Obama’s presidency: in collapse?
That’s Peter Wehner’s opinion:
In the first year of his second term, the president has failed on virtually every front. He put his prestige on the line to pass federal gun-control legislation”“and lost. He made climate change a central part of his inaugural address”“and nothing has happened. The president went head-to-head with Republicans on sequestration”“and he failed. He’s been forced to delay implementation of the employer mandate, a key feature of the Affordable Care Act. ObamaCare is more unpopular than ever, and it’s turning out to be a “train wreck” (to quote Democratic Senator Max Baucus) in practice. The most recent jobs report was the worst in a year, with the Obama recovery already qualifying as a historically weak one. Immigration reform is going nowhere. And then there’s Syria, which has turned out to be an epic disaster. (To be sure, Mr. Obama’s Middle East failures go well beyond Syria”“but Syria is the most conspicuous failure right now).
In watching the Obama presidency dissolve before our eyes, there is a cautionary tale to be told. Every presidency falls short of the expectations that the candidate sets. But no man has ever promised more and delivered less than the current occupant of the Oval Office.
I respect Peter Wehner greatly. But I disagree with him greatly here. Not on the facts, but on their meaning. Wehner is thinking conventionally about the meaning of success and of failure. If you look at each of these issues in a conventional way, he is correct that Obama has not been successful. But this is not a conventional situation.
I believe Obama has been very successful, although at the moment his formidable ego might be smarting a bit because he’d have preferred to have won the battles Wehner lists and be basking in the glow of his previous adulation squared. But his failures are relatively minor compared to the more major battles he’s already won, and each failure doesn’t seem to stay in the mind of the easily-distracted public very long. And don’t forget he still has three and a half years in which to revisit those fights and perhaps win them this time.
Here are Obama’s major successes:
(1) Weakening the US on the world stage
(2) Withdrawing from Iraq and substantially withdrawing from Afghanistan
(3) Passing Obamacare and fostering the general increase in government dependency, helping to create a docile public that is increasingly and reliably and perhaps permanently supportive of Democrats
(4) Discouraging efforts to set up checks on voting fraud, to the long-term benefit of Democrats
There are two major thrusts to Obama’s policy goals, the foreign and the domestic. In each case, they represent fundamental transformations of what has gone before. They can be summarized as (a) weakening America and (b) entrenching and norming the leftist influence on the voting public. Both missions have been substantially accomplished. It really doesn’t matter if Obama’s personal popularity and influence falls (although I don’t see his poll numbers sinking nearly as much as they should be), although of course he’d rather they didn’t. But he knows that he is set for life anyway: he never has to run for office again, a large segment of the American public (and the world) still reveres him, he will have enough money to do whatever he wants, and he will be free to go round the globe making interminable speeches—which is one of his favorite activities anyway.
I hope some one is compiling a folder of all the libs who are now criticizing him. It would make a wonderful going away present.
Ugh.
But you’re absolutely right.
Mission Accomplished.
This nation’s worst president and citizen EVER will still have to live on the down low with michelle and her mother, so there is karma
That’s seeing it right, interpreting it right, and saying it right.
A+
But such is the image of a Gonnabee before the big tumble — which ALWAYS catches all and every stunned and shocked.
I give you DeLorean, who had NOTHING but raving press blurbs, right up until he took that flight to cocaine — and infamy.
Then, all of the zaniness came out in a tumble. His minders had been hiding his true colors for years on end. DeLorean wasn’t a man, he was a crew.
Today’s Stephen Hawking is the same (economic) phenomenon on steroids. Outside of his crew, who in the world could possibly know WHAT Hawking thinks? His gatekeepers can pitch anything they might want — consistent with orthodoxy and pop politics. Witness: the boycott of Israel by a guy that doesn’t even follow politics!
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With Barry, you really ARE looking at a hive mind. He’s fused into his control: TOTUS. (Teleprompter of the United States)
He can’t think without reading it. In a twist on Orwell, it’s the BOSS who’s addicted to the narrative.
Soros would call such a property “reflexivity.”
Others would call it believing ones own BS.
It’s not a flattering sin: all of the infamous tyrants of history believed their own schtick — with dire outcomes, naturally.
0Bombino is more than the man — he travels with his drone crew. His politics are consecrated by the Left. It’s bizarre, but from where he stands, he actually thinks that he’s in the center — the center of the political universe, even.
A child of one-party (machine) politics: Indonesia, Hawaii, Boston, Chicago; he’s never been exposed to a transition in political power to the “Other Guys” in his life.
Hence, Chicago on the Potomac; you can have any policies you want as long as they spring from his pen.
The Left achieved President for Life for Roosevelt.
They know they can do it again. They will never give up. They will never stop. They will never grant slaves mercy.
The Leftist alliance, with the founding members composed of the Democrat party plus their Islamic allies, will determine when you are born, if you are born, how much you get to pay them for the privilege of being their serf, and when it’s time to expire for the benefit of the State.
That is utopia. That is what they fight for. That is their love and joy in life.
Down the road, what his handlers spent millions covering up and sealing from public view may see the light of day again. Some day the ugly festering truth may explode all over Bathouse Barry. Who is going to pay him for a speech then? Even the left will want to distance themselves from him.
Anyway, I hope so
I dont know. Im going to have to disagree Neo. Does Obama want to lessen America on the world stage? Yes. Does it help the narcissist that it makes him personally look weak? Im betting not. I dont think this is planned. I just think that Obama’s a fool who is accomplishing his goal albeit unintentionally.
Obama is like Freddy Krueger, and he is not going away. His man Holder will continue his attacks on white folks and Obama will continue to enjoy support from the media, Hollywood, educators, and low information voters. The economic damage he has done continues to create dependency on food stamps and disability payments. He has achieved his goals by being a really bad president.
What Im saying is that I dont see Obama as driving the boat of “progressive” liberalism. He’s just a figurehead, the outright symptom of a disease this country has been suffering for decades now. I think we’re giving Obama too much credit. America is in the position we are in because the populace voted in a fool propped up by an entrenched media/academia ideology machine. Obama is just one of its cogs.
I’m with Harry – we can likely endure the administration of a malevolent fool, propped up by the media/academic ideology machine and his fellow-travelers in the bureaucracy … but not the craven foolishness of the voters who put him where he is – twice!
Scratch 2B from your list — doesn’t count. We were withdrawn from Afghanistan, and he mounted a war there for no good reason, lost more lives there than were lost in Iraq. Being arsonist and the fireman doesn’t count for anything. I don’t think most of the public who didn’t serve even remembers it, and the rest wonder what it was all about. It was a self inflicted pointless war.
He’s also lost big-time on gun control, and it wasn’t for lack of trying or desire to fundamentally change it. He got his ass kicked, and continues to get it kicked on that front. Sandy Hooke, then Trayvon and every opportunity he could come up with to exploit it didn’t move Harry Reid or others in his party.
He will eventually lose on BO care too — not during his term, but it is a disorganized, expensive mess that will eventually changed into something else. I don’t know what, but I don’t buy the story that we will be single payer, govt controlled after this clown leaves the WH. Americans aren’t tolerant of horrible services — we’re spoiled. And if a large percentage of the population ends up more miserable, it will not stand. It might get worse before it gets better, but eventually our intolerance of lousy service and high expectations will drive the issue in the right direction.
Think positive – there’s a bright side to being the most spoiled nation on earth.
My math says he only has 3yrs and 4mos left, not 3 and a half years. Joy!
Does it help the narcissist that it makes him personally look weak? Im betting not.
Why did he personally bow to so many world leaders then? Wasn’t that going to kick his pride in the gut? If he can bow his head for America, who is to say he won’t get Americans killed to weaken America and take pride in that bow?
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Again, I said that yes, he is about taking America down several notches. Not taking himself down. Obama figures apologizing for America elevates him. This latest debacle certainly doesnt. America isnt going down so much because Obama plans it that way. America is going down because when you put a “progressive” in charge, it can do nothing but.
southpaw: they probably won’t call it single-payer. Probably something like extended Medicare or Collective Health Care. and eventually people will be happy for whatever crumbs they’re given. Only the older people who remember what it used to be like will complain and be upset. That’s why death panels will be double plus good – save on the medical costs that old people run up and eliminate their societal wisdom and knowledge. Don’t want them riling up the masses with stories of the way it used to be.
Remember that Obama is symptom of the rot rather than the cause. No one had to vote for him.
BTW wasn’t’ it amusing when Carney said during a news conference that the US always democracy as though Obama did not do the opposite in Honduras and Iran.
I meant “the US always SUPPORTS democracy…..”.
Unfortunately, the Republican party revealed itself as part of the elitist (statist, money-stealing) class just at the time we needed a countervailing power for Obama’s anti-American destructiveness. A. Codevilla wrote about this problem a year or so ago.
For example, why has no one in the IRS (Lois Lerner) been punished for felony crimes against private citizens? Why do we still have an insane out-of-control non-budget? The Republicans in Congress have not pulled their weight. They are the dogs collecting money scraps from the Democratic statist table.
I knew it was almost all over for the Republicans when (1) Kirk, Illinois Republican senator, came out for homosexual marriage (next stops, multiple marriage, incest, and child marriage). (2) Rubio, the darling of young Repubs at the convention, came out for amnesty (non-enforcement of existing laws).
We don’t need to get into any discussion here of these two issues because I know that neo-neocon readers have lots of varied opinions. I just tried to squeeze my basic arguments into tiny little parentheses.
BUT both those events led me to believe that the existing Republican party has no wish to win. Our only hope at this minute are those types of people who call themselves “tea partiers” as well as those people who jumped on their motorcycles to intimidate Muslims celebrating 9/11 in front of the U.S.Capitol.
Naturally, there are millions of voters who haven’t done either thing. All I’m saying is those are the only types who can still stop our descent into something awful, a future “Peoples’ Rebublic.”
I thought it was interesting that Poland just grabbed some of its citizen’s private pension money. I guess statism is the natural condition of most countries, and America was the fragile exception.
KLSmith: Yep. It’s a feature, not a bug.
The sooner they can get rid of us older folks who were educated in the old days and remember what America used to be like, the better.
Sgt. Mom Says:
September 12th, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Here is the classic formulation, which may well be the epitaph for the Obama presidency, if not for America itself:
That was going around in a chain e-mail a few years ago. I attempted to find the original writer once but was unsuccessful. It’s sometimes claimed that it originally appeared in an Eastern European newspaper. If so, it was in a language other than English. I never found it in any form other than quotes in blog comments.
Fox is number 1 by a two even three to one margin.
Whew. I guess that means your wrong, Neo.
Okay folks, that’s a wrap. It was a close call for a little bit.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/09/12/presidential-address-fox-news-crushes-cnn
You are correct about Obama.
Obama is completely misunderstood unless you first understand that he hates America, and he hates Americans.
That is the first principle of understanding him, and everything else falls into line once you accept that most hideous proposition.
It does not seem possible. People don’t dare even think it. They’d rather peg him as an incompetent, or a genius, or lazy, or disinterested, or anything else at all except as an actual President who hates the country he is President of.
He may be parts of all of the above, but that only means that sometimes he is incompetent at doing what a person who hates America would do; sometimes he is a genius at it; sometimes lazy; sometimes disinterested, and so on.
Reverend Wright. Twenty years. You do that, that is who and what you are.
Which is: The first and only (since he will either destroy what he hates or be destroyed by what he hates) “God Damn America” President there has ever been.
The power of Communism is not dependent on a single person like Obama or a party like the Democrat Party or even on having political hold on a state, any more than Islam stands or falls upon one person like Bin Laden or organization like Al Qaeda or the possession of state power. Just as Islam needs only its believers to be an oppressive, terrorizing and colonizing force in the world, so Marxism too can survive well the presidency of a Ronald Reagan and the loss of its Russian base as long as it maintains its stranglehold on the mainstream media organs and education centers of the host state.
With regard to both Marxism (“Progressivism”) and Islam, the free world has so far played a game of chess when it’s really a game of checkers going on. In chess, you win by removing the enemy side’s king, while in checkers you have to dispose of all the men. Sometimes your side manages to advance into the king’s row and thus gains special power, but that doesn’t win you the game. The checkers “men” in this political game are each and every Marxist-owned media outlet and education center in one’s country and each and every Islamic community and local madrassa on one’s soil. By ensuring, through the force of PC intimidation (“Racist!”), that the war will be fought only over the position of king, as in chess, the side of evil has guaranteed that it will never truly be defeated.
(I know a lot of people here call present-day Russia neo-Soviet, especially as it’s headed by a former KGB agent, but I disagree on that, viewing Russia as neo-Tsarist, its policies being a continuation of 19th-century goals after a long interruption.)
BUT both those events led me to believe that the existing Republican party has no wish to win.
I got the first tell that the Republican party was hopelessly infiltrated six ways to sunday when Sarah Palin was destroyed by McCain’s own staffers.
Those two interviews were edited and produced by the Leftist media. But who do you think orchestrated Palin’s meeting with them and recommended/told her that these two were the right outlets for the election?
Neo-neocon,
I really don’t know how intentional the foundation of this implosion was, but I’d bet good money on one thing: that Obama never thought he’d be diminishing his own persona to the international laughingstock he is becoming.
For the life of me I can’t understand how he believed that he could retain any grace, dignity or respect after reducing the prestige of the country he supposedly leads. If you lead a lesser nation, you are a less important head of state. Did he really (narcissistically) believe himself to be immune?
Perhaps Obama wasn’t making the decisions, but Jarret. Obama does a lot of things he doesn’t want to do, primarily because only Jarret can convince him to do any actual work, even on campaign.
T: Pride goeth before a fall. But the media will be there to prop him up again.
T:
Yes, he believed himself to be immune.
Obama during the 2008 campaign:
Delusional. Absolutely delusional. Student. Community organizer. President of Law Review. Author of memoir. Law teacher. State senator, Illinois. US Senator about 2 years before running for president, foreign policy experience nil, military experience and knowledge nil.
And yet he had the arrogance to seriously say this during the campaign.
The problem is our Birdbrained fellow “citizens.” Yes, Obama is evil, malicious, venomous toward America. But so are so many of his shock troops; and the rest who support him are birdbrains.
Obama figures apologizing for America elevates him. This latest debacle certainly doesnt.
The mystery isn’t solved yet though. If Obama, representing America, can bow and degrade himself and thus America, and he thinks this elevates himself. Then why wouldn’t Obama’s representation of American might and diplomacy be considered the exact same thing?
Obama didn’t order some Americans or Marines to bow, he did it himself. Because he represents and leads the US. By directly decreasing his own authority and presence, he decreases America’s.
The claim that before this elevated him, but now it doesn’t, appears contradictory.
If Obama “knows the people” those people certainly don’t include the Christians being killed, exiled and persecuted in Egypt and Syria and other Muslim lands.
But here’s something to put a smile on a face. Kind of reminds me of the saying, “when a boat washes up on the shore, the sea has spoken.”
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/09/hog-heaven-a-million-bikers-roar-in-dc-on-911-vs-five-muslim-march.html
Neo,
A revealing response. Not revealing of your position, which you have been very clear and consistent about, but revealing of the depth of Obama’s delusion.
I think it possible that both you and Peter Wehner are correct; that this weakening of America is intentional but that because of the unavoidable blowback on the office of the president (to which Obama thought himself immune) that his presidency is, indeed, in collapse. Only time will tell how this will “flesh out.”
It makes me want all the more to see Putin continue to bring it to Obama (it’s a hubris/nemesis thing). Like Major Powers in the movie Heartbreak Ridge Obama needs to be given a good dose of reality to which he is not immune. Besides, as Wm Jacobson points out, Putin isn’t saying anything that the left hasn’t been saying for years. So let a master Alinskyite such as Putin reprimand the left by using their own philosophy against them since conservatives in this country (at least Republicans) lack the cojones to do it.
I repeat, I am comfortable saying this because I think the international damage to America’s reputation is not permanent and is reparable. We will not cease to be the destination of choice for foreign immigrants, although, it will not be a Hillary Clinton or a John McCain who is capable of making that future repair.
I concur with Neo’s assessment on the matter of Peter. I would add that Peter commits the sin of underestimating the enemies of humanity, their evil, depravity, and ruthlessness.
If such a thing was enough to “collapse” them, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.
In any society, there will be hawkes like Churchill prophesying the end of the world due to whatever, and then there will be those who underestimate the threat and think it can be dealt with through words and deals.
The Leftist alliance belongs to neither faction. They are the barbarians.
Presidents notoriously always have a rough go of it in their second terms. The question is how rough.
Regarding my comment above that we will not cease to be the destination for the world’s immigrants, and interesting and positive read is the following over at Ace of Spades HQ
http://www.ace.mu.nu
Overnight Open Thread (9-12-2013)
–Maetenloch
The Most Surprising Things About America, According To An Indian International Student
[note: a Teaser]
Posted by Maetenloch at 10:28 PM Comments
This is reaffirmed by the recent statistics on poverty level living which show that 96% of people in poverty have TVs, etc.
“Presidents notoriously always have a rough go of it in their second terms. The question is how rough.”
In my estimation, not nearly rough enough yet.
His Uncle Frank* must be very proud of young Barry’s achievements. The pride he feels may even offer him some surcease from the searing agony of fire and brimstone in Commie Hell.
*http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/
Yamar: If Obama, representing America, can bow and degrade himself and thus America, and he thinks this elevates himself. Then why wouldn’t Obama’s representation of American might and diplomacy be considered the exact same thing?
I should think that would be easy to figure out and in fact Ive already given you the answer for that. Ill try again:
Obama lowering America in international status = Good.
Obama making himself look foolish while doing it = Bad.
This Syria debacle wasnt a brilliant piece of planning desired by Obama. Its an embarrassing unintentional screw up. Let us not build that guy into some form of evil genius when in truth he’s nothing more than a self-indulgent sophist.
Harry the Extremist:
Please see my new post on the subject.
There’s no categorical difference between Obowmao’s bowing foolishness and this other stuff. Except he merely talked with Putin instead of going on all fours for him.
The difference is very artificial, if the attempt is being made to separate them.
If he’s a sophist, all he can say is that Valerie and Hillary was the ones responsible for Syria and the red line rhetoric. He was “above it all”.
There are many other explanations. Yours, Harry, is still very contradictory.
The “red line” came straight out of Hillary’s speech of ten-days vintage.
Think of it as a free re-set that turned out to be really expensive.
BTW, this must also mean that HRC is in the tar pit for a time.