Maureen Dowd, "Withholder in Chief": More Disdain from Dowd

It would appear that with the passage of time, Maureen Dowd's estrangement from Obama grows, and this week is no exception. In her latest New York Times op-ed, "Withholder in Chief" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/opinion/withholder-in-chief.html?hp), Dowd excoriates the president and claims, "he turns out to be the odd case of a pragmatist who can’t learn from his mistakes and adapt." But Obama's ineptitude should come as no surprise.

Writing from Iowa, Dowd observes:

"Many of his Democratic supporters here, who once waited hours in line just to catch a glimpse of The One, are disillusioned.

'We just wish he’d be more of a fighter,' said one influential Democrat with a grimace. Another agreed: 'You can’t blame him for everything. I just wish he would come across more forceful at times, but that is not the dude’s style. Detached hurts you when things are sour. You need some of Clinton’s ‘I feel your pain’ compassion.'”

Why are those who voted for Obama disillusioned? Answer: David Axelrod, David Plouffe and Anita Dunn designed one of the slickest campaigns in American history for a young man with no executive experience and a penchant for voting "present," but possessing remarkable oratorical capabilities. Making certain that Obama answered no questions and that the media was spoon fed materials prepared by his staff, Obama's media advisers created a situation where Obama's supporters saw in the man what they wanted to see, and a distressed American electorate bought into the illusion.

Anita Dunn described this stratagem at an event focusing on Obama’s media tactics and hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, in which Dunn discusses how Obama controlled the media during the 2008 election (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGNhAnwp_Y):

"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it. . . . very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control."

Sweet. But afterwards, try as they might, Axelrod, Plouffe and Dunn could not help Obama govern, as opposed to campaign.

Describing Obama's procrastinative nature, Dowd observes:

"His inability to grab a microphone and spontaneously assuage Americans’ fears is strange. If the American servicemen had died on a Monday, he wouldn’t have waited until Wednesday to talk about it. He doesn’t like the bully pulpit, just the professor’s lectern.

After failing to interrupt his Camp David weekend to buck up the country on one of its worst days in history, he tacked on his condolences for the soldiers’ families to his economic pep talk, in what had to be the most inept oratorical segue of his presidency.

He long ago should have gone out into the country to talk to Americans in person and come up with a concrete plan that people could print out from the White House Web site and study. Hasn’t he learned how dangerous it is to delegate to Congress? His withholding and reactive nature has made him seem strangely irrelevant in Washington, trapped by his own temperament. He doesn’t lead, and he doesn’t understand why we don’t feel led."

Sorry, Maureen, but Obama's inability to grab a microphone and spontaneously assuage Americans’ fears is anything but "strange" and actually was to be expected. There has never been anything spontaneous about Obama. Moreover, this leopard is not going to lose his spots.

"Withholder in Chief" or "Procrastinator in Chief"?

Where is Hillary when we need her? She is not likeable, but she's certainly capable of making a timely decision.