What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?
(1) The economy did not improve quickly; (2) Obama’s political opponents have been somewhat effective, as political opponents often are; (3) Some liberals believe that Obama is not liberal enough. (4) Some independents are worried about Obama’s health care plan… the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chvista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?
Obama thus far appears to be a moderate liberal. If anything, overly cautious. Presidents seldom govern radically, if for no other reason than practicality. His foreign policy moves have been predictable and safe. The stimulus and bailouts were a response to an unusual and dangerous financial crisis. Few liberals were crying for the bailout of big companies Obama laid in bed with various nasty elements of the local power structure in order to advance politically. No doubt he gained politically from this on his way to the state legislature and the US Senate. He has since paid a heavy political price. Fair enough. And who will the next GOP president have associated with during the rise to power? Will they be George HW Bush types? From today’s Republican Party?
But forget the character witnesses. Just look at Obama’s behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can’t get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field.
Yet he was and is still on the playing field.
In a center-right country, that was problem enough. Obama then compounded it by vastly misreading his mandate. He assumed it was personal. This, after winning by a mere seven points in a year of true economic catastrophe, of an extraordinarily unpopular Republican incumbent, and of a politically weak and unsteady opponent. Nonetheless, Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one’s own image.
How do you know what Obama assumed or imagined? Accordingly, Obama unveiled his plans for a grand makeover of the American system, animating that vision by enacting measure after measure that greatly enlarged state power, government spending and national debt. Not surprisingly, these measures engendered powerful popular skepticism that burst into tea-party town-hall resistance.
Bush also enlarged government spending and national debt. Where were the tea parties during the Bush administration?
Obama’s reaction to that resistance made things worse. Obama fancies himself tribune of the people, spokesman for the grass roots, harbinger of a new kind of politics from below that would upset the established lobbyist special-interest order of Washington. Yet faced with protests from a real grass-roots movement, his party and his supporters called it a mob — misinformed, misled, irrational, angry, unhinged, bordering on racist. All this while the administration was cutting backroom deals with every manner of special interest — from drug companies to auto unions to doctors — in which favors worth billions were quietly and opaquely exchanged
How do you know how Obama fancies himself? The protesters were and are misinformed, misled, irrational, angry, unhinged, bordering on racist. Of course these backroom deals were made, as they are in every administration. Did you believe the Hope/Change campaign theme? Did you also believe the Bush uniter not a divider theme?