Obama’s Dukakis moment
President Obama has often been compared to Jimmy Carter. But lately it occurs to me that there’s a lot of resemblance to presidential candidate Mike Dukakis, who failed a basic emotional test in his response to a hypothetical asked during the 1988 presidential debates.
For those who don’t remember it, here’s a description of the event and the question that killed Dukakis’s candidacy. Some excerpts:
[CNN journalist Bernard] Shaw, looking commanding and stern, began: “By agreement between the candidates, the first question goes to Gov. Dukakis. You have two minutes to respond: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”
In the press room, there were gasps from the reporters. “Whaaaa?” “Did he really say that?” “Un-BELIEVE-able.”
…Dukakis answered instantly and smoothly. “No, I don’t, Bernard,” he said. “And I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life.”
He had been on the record for years and years on that subject. Massachusetts had no death penalty and also had one of the lowest crime rates of any industrialized state in the country. Dukakis didn’t believe in capital punishment. He had seen all the studies and he didn’t believe it deterred crime…
In the press room, the murmurs over Shaw’s question now turned to mutters over Dukakis’ answer. “He’s through.” “That’s all she wrote.” “Get the hook!”
The reporters sensed it instantly. Even though the 90-minute debate was only seconds old, they felt it was already over for Dukakis. He had not been warm. He had not been likable. He had not shown emotion. He had merely shown principle…
Susan Estrich, his campaign manager, was in despair. “It was a question about Dukakis’ values and emotions,” she said later. “It was a question that was very much on the table by that point in the campaign. When he answered by talking policy, I knew we had lost the election.”
I’m not saying that Obama’s first statements about the Flight 253 bomber were up there with Dukakis’s faux pas in the suddenness of their effect. For Obama it’s been a cumulative thing, this morphing from “cool” to “cold.” But the transition has been accomplished.
Typical of the reaction to Obama’s remarks on the Knickerbomber is this column, which begins with: “This is no time for the return of Professor Obama.” Americans dislike being lectured to in a condescending manner by a president who seems removed and distant, uncaring and above-it-all.
But Americans don’t approve of an overly emotional president, either, as candidate Edmund Muskie learned to his sorrow in the snows of New Hampshire in 1972, when it was perceived that he wept too readily. And even the somewhat teary-eyed Bill Clinton was very careful about when and where he cried, and for what reason, and wife Hillary had only one carefully positioned lachrymose moment in an otherwise steely performance.
It may seem unreasonable of the public to demand of its presidents such a finely calibrated balancing act between too much expression of feeling and not enough, with the voters in the position of a bunch of all-too-fussy Goldilockses.
But these fine-tuned requirements are not arbitrary. We need a president who cares enough to understand our needs and concerns and to speak our language and send the right messages both in the domestic and foreign arena, but who is tough enough to not break down under the considerable stress of the office. Strangely enough, Obama seems to be lacking in both departments. In this, once again, he resembles Mike Dukakis, who not only failed the warmth test in answer to the rape question, but was perceived as not having the proper intestinal fortitude to be able to survive his photo-op in a tank.
Like it or not, one of the duties of a president is to be commander-in-chief. People need to believe on a gut level that a candidate or a president is capable of performing well in that role. But in Obama’s public addresses in response to the two most recent terrorist attacks, he has come across more as the country’s lawyer-in-chief than its commander.
[NOTE: And those on the left who say that Bush’s response to shoe bomber Richard Reid was similar (see today’s memeorandum page for several, such as this and this) are missing the point. By then, Bush had proven himself to the American people through his behavior during the crucible of 9/11, the subsequent anthrax scare (remember that?), and the Afghan aftermath, all coming in rapid succession. He had shown the requisite combination of caring and determination throughout, once he got over the first few moments post-9/11.
The Reid episode occurred in December of 2001, and it seemed very small at the time in comparison to 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. The Knickerbomber incident looms much larger today, especially after the many quieter years for terrorism against the US during the latter part of the Bush administration. Obama has yet to prove himself in the same way; on the contrary, his reaction to the Knickerbomber is merely the latest in a pattern of troublesome low-key responses on his part to a host of events, including his initial reaction to the Ft. Hood shooter, as well as the riots in Iran during and after elections there.]
[ADDENDUM: When Obama’s lost Maureen Dowd, he’s in trouble. She compares him to Star Trek’s Spock, in a piece entitled, “As the nation’s pulse races, Obama can’t seem to find his.” Ouch.]
linky to Professor Obama article no workee!
Bob T: fixed. Thanks for the heads-up.
Bob T:
The url for that is http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/passion_out_of_fashion_for_kjSxMUmymb1313z1SlfkrI
rendered as a clickable link
Passion out of fashion for O
Damn! Neo: You’re fast 🙂
–
Seems to me Obama comes off as an amalgam of country lawyer-in-chief, modern Anglican vicar, and… someone with a Dramamine addiction.
He seems remote and unaffected because he is. He was not raised as an American, and does not identify with us, or with any nationality I think. He sees himself as above it all, and it shows.
American?, he’s as American as Amiri Baraka, or Jeremiah Wright, or any number of other “Americans” out there. His showing up three days after the the Christmas bombing attempt speaks volumes about who this guy is. He’s extremely uncomfortable about addressing the issue of the Nigerian preppie, because his sympathies, and those of many of his enablers, lie with the bastard. It’s his “culture”, and it doesn’t take a scholar to unearth that fact. Ignore and tolerate these people at your peril.
Something else about George W. Bush and Richard Reid – or, maybe the same observation, spoken in different words:
before Richard Reid ever took action, GWB had ALREADY responded Richard Reid in both words and actions. GWB had ALREADY begun tightening security in America; had ALREADY taken significant action in Afghanistan. GWB had pre-responded, Congress had pre-responded, and wheels were in motion all over the place.
Neo wrote, “with the voters in the position of a bunch of all-too-fussy Goldilockses.”
Yes we are 🙂 I think Neo that it boils down to an assessment by the public of how well the politician (in this case Obama) relates to the public.
There is a certain amount of tolerance for being richer or whatnot but if he/she is so out of touch and inexplicably weird then the tolerance level is breached.
It went to that level with Dukakis.
It went to that level with Bush’s fascination with the grocery store scanner.
It went to that level with the crying candidate.
It went to that level with McCain’s ‘oldness’ – if that’s a word.
At that point the details don’t matter even if they should.
I do not believe Obama can relate ON ANY TOPIC with the American people. He is ALWAYS talking down as if he knows better – without emotion and in regards to most issues he needs to be in command of the facts and issues but when we are attacked – he can’t swoop in and act like he was in command of the facts.
He has to lead and tell the American public as Bush did after 9/11 what this nation will do and won’t tolerate.
It is during times like this the gut matters and he needs to appeal to the gut.
Dukakis needed to recognize what he needed to do with that question.
He’s such a tool. Cold, impervious, and useful for pounding bad ideas into even worse policy.
I think the resounding meme for the day is the one of Obama’s disappointment that being King isn’t what he was hired for, but it’s what he really, really wants. Like the Nobel Prize, he just wants titular recognition and to be left alone.
The 6 inches of madness
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9436297
What a piece !
Imagine how it would be if the MSM went to war on him like they did on GWB. Imagine how it would be if they just did their job. With the whole Democrat Nomenklatura pulling for him, he is still at an absurdly low level for a POTUS in his first year.
I hope that they too get discredited by the fall of this administration.
Though this all is scary: Suppose the plan was to off him sometime during his term. The Democrats cannot go on like this. Something, somewhere has to give. He has already used up so much face time with the electorate that no-one wants to listen to him.
Do not tell me that this idiot planned his rise. He is just a front for something else.It is no wonder that we know nothing of his past. One can just imagine. If he was not part of the political machine, if he was not part of the AA gravy train, he would be lucky to be managing a 7-11 somewhere.
Baklava,
Don’t forget: The suburbs are boring. People in flyover country cling to guns and religion. He has already told a lot of Americans he doesn’t connect with them.
I can’t stand MoDo, but I completely concur with this:
“..If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?..”
I also liked Charles Krauthammer’s observation that Obama showed up three days late, without a tie :-), delivered a reluctant and bloodless message, then headed back to his golf cart! IMO, the whole episode had a “who’s watching the store” vibe about it.
After 9-11, terror episodes were minimal during Bush’s watch, which says to me that someone, somewhere was doing their job. Since Obama took office he has made it more difficult for the CIA to operate, we’ve had the debate about Gitmo and the civilian trials for terrorists in NYC, and last but not least, the Ft. Hood murders and now the pantybomber. It all has the cumulative effect of a mounting feeling of fear, or at the very least a rapidly dropping level of confidence.
I can’t believe we have three more years of this (minimum) to look forward to.
As the saying goes, elections matter.
“Heck of a job, Barry.” That has to leave a mark. Is the honeymoon over?
We’ll have to see what kind of moment this is for Obama.
The story his polls tell is one of gradual erosion with two exceptions when his numbers, at least on Rasmussen, precipitously broke to new lows.
The first was the Gates-Cambridge police controversy. The second was just before Christmas vacation when the healthcare bill was being rammed through the Senate.
I’d like to think Obama’s handling of the Christmas bomber will break to new polling lows. I’m sure it will at least lead to more erosion as the “sort of God” of the liberals continues to show his fallibility and inadequacy.
VDH has an excellent article on Obama’s disastrous first year: “A Humpty-Dumpty View of the World”.
expat,
I see.
His comments seem to alienate percentages of people at a time.
From his Cambridge Police judgment
to his guns and religion comment
it’s been a site to behold.
My fear is that too many people still cling to socialism as the answer. Yes, They might be turned off to Obama. But we can’t make this about Obama. It’s about the ideology of the Democrat party in total….
If all deference to Mz Dowd, Spock may not have showed a lot of emotion by he actually did things. You know things like make decisions and carry them out, take responsibility for those decisions and actions and, most of all, not blame Kirk for the circumstances he was in. Obama is not like Spock…not like Spock at all.
Neo, I see you are going with “knickerbomber.” OK, you’re the leader here, and I’ll follow your lead.
“Knickerbomber” it is!
And back on topic: Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing in any situation except campaigning or partying at our expense, and it shows. Only the true believers or the uninformed will continue to support Obama.
The airlines are going to take a big hit unless they let us defend ourselves. Give us back our nail clippers and Swiss army knives. Photographing naked passengers is NOT the way to go.
There is a devastating answer to the Reid-W-double_standards argument, and it is a CNN report which I watched about a day after the event. Unfortunately I could not find the episode on the web, but perhaps someone else remembers the details.
In it, a CNN reporter, reporting from Obama’s retreat residence, mentioned that many people ask why Obama is silent and why he does not address the nation like Bush did before, and then this reporter said (probably breifed by someone from Obama’s entourage) that this president does the things DIFFERENTLY from the previous one.
So, according to Obama’s own spin, his silence was supposed to distinguish him from his predecessor. So now he can’t claim that it was ok for him NOT to address the people, just because Bush did the same in Reid’s case.
To LisaM’s point, it’s clear that Obama does not connect with us on a visceral level, which explains his rather offhand affect in talking about the Hot Nuts Bomber.
Try this Gedankenversuch: imagine that Obama were talking about a foiled terrorist attack in, say, Bali. Then issuing a written press statement, taking a few days, and then giving a detached, bloodless personal statement would be about what you’d expect, wouldn’t it?
Regarding my previous comment, I think I remember more or less when I saw this episode: Saturday 26 December, CNN International, at about 15-16 GMT
In the months before the election I constantly told all who would listen (and many who didn’t) that the primary thing to remember is that the POTUS is also the Commander-in-Chief. To send men and women to war is the most difficult decision any human must make. It takes a spine of stainless steel and a recognition that often there are no good choices. It also requires a vision of the situation (War or no war) that transcends politics or ideology.
As a Oficer-in-Charge of a Navy detachment during Vietnam I had to sign the daily flight plan, which was the order for my men (and me) to fly into harm’s way. Four of them never made it back to the ship. When those men died there was no time to grieve, no way to come to terms with the losses. It was just suck it up and keep going north into the teeth of the anti-aircraft defenses. That is what comes with war. Whoever would lead this country should know the gravity of the decisions required and know himself well enough to understand that he cannot back away from the responsibilities.
Obama is in way over his head. He had no concept of the difficulty of the job. His utopian visions of the way he could transform both this country and the world into a kinder gentler place had and have no basis in reality. In some ways I feel sorry for him. He’s going to be treated very unkindly by both sides of the political spectrum. However, my compassion is limited by the fact that we are very vulnerable as long as he is POTUS. Maybe he can actually get some humility and grow on the job. Let us pray so!
This should be an example to us all. When we’re looking for men or women to lead us at the highest level, we need to look for that spine of steel and that self-knowledge that has prepared them for the incredibly difficult job of Commander-in-Chief.
J.J.: That’s why I oppose Obama’s Afghanistan War.
Strategically it’s the right thing to do and I believe it can be done, but I don’t believe Obama has the grit and commitment to make it work.
Obama’s just going to get people killed with his dithering, micromanaging, and CYAing.
Thank you for your service.
Yes, J.J., thank you for your service, and providing that trenchant perspective.
Barry’s finding out that being President of the U.S. is a bit more demanding than being president of the law review. Sweeping through the office, giving the odd benediction, and then leaving to “work from home” ain’t gonna cut it here.
Obama’s down, but he’s not out. Let’s remember Bill Clinton’s first two terrible years as president. Seems he came back to kick our butts iin 1996.
Sure, Obama’s different; he’s far more arrogant, more of an ideologue, and his base is more kooky. But I tend not to underestimate these folks.
I’m sorry but every time I watch Obama’s remarks with “I’ve ordered a review…” of this and that, I just want to scream, “Dude, the test was last week.” And yes, he said it with the same conviction as “I’ve ordered a shaved ice.”
And again with the “I” crap. I don’t care if he ordered it or some GS-3 decided we really needed to figure out what went wrong and showed some initiative. What is important is that actions are being take to find and plug the holes. I certainly don’t want a national security system that has to wait until the President finishes his swim before they do something. A stronger statement would simply have been: “Reviews are being conducted to discover what went wrong…” Come on, Mr. President, man up. Use action words with some muscle behind them.
Neo, Shelby Steele summed it beautifully in his WSJ Op-ed: Obama and Our Post-Modern Race Problem
MoDo says in her article, “Obama was an example of modern-ness while Bush was dragging us back in the past” (paraphrase).
What always pisses me off about baby boomers like Dowd is their point of reference. They came of age in the sixties, they think their 1960’s mentality is something modern and new..HELLO!!!! we are living in the 21st century, your 60’s mindset is old and worn out at this point in history.
What many of us have learned growing up is many things involving human nature are timeless. National Defense and the business cycle are by products of human nature, they repeat themselves throughout history.
Jimmy J., I also thank you for your service.
My husband was, and is, a Marine (they never stop being Jarheads, don’tchya know–semper fi!) before he was a ’60s hippie. I was a bit of a hippie myself, but thanks to a solid upbringing we both came to our senses when we had kids. I’ve long thought that our worthless Boomers bid fair to be the most destructive generation this nation has ever seen.
Huxley, I don’t know whether Obama has any clinical disease along the lines of Parkinson’s, but I’m interested in your notion that he won’t finish his first term. Do you have any thoughts as to how this might play out–say, impeachment or resignation or some other mechanism? I confess I had rather a different notion for a long time (as you know)–I thought he would attempt some sort of absolute power grab. It’s not looking that way now, though, is it–and your optimism may yet presage the reality that will save our day. He’s looking more and more like a guy who wants nothing so much as a nice, and permanent, R&R. The guy needs a dacha. Good for you–and for us, too–that’s what I say.
If Obama is the chosen figurehead of some deeper, darker operatives (George Soros is just one such possibility), it begins to seem as though they were as deluded about him being their Huckleberry as some others were about him being their (our) nemesis.
I long for the day when we can write finis to this sorry episode in our nation’s history. I only hope that, by the time the end of it comes, we will have learned enough to proceed with greater wisdom. If we do, we will have bested the Romans in forestalling our own collapse.
Long live the Republic!
For the heck of it, I browsed through the home page of the Daily Kos to gauge the kossack reactions to the Christmas bomber.
Pretty predictable. The lead concerned a poll declaring Obama the most admired man of 2009. Several diaries went apoplectic over Cheney’s attacks on the White House. Then there was the usual assortment of Dem electoral strategy minutiae items. A few side diaries salivated over reports of Limbaugh suffering chest pains.
No diaries pondered the serious issues of what Obama himself calls “a catastrophic systemic breakdown.”
Knock on wood, but I suspect that Obama will provide such a searing series of “teachable moments” that America will never again elect a New Left candidate and the netroots will go off to sulk and leave politics to grownups.
Incidentally, Reason magazine published a fascinating article in 1994 entitled, Can the President Think? (http://reason.com/archives/1994/11/01/can-the-president-think/singlepage). It had to do with Bill Clinton’s mental processes, and documented that some thought, back then, that Clinton had at least one of any number of psychological disorders, including but not limited to obsessive-compulsive disorder. It fascinated me at the time, and I have recalled it recently, during the course of musing over Obama’s possible mental states.
I understand, of course, that anyone who reaches the position of POTUS may have one or more of several sorts of mental disorders having to do with a focus on power. Anyway, it’s interesting to notice how the Left has chosen leaders who may be pathological. I wonder what Neo thinks of the piece, and its beyond-Clinton implications!
Do you have any thoughts as to how this might play out—say, impeachment or resignation or some other mechanism?
betsybounds: I don’t think Obama has the stamina to be President for four years even if it’s going well.
It hasn’t been going well and 2010 is going to be worse for Obama as the economy continues to sputter, American casualties increase in Afghanistan, bond auctions go soft or fail, more scandals emerge in Obama’s programs or among his allies, healthcare passes or fails but in either case angers millions of Americans, the left starts attacking Obama in earnest, and the Democrats look at a rout in the midterm elections — plus some nasty surprises in foreign policy/national security like more terrorist attacks or Iran getting the bomb, Russia invading a neighbor, etc.
I see no wins ahead for Obama, no adulation, just more hard slogs through big problems made worse because Obama’s mojo is gone. Who can take him and his word seriously anymore?
OK. Getting to the point, I consider it likely that Obama will break down, publicly or privately, and not be able to do the job anymore. He will then resign for “health reasons” or perhaps his advisers and some top Dem leader will form a shadow regency and try to run things with Obama as a figurehead.
It’s possible that Obama could break through and rise to the occasion, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
There is an emptiness to Obama, as Shelby Steele explained today in the WSJ, that will not sustain Obama when the going gets hard.
Obama has never truly been tested. He will hit a crisis point and it’s going to be a terrifying moment for him and for all of us.
Wow! I love that MoDo crapped on him, long and loudly, but she is still a total dope:
W., Dick Cheney and Rummy kept ceaselessly dragging us back into the past. America seemed to have lost her ingenuity, her quickness, her man-on-the-moon bravura, her Bugs Bunny panache.
Mo…. Mo, honey…. All those things came and went before I was born and I’m 40!
W.’s favorite word was “resolute,” but despite gazillions spent and Cheney’s bluster, our efforts to shield ourselves seemed flaccid.
Sweetheart, after making fun of “cowboys”, “men”, “soldiers” and “militia types” for years, now you want the Big Dick of protection and satisfaction?
Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet headed to Detroit, travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe.
My fiery red-locked chinchilla…. Sweetie, don’t you know Philip K. Dick was master of future dystopia? Of not-wonderous, dysfunctional technology? But I understand, you were confused ‘cuz you still want the wondrous Dick in your “universe”.
I see the problem here, and I’m the man for it: I’m willing to take one for the team and bone Maureen Dowd!
I see the problem here, and I’m the man for it: I’m willing to take one for the team and bone Maureen Dowd!
Good God, I salute your selflessness, sir! Plunging in where no other man dare (or wanted to)!
Btw, Roseanne Barr exhibits many of the same symptoms. If it wouldn’t be too much to ask…
Yeah, I thought it would be. Couldn’t hurt to ask.
After reading the piece of M. Dowd I conclude that she has still the typical boomer disease: perpetual adolescence. The whole thing is about ‘not being retro, old fashioned, fifties’ and being ‘cool, advanced and modern’. To me it is amazing that this essentially childish mindset still goes for serious journalism.
Much of the Obama adulation is the same thing: ‘How cool he is!’
Needless to say that the whole piece showed almost no contact with the realities of warfare in an age of Islamic terrorism and Western decadence.
The New York Times was once ‘the gray lady’. Many say that today the Times is no longer ‘the gray lady’, but ‘the gray witch’.
Perhaps that is not correct. Perhaps it is ‘the middle aged wannabe high school girl’.
Let me throw some cold water on this notion that Bush did not respond in a timely manner to the attempted bombing perpetrated by Reid, the shoebomber.
I live on Cape Cod close enough to the Otis Air National Guard Base such that I only own the air rights above my home to a height of 200 feet; the United States Air Force owns the air rights above that.
When the winds are out of the North, the F-15’s would take off over my house, something that you would think would be annoying but really was not, rather it impressed me greatly especially knowing some of the pilots.
Being around these impressive feats of engineering, you can get a sense of the intentions and emotions of the pilots as they fly thought the air. Sometimes they are just having fun, sometimes they are just getting in some touch and go landings, etc. Right after 9/11, there was nothing but a grim sense of purpose as they kept a round the clock vigil in the skies. Nothing like a sortie taking off at 03:00 to wake you up.
So when I was sitting in my living room that day and I heard the very subtle and familiar sound, much like a vacuum cleaner, approaching it did not startle me or surprise me. When they finally reached my house and turned skyward at full afterburner there was no question in my mind that something was terribly wrong. The entire house shook, windows rattled such that you would think that they’d break. There was no need to turn to Fox News to find out if something was up, the pilots had already told me that.
So I contend that Bush’s response, as Commander-in-Chief, was instantaneous and robust. A hijacked or compromised aircraft had already been proven to be a formidable weapon and if it needed to be neutralized, he had the assets in place ready to do it.
And I am witness to that fact personally.
Recent Presidential Demeanors:
Clinton: Fake squinty-eyed lip-biter or pissed off and beet red in the face. Cocky.
Bush: A little verklempt especially when speaking to or about our troops or 911. Cocky.
Obama: Wooden cigar store indian statue, just not as noble. Howdy Doody smile. Cocky.
I’m seeing a certain trend….hmmm
Btw, Roseanne Barr exhibits many of the same symptoms. If it wouldn’t be too much to ask…
I wouldn’t recommend that for her. it would probably just make her angrier and more leftist.
Mo Dowd’s trouble is obvious.
> By then, Bush had proven himself to the American people through his behavior during the crucible of 9/11…
LOL, that comment is reminiscent of my observation of Dan Rather’s somewhat insane attempt to smear Bush’s military record. Kerry was the one attempting to claim military creds, not Bush, who had, by that point, already handled 9/11, the War in Iraq and Afghanistan sufficiently (if not perfectly) well that his TANG service was totally irrelevant to that election.
Rather wouldn’t have made a blip on Bush even IF the allegations he so stupidly “found out about” had been true.
Bush didn’t NEED to prove his cred in that area, he’d already done the job adequately.
.