When former Obama cheerleaders Maureen Dowd ("Our president likes to be on both sides at once," http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26dowd.html?ref=opinion), and Roger Cohen ("It’s past time for Obama to lead in these areas [energy and industrial policy]," http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28iht-edcohen28.html?ref=opinion) both razz the president within the space of a week from the uber-left op-ed page of The New York Times , you know that his chances of reelection are dimming. David Brooks in his column of today's date entitled "Convener in Chief" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion), only adds to the chorus.
Brooks writes:
"Now Obama is compelled to engage. If ever there was an issue that called for his complex, balancing approach, this is it. But, to reach an agreement, he will have to resolve the contradiction in his management style. He values negotiation but radiates disdain for large swathes of official Washington. If he can overcome his aloofness and work intimately with Republicans, he may be able to avert a catastrophe and establish a model for a more realistic, collegial presidency.Yeah, right, Obama is going to become a "manager," i.e. leader, two and a half years into his presidency with the economy tanking, elections looming and the Republicans smelling blood. It's not going to happen.
The former messiah will have to become a manager."
Popeye was famous for saying, "I 'yams what I ams, and dats all that I 'yams!" Similarly, Obama is what he is - intellectual, arrogant and prone to protacted rumination - and there is no effectiveness seminar that is going to change his ways. Obama likes to watch.
All that's really left to be seen is whether the Republicans commit hari kiri by nominating a presidential candidate from the looney far right, who frightens the American electorate into bestowing upon Obama four more years of contemplative indecision.
Could it be, that even Roger "Iran without Nukes" Cohen is joining the mutiny of the cheerleaders?
ReplyDeleteIn his own word: "...President Obama has failed to deliver."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28iht-edcohen28.html?_r=1&hp
Who's next up to bat? Perhaps Thomas "The World is Flat & Full" Friedman?
Friedman is already distancing himself from Obama's disastrous escalation of the war in Afghanistan. As he writes in "It Has to Start With Them" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26friedman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss):
ReplyDelete"WHEN President Obama announced his decision to surge more troops into Afghanistan in 2009, I argued that it could succeed if three things happened: Pakistan became a different country, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan became a different man and we succeeded at doing exactly what we claim not to be doing, that is nation-building in Afghanistan. None of that has happened, which is why I still believe our options in Afghanistan are: lose early, lose late, lose big or lose small. I vote for early and small."
Jeffrey