Obama: fooled you once
Ted Van Dyk doesn’t get it. In his new WSJ piece he’s addressing an Obama that doesn’t exist—a reasonable guy who’s just a bit overwhelmed and misguided, one who’s ceded his program to others and who just needs to “get back to himself” in order to be more reasonable and bipartisan.
Sorry, Mr. van Dyk. You were sold the Brooklyn Bridge by a silver-tongued demagogue who never had any intention of doing the sort of things that appealed to you so much during the campaign. He counted on you to fill in the blank screen, and to do so while wearing your rose-colored glasses.
Ted Van Dyk was Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s assistant in the Johnson White House, and has been active in Democratic politics over 40 years. He has recently written a book called “Heroes, Hacks and Fools,'” according to the article’s bio. It’s a memoir about his many years in politics as adviser to many leading Democrats. Too bad that, in this case, the man he thought would be a hero turned out to be a villain in disguise, and Van Dyk and so many others were played for the fools.
I don’t think he campaigned demagogically, there were wings of the Left and Right doing this — I saw it from the people not the candidates, but McCain and Obama pretty much campaigning as a centrist — hindsight is 20/20. I disagree I think it is a case of being overwhelmed and misguided. To explain more of what I mean I’m rehashing this post of mine from earlier this morning:
The problem junior is having is catch-up. He’s unprepared for the challenge of the Presidency. He, nor any one around him, until around march of last year, realized that, omg this isn’t going to be a prep for 2012 this is happening now omg!!! It was about that time they realized that the zeitgeist was a virtually unstoppable juggernaut. What the Obama administration is facing now is like a kid who planned on cramming for the final exam, but fell asleep and is rushing in late for the class.
Mr. Van Dyk,
I won.
You pal,
Barack H. Obama
Sorry nyomythus, that dog will no longer hunt.
I wrote a two-parter on the evolution of my opinion of Obama, and I have rejected that sort of reasoning. There is too much evidence, and it is overwhelming. Obama is not a fool; he is a knave. No one with even an average intelligence could be doing things as destructive and contradictory as he, and Obama definitely has above-average intelligence. Therefore, a knave.
Neo, you got it exactly! When I earlier read van Dyk, I thought he should have been asking “how did I get taken for a fool . . . again!”
To Van Dyk, it may seem that way, because such significant redistribution might not seem as insane to a 40-year Democratic advisor as it would to a normal person. When Van Dyk filled in the blank screen, his hope was likely something rather close to Obama anyway. He is so surrounded by idealogues that BHO may not rise above the norm that much.
All this was pointed out in warning by we nutcase conservatives for months leading up to the election. References to actual quotes of his that revealed far-leftist beliefs were dismissed as extremist rhetoric; we were assured on the basis of Obama’s temperament that he is a moderate, openminded, consensus-building guy. Sorry nyo – it was all there in the content. Your irritation at stylistic problems of the conservatives caused you believe the beer commercial.
I will grant to Mr. Van Dyk that Obama is also unprepared, which was pointed out even more vehemently before the election, not only by conservatives, but by Hillary’s campaign as well. It could well be that other Democrats are also filling the voids left by this bumbler in areas he doesn’t care that much about. It does seem to be open season on putting whatever you want into spending bills.
I would suggest that Obama is naive only in the limited sense that Lenin was naive – he really believes these things will work eventually, we just have to bull them through and make people into the New Soviet Man, and all will be well. We should be grateful that Obama is a watered-down Lenin.
Well, maybe, he is becoming more of a product of the ugly wing of the Left.
The people who voted for Obama seemed to have:
1) Blinders – because we were telling them
2) gullibility – because they believed certain phrases of Obama’s over others.
Whichever one doesn’t matter. We need to clean house in November 2010. No exceptions.
Obama needs stiff rebuke. House and Senate Democrats need to know they are way out of step.
demagogue — a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power
nyomythus: That describes exactly how Obama campaigned.
I didn’t see it, I saw the crowds doing this, not the candidates.
Fool me twice: shame on Bush
Fool me three times: shame on ……
….. Bastards ….. and Trig Palin!
Nyo – You didn’t see because you didn’t want to look. Everything was in plain sight to everyone but the intentionally blind. We told you over and over but you wouldn’t listen; now who’s fault is it that you’re starting to see and hear the real Obama.
A very short rehash of the evidence during the campaign that Obama was a radical leftist and thug:
1. Immersion in the Chicago Daley swamp
2. Bitter clinging
3. Michelle before she was muzzled
4. Jeremiah Wright
5. William Ayres
6. His Illinois voting record, especially on abortion
7. His vote against John Roberts
Just barely scratching the surface.
Obama in over his head and being handled by others. Well, the first step to recovery is acceptance. So far I’ve seen no indication that Obama has faced up to the fact he isn’t up to the job. People have covered for him all his life. The reason he resonates with the upper middle class millennials is like them, never had to stand on his own two feet.
Well, here he is in his first real job and his performance is subpar. He works hard on what he finds enjoyable but not only is he not helping, he is actually hurting the country. Time to put him on PIP (Performance Improvement Plan). Sadly, like many millennials, he only be offended at the audacity of the old people to tell him he isn’t all his helicopter parents and teachers as well as his cool radical mentors said he was. So we can only hope to limit the damage he does until we can get the termination through the proper channels. Perhaps he could do some filing?
Its sort of a mass exercise with in and out group thought.
We told democrats this guy was a leftist but they’ve so convinced themselves we are extremists (even though we didn’t do anything extreme) they wouldn’t listen to us… and they elected an extremist… or at least a real ‘winger’. This whole narrative of Bush being a right wing extremist or even right winger was bunk. He was a pretty center conservative guy…
Nyo – You didn’t see because you didn’t want to look. Everything was in plain sight to everyone but the intentionally blind. We told you over and over but you wouldn’t listen; now who’s fault is it that you’re starting to see and hear the real Obama.
You can’t make the claim for me that anything was intentionally blind. For me it was down to the micro, a hairsplitter of a decision, I felt like I would be left with, “hated to had to” either way. I didn’t vote in 2000 nor in 2004. In 2008 I was determined to make a decision no matter how difficult it would be, well it was extremely difficult, and if I voted for Obama all I can say is, “Propel better candidates, goddamn it!!!!!”. Again, as I’ve said before, I wish Giuliani/Lieberman had come to the fore, I would have voted for them in a heartbeat, but what we get isn’t always simple — I don’t make it simple and that’s the benefit I get by listening to, tolerating both, and dissecting the slivers of truth from both the Right and the Left. That benefit is I train my mind to think about things objectively rather than emotionally — as an artist and feeler kind of person it’s important that I don’t get lost in wishful or emotion based thinking because it’s a fatuous and dangerous way to go through life, and I have a strong built-in propensity to be that way.
Nyo,
He’s not BECOMING part of the ugly wing of the left, he IS the ugly wing of the left.
He’s been there all along. He had a voting record that firmly placed him on the very far left of the spectrum.
Those who ignored it, or didn’t pay attention, did so at their own peril. And now unfortunately we’re all paying the price.
Van Dyk’s commentary in the WSJ made me want to throw up.
nyomythus Says:
“Again, as I’ve said before, I wish Giuliani/Lieberman had come to the fore”
I do believe you since you didn’t even vote in the previous two… but I have to say, if I had $10 for every democrat who said ‘I’d vote for a republican if it was some moderate like McCain’ who then became an Obamabot….
Van Dyk is just a very, very old-fashioned Democrat. I’ll always have a soft spot for someone who worked for Hubert Humphrey. Back in the sixties, when I was a young Democrat, I had my first break with the Radical Left when I found out I was supposed to hate Hubert Humphrey, who always seemed to me to be a brave and generous man. Of course, since then, the radicals have taken over the whole party. Van Dyk hasn’t figured that out yet.
I defer to nobody in my dislike for what Obama is doing, but at the same time, I have to ask, is it possible that in the long term, this will lead to a better outcome than if McCain had won? Consider this analogy: if Ford had been re-elected in 1976, would Reagan have been elected in 1980? I suspect not.
Yes, the Carter years were painful (as the Obama years are proving to be), but without them, people would not have been ready to vote for Reagan. If McCain had won, he would be doing better in some areas (foreign policy), but his domestic policy would have been a muddle. He would have faced unrelenting hostility from the media and the Left (but I repeat myself). He would likely have conceded quite a bit to the Democrats on domestic policy, since they would still have been in control of Congress. Yet magically, when things went badly, the Republicans would get the blame (as they did from 2006 to 2008, when Democrats controlled Congress under a Republican President). He would probably have ended up as a 1-term President, to be followed by, well, probably by Obama, whose policies would perhaps not be seen as being so radical, since the Democratic Congress would have been moving in his direction for four years under McCain anyway. At least this way we can potentially get the bad stuff over with more quickly, and the Democrats will rightly take the blame for the appalling fiscal mismanagement they are perpetrating.
The only problem is that it is not clear who the 2012 equivalent of Reagan is.
Well, maybe, he is becoming more of a product of the ugly wing of the Left.
Well, once burnt, twice burnt…. Burnt again…. Roasted…. Incinerated…. Carbonized….
At least this way we can potentially get the bad stuff over with more quickly, and the Democrats will rightly take the blame for the appalling fiscal mismanagement they are perpetrating.
Steven, I agree with your assessment that the Republicans are so hopeless, feckless and incapable of defending themselves or their ideas that it takes a national disaster to make them look palatable.
Steven you’re right.
and
The only problem is that it is not clear who the 2012 equivalent of Reagan is.
This certainly is the question.
I just listened to a discussion between Dennis Prager and Dick Morris on Obama. They focused not on Obama’s psychology but on his political orientation.
Morris said that Obama represented todays ‘European Dream’ which is hedonistic and about living the good life and which differs from the classical ‘American Dream’ of selfreliance, individual liberty and hard work. Both basicly agreed on that.
I sincerely want to believe this, but I fear this is not true.
Bill Clinton fits the current European ‘hedonistic’ template
far more than Obama. Obama and his ‘troops’ come across as leftist hardliners with a stubborn, tenacious agenda.
But it remains stupendous to watch this kind of hardliners in the current saturated, even decadent Western cultural climate. Perhaps this is the reason why so few are suspicious of this guy. ‘At worst he will only be another Clinton.’
The Western cultural climate is so soft and saturated that people can no longer believe that real leftist hardliners exist. Between them and the good life are only Christian fundamentalists.
A decadent culture has a problem noticing and identifying real evil. Such a culture is so busy hating religious people who challenge her moral sloppiness, that she is clueless about the threat of true evil and tyranny.
Perhaps therefore so many hate and fear a completely harmless woman like Sarah Palin more than dangerous Islamists and are completely clueless about the very real danger of true tyranny arising in their midst.
There was a particular mania at work in November 2008, an almost perfect storm of economic panic, race hysteria, gender hysteria, and environmental hysteria, together with a failure of nerve among Republican politicians and the conservative side of what passes for the intelligentsia.
That storm is breaking up, as it was bound to.
A lot of people kept their heads. Others lost theirs. No shame in that.
But, I have to agree that anyone who was fooled wanted to be fooled.
The question is, so what do they do now?
Wandriaan Says:
“I sincerely want to believe this, but I fear this is not true.”
Yeah, the Ayers and Wrights are more ‘the boot stomping on the human face for eternity’ type of lefties… and that’s Obama’s radical crowd.
I have the sense that quite a lot of people are slowly backing away from Obama. In other countries too.
I’m not sure whether it’s his fool side or his knave side or both.
I enjoy reading Rachel Lucas too and she had a piece based on an article in Der Spiegel which took some real shots at Obama:
The US president’s advance team, which had been sent to help prepare for the trip, made a negative impression on the Germans through their coarse language and overbearing behavior. German officials were shouted at, treated like schoolchildren and told to wait their turns.
“We have never experienced such a hardline approach during any visit,” says an official from Germany’s Foreign Ministry. The Obama team, for its part, is trying to reclaim for itself the mechanisms of the modern media society, arguing that it was important to prevent the Buchenwald visit from being spoiled by images of a smiling and joking president. The spin doctors call it “message control.”
As it is, the US president in person is by no means the charming and smiling character many have come to expect from his television appearances. He cultivates a cool style or, as one of the members of the delegation describes it, “an almost unfeeling style.”
The whole conversation doesn’t make sense to me.
Prescription vs. the virus
There is no hair splitting.
One ticket was advocating and whole heartedly understood the prescription and it was OBVIOUS.
The virus was elected. He whole heartedly advocates no profitability, the taking of profits, taking from those who succeed and giving to those who make poor choices.
And he said so much BEFORE the election…
Looking for the Reagan? He might be in a skirt next time. He might be wearing those Naughty Monkey’s. He might mention God (just as he did in 1980).
Maybe it’s a sunny summer day, but I’m getting a wild optimistic hair that Obama has shot his wad — not even six months into his presidency.
A second stimulus and the cap’n’trade bill are not going to happen. Some form of healthcare may pass but I’ll bet it will be eviscerated in the Senate and DOA in implementation. I’ll be surprised if Gitmo is closed in a meaningful way by next January.
True, Obama can still manage much mischief and waste tons of money, but if he can’t deliver on healthcare and climate change, and has failed to protect jobs with the stimulus, he will be seen as impotent even by his followers (perhaps even especially by them).
Then he goes from being the Great Oz to some guy behind the curtain. I don’t think Obama can survive that demotion. He will have lost his mojo.
The only fly in the ointment is that something is likely to blow up, literally or metaphorically, in world affairs soon and we will be depending on some mojoless guy to handle it.
Dear Neoneocon,
You wonder how Mr. Van Dyk has lived so long and learned so little. Dreams of Utopia must not respond to reality on the ground.
As Levine says, “I no longer try to understand them, I try to defeat them.”
Looking forward to reading your comments on Cronkite.
It is a question for neo how a guy can deliberately and successfully make himself a blank slate.
Can’t have been an accident.
Mohammedans of which Obambi is definitely one realised long long ago that the PC MC left wing Islamophile moonbat culture that prevails in Western countries along with an MSM that is gullible enough to accept the pretense that it is enough to establish your bona fides simply by being Anti Bush. In fact gullible is not a strong enough word for the moonbat ‘libtards’ ‘self deceiving cretins’ is closer to the point. In fact anyone who voted for Obambi without seeing his birth certificate or all his college and employment records and not being aware of his extremely suspect personal history and past associates is by definition a ‘self deceiving cretin’ that is apart from the 96% of Blacks who voted for Obambi in a purely RACIST fashion. Its no good crying now ‘libtards’ you got what your gullibility deserved that along with a huge national Debt and a Green NAZI energy policy and Government Heath Care policy which will effectively destroy America. By bye it was nice knowing you USA.
Huxley,
German Foreign Minister Steinmeier is apparently also upset with Obama for commenting to Merkel that her re-election was in the bag. This was caught on camera. Steinmeier’s reaction according to Der Spiegel: While I value President Obama, he is not a prophet. The German people will decide who the next chancellor is.
This is the same Steinmeier whose face almost froze into a smug grin at the time of the Victory Column speech and who advised Obama on how to get along with Vladimar. This is also the same type of European whose goodwill and admiration Obama felt had been lost by Bush. When will people learn that not only Obama’s pledges but also his friendships come with an expiration date.
expat: Europeans loved Obama as the anti-Bush and rock star, but he has since given them many reasons to revise that attraction. Obama’s diplomacy has been poor (brusque treatment of allies, mistranslated RESET button) and his foreign policy is just speechifying. Were Europeans waiting for a big utopian speech about universal nuclear disarmament? I doubt it.
I believe it is dawning on European leaders that Obama does not understand how the world really works, that he is a lightweight, and that he cannot be relied upon. Furthermore, even they are nervous about what Obama is doing to the American economy.
Europe is facing worse economic problems than we are and if the American economy goes completely in the tank because of Obama’s wild spending, Europe’s prospects become much grimmer.
huxley,
You are absolutely right. The disillusionment will take a bit longer to sink down to the average citizen because so much of the popular media is stuck in 68er kumbaya mode, but at some point they too will shake their heads and utter a big WTF. I’ll have to bite my tongue to avoid replying with an equally big Told Ya, Told Ya. It would be Schadenfreude if there was anything to be happy about.
Europe brings to mind the alcoholic who gets uncomfortable when his always dependable spouse decides to tie one on. Obama is punch drunk on socialism and its freaking the socialist out.
Obambi’s constant need to be in the spotlight shown by his never ending series of speeches is just the symptom of his being a classic narcissist. But think he makes so many speeches and while of course its the TOTUS who writes most of them he must at least have to rehearse the theatricals just as Hitler used to . So that being the case WHEN does he do any REAL work or is it as I suspect he thinks continuous election speech making mode is his job.
Here is an OT. Rich Lowry has a column up at NRO about Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Farda. He is asking people to contact Reps about maintaining funding. I became interested in this when Jeff Gedmin became president because Jeff had done such a great job of sensitively presenting the American situation and point of view throughout the Bush presidency. He countered cheap shot anti-Americanism, while honestly acknowledging problems and errors. He seems to be a decent guy who has his head on straight, and I’d like to give any project he is working on some support. Wih the Iranian situation, I can’t help bu think that Radio Farda is good for us.
LOL, huxley: Obama has lost his Mojo. Yeah, Baby! If you saw him throw out the first pitch at the MLB All-Star game, you know that dude didn’t bring his mojo to the park. Maybe he left it at Kaminsky Field in Chicago, wherever that may be. He should ask whoever brought him the White Sox jacket for directions.
I just read the Van Dyk piece. How he makes the case for Obama as of November 2008 is very interesting:
1. Obama would end the toxic partisanship of the last 16 years [by putting the left wing in charge, or just by shutting down the conservatives?]
2. He’s black, and that makes us old Civil Rights veterans feel good
3. He’s smart– “intellect” and “judgment” [so why don’t we get to see his transcript?]
Mrs. Oblio said this line of reasoning is remarkably shallow. If number 1 and number 3 are no longer operative, this three-legged intellectual edifice is in serious trouble.
“mistranslated RESET button”
The fact that it was mistranslated was the least of what was wrong. It was the most juvenile foreign policy stunt I’ve seen in my lifetime. Honest to god, that idea should never have gotten out of committee. Obama is representing the United States, not himself, which he mostly seems to believe. If he thinks foreign policy should change direction then he should change it. But by trying to pretend that a country can just blink it’s eyes and call a do over is ridiculous and makes him look unserious. And you don’t want to look unserious in the eyes of the Russians.
I hope that made sense. I’m having trouble putting into words what I’m thinking. Without taking it too far, I think what really pisses me off (and that incident really did piss me off) is that it’s almost a form of treason. He wasn’t just disagreeing with his predecessor and changing direction (which is his prerogative) but he was almost siding with Russia and disavowing the country he’s leading. It was a stab in the back. There is a mature, grown-up way to take a new direction in foreign policy and there’s a petty, ridiculous, immature way to do it that makes your countrymen look bad and that was it.
It’s like a lot of these “liberals” who seem to think international relations are between the Democrats and foreign countries and the Republicans and foreign countries. They seem to have no concept that it’s between the United States and foreign countries. It doesn’t make you lovable to act like a dickhead toward your fellow countrymen in front the world. It makes you look like a dickhead.
kcom: I get what you’re saying. I thought the same thing about the RESET button — how ungracious, arrogant, and yes, not exactly treasonous but something nasty.
Oblio: Glad you liked the mojo!
The Van Dyk article is worth reading also as support for Obama’s demagoguery which still eludes nyomythus.
A big part of the Obama campaign that appealed to moderates and independents was Obama’s claims to bipartisanship and bridge-building. Then there were his claims to transparency, honesty, post-racialism, and fiscal responsibility that comforted many voters.
He has not made good on any of those promises.
Of course, as neo notes, Van Dyk gets Obama wrong. VD imagines that Obama got elected and then, was misled by staffers, Clinton retreads, and the Democratic Congress. Obama sadly lost his way but by pressing a RESET button he can return to the Good, Pure, 2008 Obama, and we call get back to hopin’ and changin’.
Bah.
Believing in Mr. Obama as post-partisan in November 2008 was already and obviously either the triumph of hope over experience or the willing suspension of disbelief. Take your pick.
Thank you for your thoughts, Huxley. I’ll admit I was surprised that Obama didn’t catch more grief from serious commentators for the whole Reset button thing – and again, I don’t mean the mistranslation. It was just an egregiously poor and pathetic excuse for mature diplomacy. I’m sure, behind closed doors, the Russians weren’t impressed and who knows what consequences that will have down the road.
Khruschev famously sized JFK up as a lightweight “boy.” And promptly posted nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles away from the US mainland.
Kennedy had the stones to face him down (just), but the Nadless One will invite the Bear to target our interests anywhere: after all, he has nothing but contempt for the nation he allegedly leads, and would rejoice in our pain. As long as he gets to call shots and make strafing runs over Manhattan in Air Force One (whoopee!), and take the First Heifer on obscenely expensive dates on our dime.
Marie Antoinette wasn’t a patch on this guy when it comes to carelessness.
Peter Wehner at Commentary has an interesting article based on a Charlie Rose interview of Bob Woodward about Obama:
Once I had somebody count it up, and it was 131 major initiatives, legislation, major appointments, major ideas… [Obama] is undertaking just about everything. And all of those things are like planes unlanded at the airport. They’re circling and we don’t know what order they’re going to land in, whether they’re going to land at all. […]
And clearly what’s interesting about Obama is he’s very decisive. He has a process of, “We’ve got this problem. Let’s hear everyone out. Let’s look at it.” And then he decides, and in most cases announces it. And so, there are all of those unlanded planes. And I think people are, as you suggest, waiting to see what happens, seeing if they’re collisions, crashes, or if just some of these planes disappear from the radar, which is quite likely.
Obama sounds like Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: Next Generation. He just goes to the conference room, listens to his subordinates, comes to a decision, says “Make it so,” and by the end of the TV hour, everything works out.
And sure, a part of leadership can look like that. But Obama lacks both the long and sober deliberation that big issues require and the follow-through as well. Instead he fobs off the $780 billion stimulus to Pelosi and Reid, then goes on to his next 130 major decisions.