Maureen Dowd, disappointed and feeling jilted, is surprised that Barack Obama is still the same guy with the exact same faults that she wrote about here. These blurbs are from a 2007 editorial about Obama's debate performances:
But often he reverts to Obambi, tentative about commanding the stage and consistently channeling the excitement he engenders....
In the South Carolina debate, Senator Obama was — absurdly — taken by surprise when Brian Williams asked the requisite Dukakis question designed to elicit manly passion: How would he respond if Al Qaeda hit two American cities?
In the New Hampshire debate Sunday night, Mr. Obama again missed his chances. Hillary is the one he needs to unseat, but he treads gingerly around her....
Mr. Obama let the opportunity for a sharp comment pass....
He missed another chance when Hillary said at the beginning of the debate that she believed “we are safer than we were” before 9/11, even though the Democrats won Congress with the opposite argument last fall, and even though the Iraq war has clearly made the world more dangerous than ever.....
And now, to prove that leopards don't change their spots, here's M. Dowd's editorial from earlier this week:
The leader who was once a luminescent, inspirational force is now just a guy in a really bad spot....
As James Carville acerbically noted, given a choice between watching an Obama speech and a G.O.P. debate, “I’d watch the debate, and I’m not even a Republican.”
The White House caved, of course, and moved to Thursday, because there’s nothing the Republicans say that he won’t eagerly meet halfway.
No. 2 on David Letterman’s Top Ten List of the president’s plans for Labor Day: “Pretty much whatever the Republicans tell him he can do.”
MSNBC’s Matt Miller offered “a public service” to journalists talking about Obama — a list of synonyms for cave: “Buckle, fold, concede, bend, defer, submit, give in, knuckle under, kowtow, surrender, yield, comply, capitulate.”
And it wasn’t exactly Morning in America when Obama sent out a mass e-mail to supporters Wednesday under the heading “Frustrated.”
It unfortunately echoed a November 2010 parody in The Onion with the headline, “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail.”
“Throughout,” The Onion teased, “the president expressed his aggravation on subjects as disparate as the war in Afghanistan, the sluggish economic recovery, his live-in mother-in-law, China’s undervalued currency, Boston’s Logan Airport, and tort reform.”
You know you’re in trouble when Harry Reid says you should be more aggressive.
If the languid Obama had not done his usual irritating fourth-quarter play, if he had presented a jobs plan a year ago and fought for it, he wouldn’t have needed to elevate the setting. How will he up the ante next time? A speech from the space station?
Republicans who are worried about being political props have a point. The president is using the power of the incumbency and a sacred occasion for a political speech.
Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.
The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.
The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.
After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring.
“The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.”
The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.
Hey, folks, we're Americans. We're not sheep. We're not supposed to be waiting on anybody. We need political "leaders" like we need testicular cancer. You are the one you're waiting for. I'm the one I'm waiting for. Maureen Dowd may have been waiting on Obama to lead her to some New York Holy Timesian Promised Land, but she should be the exception. We have a great system of government, but The Founders didn't put enough safeguards in place to save us from people who want to save us.
Hell, can you imagine Thomas Jefferson rolling out proposals for economic growth? John Adams worrying about saving or creating jobs?
Heck, Libertarians think a lot of Ron Paul, but we generally don't think refer to him as He Who The Prophets Foretold, or the One Who Will Bring Balance To The Force (except in jest). We simply believe that he really would take a chainsaw to government. Nothing too special about it.
(Actual Campaign Poster)
The Libertarian Party awaits your support. We want to march on Washington and demand nothing. We envision a system of government so small, so inconsequential, that the major TV networks would never dream of televising our debates about Afghanistan, or our speeches on the economy.
Afghanistan and the economy are none of our business. Or Barack Obama's.
But often he reverts to Obambi, tentative about commanding the stage and consistently channeling the excitement he engenders....
In the South Carolina debate, Senator Obama was — absurdly — taken by surprise when Brian Williams asked the requisite Dukakis question designed to elicit manly passion: How would he respond if Al Qaeda hit two American cities?
In the New Hampshire debate Sunday night, Mr. Obama again missed his chances. Hillary is the one he needs to unseat, but he treads gingerly around her....
Mr. Obama let the opportunity for a sharp comment pass....
He missed another chance when Hillary said at the beginning of the debate that she believed “we are safer than we were” before 9/11, even though the Democrats won Congress with the opposite argument last fall, and even though the Iraq war has clearly made the world more dangerous than ever.....
And now, to prove that leopards don't change their spots, here's M. Dowd's editorial from earlier this week:
The leader who was once a luminescent, inspirational force is now just a guy in a really bad spot....
As James Carville acerbically noted, given a choice between watching an Obama speech and a G.O.P. debate, “I’d watch the debate, and I’m not even a Republican.”
The White House caved, of course, and moved to Thursday, because there’s nothing the Republicans say that he won’t eagerly meet halfway.
No. 2 on David Letterman’s Top Ten List of the president’s plans for Labor Day: “Pretty much whatever the Republicans tell him he can do.”
MSNBC’s Matt Miller offered “a public service” to journalists talking about Obama — a list of synonyms for cave: “Buckle, fold, concede, bend, defer, submit, give in, knuckle under, kowtow, surrender, yield, comply, capitulate.”
And it wasn’t exactly Morning in America when Obama sent out a mass e-mail to supporters Wednesday under the heading “Frustrated.”
It unfortunately echoed a November 2010 parody in The Onion with the headline, “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail.”
“Throughout,” The Onion teased, “the president expressed his aggravation on subjects as disparate as the war in Afghanistan, the sluggish economic recovery, his live-in mother-in-law, China’s undervalued currency, Boston’s Logan Airport, and tort reform.”
You know you’re in trouble when Harry Reid says you should be more aggressive.
If the languid Obama had not done his usual irritating fourth-quarter play, if he had presented a jobs plan a year ago and fought for it, he wouldn’t have needed to elevate the setting. How will he up the ante next time? A speech from the space station?
Republicans who are worried about being political props have a point. The president is using the power of the incumbency and a sacred occasion for a political speech.
Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.
The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.
The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.
After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring.
“The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.”
The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.
Hey, folks, we're Americans. We're not sheep. We're not supposed to be waiting on anybody. We need political "leaders" like we need testicular cancer. You are the one you're waiting for. I'm the one I'm waiting for. Maureen Dowd may have been waiting on Obama to lead her to some New York Holy Timesian Promised Land, but she should be the exception. We have a great system of government, but The Founders didn't put enough safeguards in place to save us from people who want to save us.
Hell, can you imagine Thomas Jefferson rolling out proposals for economic growth? John Adams worrying about saving or creating jobs?
Heck, Libertarians think a lot of Ron Paul, but we generally don't think refer to him as He Who The Prophets Foretold, or the One Who Will Bring Balance To The Force (except in jest). We simply believe that he really would take a chainsaw to government. Nothing too special about it.
(Actual Campaign Poster)
The Libertarian Party awaits your support. We want to march on Washington and demand nothing. We envision a system of government so small, so inconsequential, that the major TV networks would never dream of televising our debates about Afghanistan, or our speeches on the economy.
Afghanistan and the economy are none of our business. Or Barack Obama's.
1 comment:
There was a time that if you wanted to talk to the president, you'd walk up to the front door of the White House and knock.
That was also a time when policies in Washington weren't half as important as the decisions made in the County Seat.
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