Maureen Dowd, "Barry Trails Off . . .": Spontaneous Combustion

Was it the altitude? Was it a lack of sleep? Was it the absence of teleprompters? Or was it Obama's wish "to be alone," as suggested by Maureen Dowd in her New York Times op-ed entitled "Barry Trails Off . . ." (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/opinion/dowd-barry-trails-off.html)?

Theories abound concerning Obama's train wreck debate performance. The crack-up incidentally coincides with Hillary's attempts to make herself scarce following the disaster in Benghazi, which the Obama administration sought to sell as "spontaneous."

After being told by pundits from the left, such as New York Times columnist Gail Collins, that debates don't matter (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/10/gail-collins-season-of-debates-what.html), we are now witnessing panic among Obama's advisers as they scramble to deflect the blame for the debacle in Denver. Yes, debates do matter, and yes, Obama is down in the polls.

So who is responsible for Barry's washout? Someone always needs to be blamed, and Dowd, in her latest opinion piece, points a red laser beam at Valerie Jarett:

"Obama has been coddled by Valerie Jarrett, the adviser who sat next to Michelle at the debate, instead of the more politically strategic choice of local pols and their spouses. Jarrett believes that everyone must woo the prodigy who deigns to guide us, not the other way around."

True, Jarrett lacks the economics and foreign affairs experience needed to act as the president's closest aide. However, Jarrett fills another vital role in the Obama administration. The "night stalker" was chosen to massage Obama's narcissism and act as a surrogate mother figure, and she bears little responsibility for the president's lack of preparation prior to the debate.

Dowd alternatively suggests that Obama's self-destructive urges were to blame:

"The president is good at analyzing the psychology of other world leaders, and he wrote an acclaimed memoir about his long, lonely odyssey of self-discovery. But he doesn’t always do a good job at analyzing his own psychology to avoid self-destructive patterns."

Obama is "good at analyzing the psychology of other world leaders"? Khamenei in Iran? Putin in Russia? Don't even get me started. This claim highlights Dowd's own self-destructive need to showcase her bovinity involving world affairs.

Obama's "acclaimed memoir about his long, lonely odyssey of self-discovery"? Regrettably, as acknowledged by Obama himself ("For the sake of compression, some of the characters that appear are composites of people I've known"), much of this autobiography consists of fiction.

So what ultimately lies behind Obama's cave-in? Dowd concludes:

"It is that distaste for salesmanship that caused Obama not to sell or even explain health care and economic policies; and it is that distaste that caused him not to sell himself and his policies at the debate. His latest fund-raising plea is marked 'URGENT.' But in refusing to muster his will and energy, and urgently sell his vision, he underscores his own lapses in leadership and undermines arguments for four more years."

Sell or even explain his economic policies? Excuse me, Maureen, but where are these policies?

In fact, Maureen has accidentally hit the nail on the head: There is nothing to sell. For months Obama has led in the polls by demonizing a straw man in 30-second spot advertisments. However, the American electorate has now learned that Romney, although far from perfect, doesn't have horns.

Bottom line: This was a case of long overdue spontaneous combustion.