Last week, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote: "Who is Barack Obama? Americans are still looking for the answer, and if they don't get it soon -- or if they don't like the answer -- the president's current political problems will look like a walk in the park. ... Mr. Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose rhetoric, however skillful, cannot always be trusted. He is creating a credibility gap for himself, and if it widens much more he won't be able to close it."
A president knows he is going through a hard patch when even his strongest supporters write such things. But, curiously, no commentator has more shrewdly foreshadowed this quagmire of ambiguity in which President Obama finds himself in this cold February 2010 than Mr. Obama himself in The Audacity of Hope in 2006:
"Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography: I can't help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.
But that is not all that I am. ... I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship. ... I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. ...Undoubtedly, some of these views will get me in trouble. I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them. ... A second, more intimate theme to this book [is] how I, or anybody in public office, can avoid the pitfalls of fame, the hunger to please, the fear of loss, and thereby retain that kernel of truth, that singular voice within each of us that reminds us of our deepest commitments"
The "blank screen" passage has been much quoted (including by me a couple of times) and, standing alone, might suggest cynicism. But when considered in the context of the previous few paragraphs and poignant following sentences -- and when read now, after the president's first difficult year in office -- a sadder, possibly tragic, vision emerges.
Perhaps the president has not been tactical and clever in the various different facets of his views that he has shown us: "I am a prisoner of my own biography. ..." If one reads his words that he is "forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized," and his words a few paragraphs down, where he wonders, "How I, or anybody in public office, can avoid the pitfalls of fame, the hunger to please, the fear of loss" -- one can't help wondering whether his "hunger to please" is in perpetual, inconclusive battle with his innermost visions and judgments.
Of course, we are all a bundle of contradictions, and we all grapple with the tension between pleasing others and being true to ourselves. And Mr. Obama is to be commended for writing with such searing honesty just a year before he started his run for the presidency.
But all of the foregoing would be merely obscure marginalia to the main text of his presidency if, in his first year in office, he had executed his responsibilities with a firm steadiness of purpose. He would not be in the fix he is in now if he had so comported himself that his strong supporter Mr. Herbert (and many other of his cheerleaders) had not felt compelled to rudely question his credibility and wondered out loud who Mr. Obama is.
If the president is to save his presidency from a fatal weakening, he needs promptly to work through his inner dialogue and resolve the contesting urge to be loved with the urge to be true to himself -- in favor of the latter. His State of the Union speech reflected too much of the former.
He could do with a little less public love and a lot more public respect. Take some stands and stick with them. If he thinks we need more deficit spending to stimulate the economy, he shouldn't trot out rhetoric and faux policies in support of deficit reduction. He thereby neither gained the support of fiscal conservatives nor kept the favor of those for more deficits. (See Paul Krugman's brutal New York Times column in which he called the president not a true deficit hawk, but a "deficit peacock," a term he borrowed from an article published by the Center for American Progress) because, as the CAP article said, he "pretend(s) that our budget problems can be solved with gimmicks like a temporary freeze."
If he truly believes he cannot get the health care legislation he wants, he should tell his allies (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in particular) to drop it, now. Give his allies on the Hill firm priorities and guidance. He should not continue to hint at cap-and-trade if he knows it can't happen in 2010. He may disappoint the Greens but gain their respect for his firm leadership.
Whether he wants to "stay the course" or "pivot to the center," the president has the next six months to steadily and unambiguously execute that vision. If he fails to right his image by then -- it will be post-Katrina time for yet another president.
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For the last year Conservati
"I want my country back!"
I've seen mature women at Tea Bagger events and town hall meetings, in emotional tears and fear, over the imagined Dictator TAKE OVER and Radical CHANGE they think Obama HAS already done.
Which is it Blankley? You can't have it both ways. Either he has succeeded, or, he hasn't actually done anything, and he is a failure as you suggest.
Inform your right wing extremist base okay, cause they are upset, thinking this president has already succeeded at what they have been told by lying FOX pundits is his "radical agenda" because they are brandishin
The ONLY radical agenda in Washington
Now THAT'S radical.
I, for one, am teetering on that edge. I had a great deal of enthusiasm for Obama early on. But the gap between what he says and how it plays out has been widening to the place where I don't know if it can be bridged. If he follows through on what looks like a change in his approach to dealing with opposition I think he might still bridge the gap for me. But I am VERY wary because he has always talked a good line. I'm not drinking the Cool-Aid again until I see some action - and results.
Mr Blankley put his finger on the problem in his comment about Obama needing to resolve the conflict between his "need to be loved" and his "need to be true to himself" in favour of the latter. I do think that Obama has a need to be accepted by the "establish
President can only recommend stuff - but I agree with Blankley - BO needs to grow a steely spine to get things done!
BECAUSE he was an unknown, he warned he was a blank screen for others to try to "project their views"
Notice Blankley's sly word paint by numbers picture, "sadder, possibly tragic, hunger to please, pretends, gimmicks"
Nice try Blankley.
This President knows exactly who he is and what he believes. He analyzed himself in his book with candid honesty, expressing awareness of exactly what he faced from those who would attempt to bring him down.
There's nothing "tragic" about President Obama. What IS tragic is the rabid and unpreceden
For the last year President Obama has taken every dirty punch Conservati
President Obama's belief that Politician
It's a reality HE recognizes to be TRUTH and what's best for America.
Obama has NOT taken the easy route, but instead chose to attempt to bring Republican
2. As a community organizer, Obama disposes of some interestin
I think that there is a real chance that such a method might work, so it's worth trying, especially now, when the American people need a Congress that is able to work hard to get us out of the current mess.
The basic idea is to accept the fact that the Republican
Audacity of Hope - yes, Blankley, we have now been given some hope - .President Obama has brought smart to the White House and we know it is going to take a mack truck to keep pushing the right aside and get the refuse to the dump. So once again I find no reason to agree with Tony.
I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with you. When you used to appear on the McLaughlin Group, I sometimes felt like jumping through the TV screen and grabbing the $200 tie around your wed-fed neck and pulling it as tight as I could before John and Pat pulled me off.
But your analysis is, as they say, "spot-on". It's only about 6 months late. I made a similar point here (in a lot fewer, more colorful words) in my HuffPost blog, "Barack Obama. The Token President" last September.
I'll give him another 3 months to find his "inner angry black man" or he's Black History.
http://buy
BTW: Happy Black History Month!
He's not only a talented orator because of his linguistic skills, he also is because very early in his life he had the chance to understand that this was NOT about him as a person, that if people like his speech for example that doesn't mean they like HIM, it only means that they liked what he said about how to transform WITH them THEIR lives.
So no, of course he didn't become president to have the impression that a lot of people love him ... if he was still stuck in such a childisch needs, he would never have been able to become president in the first place. He has a very loving wife and family, and a lot of real friends. That's where the love everybody needs in live comes from.
(to be continued)
So if you want to understand his policies, and the link between his actions and his words, you have to study ... his actions and his words, instead of speculatin
Elitist, cold, calculatin
The question isn't who is Barack Obama, but who are we? At the GOP retreat, the president summed up our politics: " a steel caged match"! When you hear the pundits, it's always "What will the president do"? No one asks the American people to do anything, accept stand near their trough and complain. We make the mistake of making this thing about Obama and HIS presidency
The point is NO ONE, the pundits, the media, or the politician
Instead of explaining WHY the HCR bill contains the very ESSENCE of what Obama campaigned on, and WHY it doesn't contain EVERYTHING he and other progressiv
Obama understood this problem very well, when yesterday he said to the Dem Senators that if you want to know what the people think, you better put off CNN and other television stations, and don't read blogs, but go to the street and talk to the people themselves
When will pundits understand that what THEY are interested in (how much is a politician liked/hate
Shame on those media who continue to focus on form instead of giving us some substance. A democracy without media able to really inform the people will never be a vibrant democracy, special interests will always keep their power and influence the people, simply because citizens remain ignorant - which is of course EXACTLY what they want us to be .. .
What ails the nation now is totally the byproduct of the failed policy of the right who now have the galls to argue in favor of continuing the same failed policy. And this president was elected to reverse the madness. Lead or get out the way, Republican
How would we feel about him if he would have gone against everything he campaigned on, and just have immediatel
Conservati
Our country has not done as well as people hoped in the last year, but is it all President Obama's fault, or is it the REPUBLICAN
With ZERO help from Republican
Would it be swell if things were better? Absolutely
BHO started to lose credibilit
I'm a 59 year old white female who campaigned (mostly phone lines) and voted for President Obama. I was either aware of the snippets of sermons that were used to try to discredit Obama and made it my business to look them up in their entirety. To be honest, I completely agree with some of Rev Wrights positions.
It WAS unlikely that President Obama was unaware of what Rev. Wright said, or that he just happened to miss services on the days those sermons were given. Had he said he was aware of them and either agreed or disagreed with what Rev. Wright said would have been far more honorable than saying he didn't know about them.
That wasn't enough to change my opinion on Obama being the best man for the position of President, or lessen my support, however.
Obama WOULD be much better served to clearly state his position on issues, then do whatever he legally can as President to see they come to fruition. Trying to be "nice" to Republican
Moreover, Emanuel is the antithesis of the hope and change that Obama promised. He's old-school Chicago, he left government for 3 years to pick up a quick $17 Million as an investment banker, and of all things, and went on the board of Freddie Mac to boot.
On top of this, he's boor. Couldn't BO have done better? Emanuel is the architect of the first year agenda that looks a lot like Chicago and DC business as usual.
BO has a chance to turn this around before he is indelibly branded as a cynical charlatan.
Because you imagine that as they worked for the private sector, they must be 'bad guys'.
Fact is, it's not as simple as that. Obama himself is for competitio
The only thing that must be changed are the rules of the game, so that they cannot take such a hugh risks any longer, and will treat their clients in a more fair way. To be able to know HOW to change those rules, you need insiders, people who know how to change the system without breaking it. That's why Geithner is so important too, if this president is really serious about change in the financial sector.
"King" "Crown"? That's funny.
Half the people are accusing President Obama of NOT being forceful or "Kingly"
enough. They are disappoint
The other half insists, and accuse him of acting like a King, or compare him to Dictators.
Strange disconnect don't you think? He CAN'T possibly be both in reality.