Wishin’ and hopin’: when you’re reduced…
…to thinking your politician’s got a secret strategy that’s smart, instead of all the dumb things he’s actually said and done, then you’re in trouble.
Note, also, the many disappointed and frustrated Obamaphile commenters who take heart from the same notion: the idea Obama has been playing rope-a-dope and that the tide is now turning in his favor.
Not surprisingly, Ralph Peters disagrees.
Unfortunately for Obama’s true believers, the latest news about Iran’s nuclear facility at Qom doesn’t affirm the master strategist theory of Obama.
Iran released the news, not Obama, and Obama’s team played catch-up to make it look like they were on top of things.
Is this the Dusty Springfield doctrine in action?
Obama is too much of an unknown for us to simply assume he had a really good secret plan in mind all along.
There may be, in international relations, some additional power to be had by being unpredictable, but Obama doesn’t seem to be reaping any of those benefits, and his domestic planning hasn’t shown that sort of long term deviousness.
A few weeks ago while getting a haircut I read a Rolling Stone interview with Michael Moore, Paul Krugman and David Gergen titled “Obama: So Far…”
They were all full of the rope-a-dope theory of how Obama was letting his opponents exhaust themselves in their attacks. They interviewees assumed that any day now, Obama is going to shrug off his attackers then annihilate them with a fancy one-two combination.
Well that works if Obama ever does go on the attack against someone bigger than Honduras. But until then he is just the dope on the ropes taking a beating.
Sarkozy in 2012. Who needs a birth certificate? I won’t tell if you won’t.
At this point he better have one heck of a punch built up. I do not see how he could do much of anything now to deliver said knockout.
Health care? It’s dead in the water at least as far as popularity goes. Congress may still vote some strange thing in and call it “health care reform” but at this point the trust is so low that is even questionable.
I guess he still could foreign policy wise. Lets face it, if we woke up tomorrow and learned that multiple seal teams had simultaneously killed 75% of the ruling despots and bombed all the known nuclear sites to oblivion in Iran that would be one heck of a punch. Indeed, that one would be large enough that a huge amount of people would step back quite a bit. Not that I think this is the wisest move now either, though there are a number of bolder actions that I think would do quite well, but it would at least be a real punch.
As is in foreign affairs it is going to take something along those lines to dig out of his hole. I do not think he is capable of it. Even most of those “bolder actions” I think would be the proper action would not go too far as it is getting close to being forced into action.
In both cases it would take a major shift in policy/actions and then would take time for people to trust to any level again. If this is the “3d chess” then he is waiting a LONG time to do something other than hold pieces.
strcpy: That’s pretty much my read.
If Obama has got some fancy moves saved up, it doesn’t make sense that he would wait so long to use them.
People forget that Ali used the rope-a-dope against Foreman because Foreman was a younger, more powerful opponent. Ali didn’t believe that he could go head-to-head with Foreman, so Ali resorted to cunning.
OTOH Obama came into office with a solid victory, decisive majorities in Congress, sky-high poll numbers, and a ton of good will. There was no need for him to go to the rope-a-dope.
Plus he has shown no indication that he was playing tricky. He went straight for the throat on all fronts. Blitzkrieg, not rope-a-dope. But he was arrogant and incautious, and he executed poorly.
In so doing, Obama has become the exhausted injured man on the ropes while his opponents are energized, moving and punching well.
Obama doing a “rope-a-dope?” Only if he’s into bondage, because he’s the only dope getting roped.
The other day I discovered that Carlos Castaneda, the author of the Don Juan books, was not just a hoaxster, who managed to get a PhD in Anthropology from UCLA on the basis of his hoax, but he was also a cult leader who surrounded himself with an inner circle of witches — smart attractive women whom Castaneda slept with.
Ten years ago Castaneda died of liver cancer. Shortly after his death, four of his witches vanished and are believed to have committed sorceror suicide. The body of his adopted daughter turned up in the desert where Castaneda told her to go in order to “rise to infinity.”
Anyway, I bring up Castaneda because, in my zealous attempt to understand Obama, I think cult leader is one of the hats Obama wears. We haven’t seen the cult leader’s harem yet, but then we haven’t seen his college transcripts either.
Obama isn’t much of geopolitical strategist, but he is an amazing cult leader.
Huxley,
I consider him more of a gang leader than a cultists. I think having been bred in the Chicago brand of politics we’re seeing their criminal enterprise being exported nationwide. Also this clip from the Warriors is a perfect illustration of who Obama’s true supporters are. lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcLHsP9UmJI
Looks to me as though Castaneda saw himself as a pretty smart cookie, being able to pull off what he did. I am sure, to him, every day was an absolute blast.
I can see, huxley, how you would see some semblance to Obama there. I do.
Thanks, Hong. Barak Obama=Cyrus Malik. An eerie, prescient fit.
Hong,
I have to wonder, is he really a leader or just an empty suit fronting for the real powers that put him into the position he occupies?
The reason I wonder is that though his election seemed to be brilliantly run, that impression was due largely to the fact that the media covered for him in a fashion here to fore unseen. He made numerous blunders and gaffs. All were ignored or minimized. While the opposition was demonized.
He was elected with a substantial margin of votes, electoral and popular. His party swept the house and obtained a veto proof majority in the senate. His poll ratings were sky high and the media might as well just be his public relations department. Leaders abroad hailed his election too.
While I agree he is the national version of Chicago style politics, I think more and more that he is not a leader at all, though he plays one on TV. I think that he is simply an empty suit. A place holder who voted ‘present’ 137(?) times in the Illinois senate and who did nothing substantial in the US senate except run for president. He was a cipher who was put up by his party precisely because he was an empty vessel in which voters could fill up with their hopes and paint to reflect whatever they wanted to see and who would say whatever he thought the crowd he was before wanted to hear. He was backed by the money of Soros funded groups, organized labor, the NEA, trial lawyers and assorted left-wing academic-media-social elite.
Yet in eight months he has managed to squander domestic good will. There are even cracks appearing in the MSM facade. His biggest promises, on health care, the environment and the economy are either in shambles, failing or dead on arrival. This even with a veto proof majority in the senate and an overwhelming advantage in the house. Most of the citizenry no do not believe or trust him. His foreign policy, as was again demonstrated this past week, is a joke.
The left was successful, with the help of a compliant media in getting their leftist Trojan horse elected.
But I think that they didn’t fully appreciate or even understand that getting elected is only the first round of the fight. Hence his famous “I won” quote early on after the inauguration and his peevishness when confronted with opposition. His standard and only response (as far as I can see) is to attempt to intimidate,marginalize or demonize any opposition. He has yet to respond with factual counter arguments.
I think that as time wears on it will become evident that his policies are not helping the economy, that he is putting us into a perilous financial position, that many of his domestic actions are to appease his supporters rather than for the best interests of the nation, that his foreign policy has been a slap in the face to our staunches allies and those who champion freedom while supporting or acquiescing to thug regimes and are putting this country in a position of danger that we have not faced since early in the 19th century.
I think that it will become evident that he is a shallow, feckless political hack leftist who was fronted to the American public as a so-called moderate who pulled the biggest ‘bait-n-switch’ in American electoral history. He is a leader, but in appearance only. To me that is why he is so vain. It’s compensation for the fact that he is really nothing and the real powers lay elsewhere.
Well, at the very least, if you go over to Pew Research Center, you will find overwhelming poll numbers saying that 59% of all respondents agree that the opponents of the health care proposals have been “rude and disrespectful”, including 49% of independents. This is hardly an auspicious sign for a point of view wishing to return to it’s blissful stranglehold on power of 2004.
Oh, yes, and by the way, another poll over there is headlined:
Obama Approval Ratings Steady, Personal Image Remains Positive Most Continue to Say He Brings “New Approach” to Politics
I really don’t think folks like me are the ones doing the “wishin’ and hopin'”.
Joseph Marshall: You ignore the free fall of Obama’s poll numbers, and even more so, support for his specific policies like health care in the last four months.
It’s true that his numbers have stabilized in the past three weeks, but look at the astonishing effort Obama put out in major personal appearances:
* Address to all schoolchildren
* Address to the Joint Houses of Congress
* Address to UN General Assembly
* Chairing UN Secretary Council
* Appearing on five Sunday talk shows
* Appearing on Letterman
* Plus numerous press conferences
Short of declaring martial law or starting his own late night talk show, Obama can’t top this, he can’t even do a fraction of this again at this rate. He played all his high cards, and he held his own, but no more.
I suspect Obama is overexposed and that the American people want to see some results, not more big white teeth flashing at them. So far, Obama is batting zero.
Unless he starts showing some wins, my bet is that his ratings resume their decline.
And by the way, with Iran and Afghanistan hanging fire, what’s Obama, our commander-in-chief, doing?
Why, Obama is off to Denmark with most of his White House entourage to help Chicago in its bid for the Olympics.
The mind boggles.
Ramesh Ponnuru explains it:
Chicago Is Getting the Olympics
Some people seem to think that the president is taking time away from more important things to go to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago to get the 2016 games. They’re wrong. He is taking time away from more important things to go get the credit for bringing the Olympics to Chicago. Does anyone seriously believe that the president would take a quick trip to Copenhagen with the possibility of coming back empty-handed? If the president is going, it’s because he knows that Chicago has already won. He’s going.
So that’s what Obama’s search for a win, any win, is reduced to. Bringing home the Olympics bacon for his machine, sweet machine, home town.
You ignore the free fall of Obama’s poll numbers, and even more so, support for his specific policies like health care in the last four months
His numbers are just about where they were when they really counted–on election day. Unless he makes an obvious blunder [which he may do, no one is immune from it] they won’t fall much further. The fact that he doesn’t get flustered by setbacks and waits out the news cycle on his opponents, however, argues against any real blunders any time soon. We still remain an almost evenly divided country philosophically and I don’t expect that to change.
I don’t know how much you remember of Congress before 1994, but it has been just about that long since representative government in this country has worked like it’s supposed to. There was a short interlude between 2000-2002 when, under a slim Democratic majority, it started to do business properly again. But it slipped back to gridlock after that.
Republicans largely do not know how to govern because they really don’t believe in government. The most extraordinary thing about the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress was how little they advanced even there own agendas, despite having clear majorities in both Houses.
They simply can’t run the place right. Democrats do know how to govern because they actually believe in doing it. So a health care bill will come out of the House at about the speed it should when Congress is running properly. Another health care bill will reach the Senate floor for debate and be fillibustered. The only serious question is will the fillibuster be broken.
It won’t happen next week, but it’s not supposed to happen next week. That’s what representative government is all about. And by the time it does happen all the discourteous grandstanding in Town Meetings and all the throwing of tea bags will be gone and forgotten.
They are actually already gone and are being forgotten. Three full news cycles ago. The time to have staged them was when the bills were just about to come to the floor. But bad political tactics is also part and parcel of the illusion that the majority of Americans don’t really share opinions as extreme as yours, neoneocon’s or mine.
The advantage we have is that we know it and adjust our tactics accordingly.
“His numbers are just about where they were when they really counted—on election day.”
Yeah, that’s why with an overwhelming house majority and a veto-proof senate majority, Obama’s main policy initiatives have stalled and stalled badly. Cap & trade is DOA, card-check is not going to happen, health care is loosing support like a leaky tire.
You want to talk numbers? How about the polling the democrats won’t talk about and the MSM is trying to sugar coat. That is how many seats the republicans will lose in the 2010 election. Many democrats privatly worry that they may even lose control of the house.
“I don’t know how much you remember of Congress before 1994, but it has been just about that long since representative government in this country has worked like it’s supposed to..”
Not much aobut whatever planet you seem to be talking about, but back here on earth, I remember quite well. Democrats raising taxes and trying to nationalize healthcare. Sound familar?
It took a republican majority to a) lower taxes and spark economic growth, b) force the democratic administration into some form of fiscal responsibility. Sure, there’s plenty of blame to go around on both sides, but don’t forget it was the democrats at this time who really began forcing banks to make shaky and speculative housing loans, which, well, you know what happened there.
I could go on, but I know you are probably as aware of the truth.
“Democrats do know how to govern because they actually believe in doing it..” Let me stop laughing before I go on. Perhaps you’re talking about the ‘wall’ Jamie Gorelick instituted to prevent the CIA and the FBI from talking and thus quite possibly discovering the 9/11 plot before it was executed, or were you referring to Sany Berger stuffing top secret documents down his pants, sneaking them out os a secure location and destroying them? Perhaps you were referring to Ted Kennedy secretly talking with the soviets about how to thwart a sitting US president’s plans to deploy medium range missiles in Europe after the Soviets had? Or maybe you were referring to Blagojevitch’s stellar governing of Illinois? Oh wait! MAybe it was Obama’s turning a blind eye to all the tax cheats in hi adminsitration. Perhaps it was his about face on GITMO? No, maybe his ‘smart diplomacy’ with the Russians, Iranians, Poles or India? Perhaps it was his respect for the rule of law vis a vis Honduras? Hey, how about that stimulus? Yes they know how to govern alright. The list goes on but anyone who has been following politics for the last few decades understands what a bunch of shallow, contemptable hacks and clowns that the democrats have become.
Sorry about the typos and spellings, but I was in a hurry. I’m out the door right now, later.
Well, Tim, I hope you find your way back in the door. We are probably doomed to be talking at cross purposes, but I’ll elaborate on what I mean. When the Democrats took over the Senate with a slim majority in 2000, one of the problems facing the country was a tremendous number of empty Federal judgeships stalling business in the Federal Courts.
Instead of grandstanding for the press or the party base about the judicial pedigree of the nominees they liked most or liked least, they held confirmation hearings on the least controversial candidates first. They got confirmed and the objective problem got fixed.
That is what “government” is about. And that is what the proper workings of representative government is about. It’s about minding the store. doing the dishes and getting the USA’s ordinary business done–not just bashing and trashing your political opponents.
Democrats simply do this better because they care that it gets done. On your side of the philosophical divide I have yet to hear of anybody who cares about anything but bashing and trashing political opponents. All in a good cause of course.
If you, neoneocon, or any of the other commentors here know of a conservative who actually cares about the USA’s ordinary government business more than about trashing Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, ect. ect.I would love to know their name.
JM,
Good god, what a smug pompous ass you are.
If democrats cared so much about making government work, why did they spend 8 years doing everything possible to undercut the republican administration’s pursuit of terrorists and the regimes who support them after they launched the worst attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor?
Not to mention torpedoing candidates for federal judgeships on numerous occasions during that time. So much for your bi-partisanship.
We are not talking at cross purposes at all. You are either deluded or a partisan lying sack of shit, pure and simple. I am calling you on your delusions or lies, pure and simple. I don’t pretend to put on some ‘above it all’ smug facade. I know where I stand and I don’t have to play any bullshit games for cover.
You say of republicans “have yet to hear of anybody who cares about anything but bashing and trashing political opponents.”
You personify the projection of one’s own faults onto others. It was the democrats who spent the last 8 years in rabid blind partisanship, as anyone who has been even remotely conscious is aware. Right from the point of taking the 2000 election to the courts onward.
Ask yourself, if the democrats really are interested in ‘getting the work of government done’ as you say, why are they engaged in marginalizing and vilifying any and all who dare to speak against them? After all, the tea party protests are one of the purest forms of citizen protest (against both parties) in several decades. Yet they are ‘dangerous’ extremists, terrorists even. Why did democrats hide from their constituents at town hall meetings this summer? Good government?
For all your snark and smugness you really have nothing to say. You bring up one bogus example, which by the way, in the narrowly divided house and senate of the time, required a bi-partisan effort, which you so conveniently overlook.
The democrats, as they exist today, are about one thing and one thing only. Power. Getting it and keeping it. They have no underpinning philosophical views. They want power, they want loot. That’s why they are the party who practices voter fraud with such regularity. Think Franken in 2008, Gregiore in 2004 etc. The unfolding saga of the ACORN and SEIU are exposing the rottenness that is today’s democrats.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, the republicans are not in any way innocent. They share lots of the blame for the present state of affairs. Anyone who has ever bothered to read any of my comments here knows that I don’t really spare them, nor do most of the other regulars here. However, the republicans have been far more accommodating of democrats than the other way around. The simple fact that they were a minority party in the house and senate for the better part of the last half century all but insured that. Your failure to understand history or to willfully ignore it is so typical.
Most here have a view that transcends politics. It goes to the heart of what was once liberalism. Namely, clean, honest & limited government, the rights of the individual, the rule of law, the sanctity of property and contracts, freedom as articulated in the constitution and bill of rights, I’d continue but most here know what I’m talking about. Things that you would understand if you ever bothered to read Neo’s posts or the comments to them instead of being some smug juvenile bomb throwing troll.
Well, speaking as a “a partisan lying sack of shit” I’d have to say that I enjoy neoneocon’s writing very much and am in a little bit of awe at how she can continue to lay down so many lucid words day after day. That’s one of the reasons I stop by here occasionally. I certainly don’t come here for the pleasure of being called nasty names by other people on the comment page.
I don’t think there’s much more to say than that.
Sure there is.
Here goes.
If you want to make comments that go against the grain of the blog;
1. try basing your case with facts, not isolated and cherry picked examples.
2. Try not to make supercilious sneering generalizations about the readers and folks who comment like, “Republicans largely do not know how to govern because they really don’t believe in government.” Please don’t say you didn’t know republicans read this blog, Here’s a thought experiment if you’re up to it, substitute republicans with democrats, liberals, blacks, Jews, women, white men, you get the picture?
3. Try not to be condescending as with statements like, “I don’t know how much you remember of Congress before 1994, but it has been just about that long since representative government in this country has worked like it’s supposed to..”
Who the hell do you think you are? Hint, you’re not as smart as you fancy yourself to be, by a long shot. Furthermore there are very many folks who comment here that are way more intelligent, educated and well read than you. Not counting me.