdown. Everybody agrees there is a problem. No one - except the president himself - likes what the process has done to the legislation. It is rare that something could get so screwed up that liberals, moderates, and conservatives can mostly agree - for different reasons - that the bill is a turkey.
It would be false to say the president hasn’t done anything right. Parts of the stim bill, like the monies for alternative energy research and development, were good and necessary expenditures of the public purse, and even parts of the health care bill address critical problems in a reasonable manner. And the president’s foreign policy record, while spotted with jaw dropping naivete in some respects, nevertheless has its good points as well.
But overall, the president simply isn’t delivering. Disaster seems to be overtaking his administration and for whatever reason, he seems powerless to halt the slide.
It could be that the issues are just too divisive, too complex to address. This would be a reflection on the current state of our politics where nuance and complexity are abandoned for sound bites and excessive partisanship. If this be the case, we are in deeper trouble than even that poll might suggest.
But I believe the president’s troubles go beyond the issues or the nasty backbiting that passes for political discourse today. I think a case can be made that the president simply isn’t demonstrating leadership. He is not convincing anyone. He is not inspiring a lot of people. His dealings with Congress are strangely docile and subdued, as if he is holding back, allowing them to take the lead.
He doesn’t appear able to use the full power of his office to get his way. And when he tries hardball - threatening Senator Nelson with the loss of Offut AFB, a key jobs generator in Nebraska for example - he overplays his hand. While he seems adequately engaged on the issues, his prescription for everything appears to be more speeches and town halls or transparent gimmicks like the “Jobs Summit.” Last weekend, he journeyed to the Hill and gave a pro-forma speech to senators - a gimmcky, useless exercise. Later in the week, he dramatically called senators to the White House only to let Rhambo read them the riot act, while the president sat by, all but disengaged from the fray.
Is this a fatal flaw in the president’s personality? We knew so little about the man before he became president that we simply couldn’t judge how his obvious leadership qualities would translate into concrete skills. Perhaps he abhors confrontation. Maybe he is getting bad advice. Whatever the cause, he better figure out a way to right the ship quickly.
With health care, the process has taken on a life of its own. Getting something, anything passed has now become the priority, and with that comes confusion and compromises. Shouldn’t the president be stepping in and drawing a line in the sand “this far and no farther?” This is what the Democratic base wants Obama to do and it is sound advice.
The process is out of control and the senate Democratic caucus is coming unglued because of it. Whether any kind of reform can get through either chamber is now up in the air with liberals taking the lead in opposing the senate bill. And with the president’s base now on the warpath, who is going to support what is clearly a flawed piece of legislation? It appears an impossible task for the president to be able to cobble together a coalition of Democrats that could make reform a reality at this point.
As the president jets off to Copenhagen - another disappointment, although the lack of any significant agreement is not his fault - he leaves behind an administration that is on the precipice of failure. Sure he has three more years to go, and he could no doubt recover enough to beat any Republican challenger in 2012.
But the high hopes and high expectations that he rode into office are fading fast, and by the time he delivers his state of the union speech, he may have to think hard about re-calibrating his priorities and perhaps even re-inventing his presidency.
Obama, like Bush, is a puppet for the international banking cartel and their cronies. The Federal Reserve is owned and operated by the same people who own and operate the central banks of Europe, the UK, the BIS and the IMF.
It is absurd that our nation must borrow from private banks when only a sovereign nation has the power to issue and control a currency. Our constitution clearly states that only the government may issue money but inexplicably, we ignore the constitution.
The brilliant Thomas Edison explained the absurdity of our situation when he said “If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good also.”
“It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurers and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the Government was no good, then the bonds would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges.”
As long as we borrow our own money from the private banking cartel we will continue to be a client state to the moneyed elite. We are neither free nor sovereign, we are totally reliant on private banks.
Comment by DrKrbyLuv — 12/17/2009 @ 12:21 pm
DrKrbyLuv wrote: “Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurers and the other helps the people”
A lot of your points are valid but that is a huge whopping error. I suggest you study up on the history of Zimbabwe, Weimar Germany and Argentina to learn how much “the people” there were helped when their governments followed those policies. Unless you’re willing to back up the money creation power with something like a gold standard, it will all collapse in misery.
Overall, a very good article, with a couple minor nits:
“we simply couldn’t judge how his obvious leadership qualities would translate into concrete skills.”
What “leadership skills?” I never saw anything but the ability to stand in front of a teleprompter and to smoothly say words that someone else wrote. Outside of that, every decision was always deferred to the people around him, and he consistenly has allowed far left fanatics like Pelosi to dictate his choices. Doesn’t look much like any “leadership” skills to me, looks more like what Chauncy Gardner would have done.
“he may have to think hard about re-calibrating his priorities and perhaps even re-inventing his presidency.”
Chauncy Gardner wouldn’t have that ability inside him, and neither does this pretender. He’s gonna go down with his far left ship, because he has not the faintest idea of what else to do - and neither do any of his backers.
Comment by wws — 12/17/2009 @ 12:39 pm
Obama has excelled in only one area in his professional life – and that is by being PRESENT. For most of his history he did not need to do much more than show up.
As the editor of the Harvard Law Review, a title that many point to as a great achievement unto itself, I would suggest that he enterred the record books for two reasons. The first for being the first Black to occupy that arguably prestigious position. And the second for being the first editor in the history of the Harvard Law Review to not publish a single opinion. His accomplishment here – he was PRESENT.
As a community organizer, he allowed himself to be led by the powers of the Chicago politburo. Even his tenure on various community groups, he was not the power of the organization nor the mover or shaker but merely one of the board members. Accomplishments? None listed. Once again he was PRESENT.
As a Constitutional Law Professor, another position highly touted by his supporters, he produced not one single opinion. In an arena where to publish is to breathe, he published not one single paper or even collaborated on another’s piece of paper. PRESENT once again.
As a Illinois legislator, he found himself in a Democratically dominated political structure, where even what little bi-partisan powers he may have were not challenged – they did not need to be challenged, he was part of the party in charge. And even in this arena, he distinguished himself by voting PRESENT over 130 times.
And then as a US Senator representing the great state of Illinois, can anyone show me a single piece of legislation bearing his name to account for the 150 days he served prior to his announcement of his running for the Presidency? Here I can argue that he wasn’t even PRESENT, he missed some 65% of the votes taken in his tenure because he was too busy running for President.
And to reiterate the salient aspects of his presidency to date:
* The “stimulus bill” . . . which was outsourced to Congress. PRESENT!
* Cap and Trade/Global Warming . . . Again, the president depended on his congressional lieutenants to carry the load. PRESENT!
* Health care reform is currently in meltdown. Everybody agrees there is a problem. No one - except the president himself - likes what the process has done to the legislation. PRESENT!
And even his eloquence is highly dependent upon his Telepromtor being PRESENT!
And now there rises the question of his Leadership as President? That is a quality that I can safely say has been NOT OBSERVED for his entire history. And now people are surprised they have a President who is challenged by the need to be a leader? He is doing well doing what he has always done – He Is PRESENT!
(PS – It took the world two years to discover the same problem with Carter. And then the sh*t hit the fan. How much longer before the sh*tstorm hits Obama?)
Comment by SShiell — 12/17/2009 @ 12:59 pm
From my vantage point there has been a continuing failure of our presidents and the congress to inform the people in any real detail about their plans and legislation far enough in advance for us to react on just about every piece of legislation in the past 9 years or more. It seems to me that the idea is to hold the contents of legislation close until there are enough votes for passage, and then to sign it and dump it onto the public, all the while crowing about their victories ad nauseam.
Partisans leak bits and pieces for us to chew upon and react for or against as a kind of vetting the ideas involved, but an honest debate on the whole thing, with publication of the details in advance, is assiduously avoided. What we really get are platitudes and generalities, along with trumped up warnings of dire consequences if the legislation is not enacted real soon now.
What is the cure? We have a fundamental problem with the structure of the congress and its partisan and changable governing rules, the fact of multi-term incumbents whose main efforts appear to be election campaigning and sheparding earmarks to their states, of outside interests lavishly funding reelections in return for favorable regulatory treatment, and what appears to be a corrupting methodology that turns fresh newbies into compliant dogs in a matter of weeks or months in office, which nets them financial largess out of the budget for their states. The last thing wanted, it seems, is true transparency of the horse-trading processes whereby they plan for, legislate and spend trillions of taxpayer dollars, much of it behind closed doors. We need reforms, but these kinds of changes would be virtually impossible to enact, and would be fought against to the death by many of the current legislators.
So, sadly, I do not know what the cures would be or how they could be effected. How many honorable, patriotic, wise and prudent legislators do you know?
Comment by mannning — 12/17/2009 @ 1:01 pm
You didn’t mention that the Democrats in Congress do not hew to the party line. W almost went eight years without a Congressional override, busting the budget with abandon. Obama has to herd the cats to get anything done. And as you have pointed out, he really is trying to get things done.
As Will Rogers famously said, “I’m not a member of an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
Comment by Postagoras — 12/17/2009 @ 1:08 pm
Sp! changeable
Comment by mannning — 12/17/2009 @ 1:09 pm
After the Inauguration I was willing to give him the benefit of a doubt also…until he did something damaging. That didn’t take long at all.
If he tried to re-invent his presidency, who would believe a word out of his mouth ?
I wouldn’t.
I hope his socialist agenda presidency Fails.
I do not wish success for anyone in his administration.
They should all move to a communist country.
Comment by SB Smith — 12/17/2009 @ 1:28 pm
Actually China will surpass the United States in less than 20 years at the current rate. In fact, not only has China largely surpassed the United States in many important areas so has Russia. To a large degree Russia and China are the dominant powers on earth right now with the United States a distant third and falling further behind as this is being typed.
It is very difficult to predict what will unfold over the time period of a century. The dominant power of the 21st century could end up being Russia, China, India, or perhaps someone we have not even heard of or even a country that does not currently exist. With that said, all indications are right now indicate the 21st century will probably be the Russian century. If things continue on the current trajectory, Russia will dominate the world like no country has ever dominated during this century.
Comment by B.Poster — 12/17/2009 @ 2:10 pm
RM: “he may have to think hard about re-calibrating his priorities and perhaps even re-inventing his presidency.”
There is no “may” to it. He either will recalibrate or face a Carter-style ass thumping. From what I have seen, this truly is a man of the Left and he will go down with what remains of his ship in 2012. His ideological fanaticism, coupled with complete Administrative inexperience, makes it unlikely Obama can pull a Clinton and “recalibrate” or “triangulate” or whatever the term is these days.
That said, I have never bought that “passing something” boosts a president’s popularity, or the inverse. I think an argument could be made that Obama would benefit if the health care bill went down in flames. Likewise, I don’t think passage of NCLB made an iota of difference for Bush. This concept smacks of inside the Beltway bullshit.
Comment by jackson1234 — 12/17/2009 @ 2:13 pm
China is on the rise while most of the west is in demise. I attribute this to three important facts:
1) China issues it’s own money free from government debt. They have private banks but the government still issues and controls the currency. China has practically no government debt and very little private debt while we are drowning in debt. Imagine if we had that economic engine in a free republic!
2) China’s government is nationalistic, they care about China. They will not participate in the zany “free trade” that has crippled the industrial capabilities of the west. They believe in fair trade that helps China.
3) China will not give up it’s sovereignty to the international banking cartel, Bildebergs, Trilaterals or CFR. Most of our leaders belong to these globalist organizations and their loyalty is no longer with the people.
Comment by DrKrbyLuv — 12/17/2009 @ 2:32 pm
B.Poster
Is this your opinion? If not, what factors are you using to calculate this trajectory? What data? Where are the numbers that provide any indication of this whatsoever?
Comment by Chuck Tucson — 12/17/2009 @ 2:34 pm
The answer is simple (and you have alluded to it).
The man does not know how to lead.
Starting things is not the same as finishing them. Anyone can chuck something over the wall and say “make it work.” When push comes to shove, he won’t take responsibility. And, America is getting tuned in to the doublespeak dressed up in flowery rhetoric.
Comment by thekahoona — 12/17/2009 @ 9:04 pm
Health care reform — that the bill is a turkey.
While we are giving Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt, it is important to point out here that there are multiple bills (Pelosi, Reid I, Reid II, Baucus, etc.) and for better or worse, none of these are probably “Obama’s Plan.” “Obama’s Plan” is that amorphous camelion that floats above the ether .. a bit like communism in that it is always over the horizon, just out of reach.
Comment by Neo — 12/18/2009 @ 1:18 pm
Jackson1234 says:
RM: “he may have to think hard about re-calibrating his priorities and perhaps even re-inventing his presidency.”
There is no “may” to it. He either will recalibrate or face a Carter-style ass thumping. From what I have seen, this truly is a man of the Left and he will go down with what remains of his ship in 2012. His ideological fanaticism, coupled with complete Administrative inexperience, makes it unlikely Obama can pull a Clinton and “recalibrate” or “triangulate” or whatever the term is these days.
or,
the obama administration doesn’t feel the need to change course because, it has bribed and stashed away enough TARP and Stimulus billions around the country, it has been organizing 3-4 times a month with SEIU Andrew Stern’s brownshirts since taking office, and ACORN starts getting taxpayer dollars again tomorrow. I see all of the ingredients for your basic Chicago-style successful “Re-election” campaign.
The idea of a european-style socialism scares me a whole lot less than the thuggish, criminal, politics I see being perpetrated in its name.
Comment by Tyranno — 12/19/2009 @ 5:53 am
Hey Richard Bottoms & Michael Reynolds:
Come Out, Come Out, Wherever you are! What’s wrong? You don’t have the cojones to stand up for your Messiah?
The Beloved One?
The Big Zero?
Comment by SShiell — 12/20/2009 @ 9:04 am
Hmmm,let me see: health care reform is about to pass both House and Senate, an agreement seems to have emerged from Copenhagen, the stimulus bill appears to have had some positive effect, the US image in the world is much improved, we have an orderly policy in Iraq and Afghanistan; what’s not to like about this? Rick’s earlier comments are far more to the point–the Republicans have not policy and no program except miindless opposition demonstrated most recently by their willingness to abandon the ‘all costs’ defense on HCR to get home for Christmas. Their behavior has been shameless throughout the entire discussion: not a single useful idea, not a moment of quality debate, and hours of pointless drivel about freedom with nary a thought about those who need health care.
Shame, shame. This is not a political engagement it is a readguard action meant to preserve an ever narrowing section of the electorate which may well be lost forever.
Comment by bboot — 12/23/2009 @ 4:37 pm