[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Good ol’ Ryan, never lets me down. Keep the hate alive.[/quote]
We get it, you don’t like facts. Don’t take it out on me.
WSJ: Ajami: The Obama Spell Is Broken - WSJ
JANUARY 31, 2010, 10:27 P.M. ET
The Obama Spell Is Broken
Unlike this president, John Kennedy was an ironist who never fell for his own mystique.
By FOUAD AJAMI
The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-American moment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financial panic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon.
The nation’s faith in institutions and time-honored ways had cracked. In a little-known senator from Illinois millions of Americans came to see a savior who would deliver the nation out of its troubles. Gone was the empiricism in political life that had marked the American temper in politics. A charismatic leader had risen in a manner akin to the way politics plays out in distressed and Third World societies.
There is nothing surprising about where Mr. Obama finds himself today. He had been made by charisma, and political magic, and has been felled by it. If his rise had been spectacular, so, too, has been his fall. The speed with which some of his devotees have turned on himâ??and their unwillingness to own up to what their infatuation had wroughtâ??is nothing short of astounding. But this is the bargain Mr. Obama had made with political fortune.
He was a blank slate, and devotees projected onto him what they wanted or wished. In the manner of political redeemers who have markedâ??and wreckedâ??the politics of the Arab world and Latin America, Mr. Obama left the crowd to its most precious and volatile assetâ??its imagination. There was no internal coherence to the coalition that swept him to power. There was cultural “cool” and racial absolution for the white professional classes who were the first to embrace him. There was understandable racial pride on the part of the African-American community that came around to his banners after it ditched the Clinton dynasty.
The white working class had been slow to be convinced. The technocracy and elitism of Mr. Obama’s campaignâ??indeed of his whole personaâ??troubled that big constituency, much more, I believe, than did his race and name. The promise of economic help, of an interventionist state that would salvage ailing industries and provide a safety net for the working poor, reconciled these voters to a candidate they viewed with a healthy measure of suspicion. He had been caught denigrating them as people “clinging to their guns and religion,” but they had forgiven him.
Mr. Obama himself authored the tale of his own political crisis. He had won an election, but he took it as a plebiscite granting him a writ to remake the basic political compact of this republic.
Mr. Obama’s self-regard, and his reading of his mandate, overwhelmed all restraint. The age-old American balance between a relatively small government and a larger role for the agencies of civil society was suddenly turned on its head. Speed was of the essence to the Obama team and its allies, the powerful barons in Congress. Better ram down sweeping social programsâ??a big liberal agenda before the people stirred to life again.
Progressives pressed for a draconian attack on the workings of our health care, and on the broader balance between the state and the marketplace. The economic stimulus, ObamaCare, the large deficits, the bailout package for the automobile industryâ??these, and so much more, were nothing short of a fundamental assault on the givens of the American social compact.
And then there was the hubris of the man at the helm: He was everywhere, and pronounced on matters large and small. This was political death by the teleprompter.
Americans don’t deify their leaders or hang on their utterances, but Mr. Obama succumbed to what the devotees said of him: He was the Awaited One. A measure of reticence could have served him. But the flight had been heady, and in the manner of Icarus, Mr. Obama flew too close to the sun.
We have had stylish presidents, none more so than JFK. But Kennedy was an ironist and never fell for his own mystique. Mr. Obama’s self-regard comes without ironyâ??he himself now owns up to the “remoteness and detachment” of his governing style. We don’t have in this republic the technocratic model of the European states, where a bureaucratic elite disposes of public policy with scant regard for the popular will. Mr. Obama was smitten with his own specialness.
In this extraordinary tale of hubris undone, the Europeansâ??more even than the people in Islamic landsâ??can be assigned no small share of blame. They overdid the enthusiasm for the star who had risen in America.
It was the way in Paris and Berlin (not to forget Oslo of course) of rebuking all that played out in America since 9/11â??the vigilance, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the sense that America’s interests and ways were threatened by a vengeful Islamism. But while the Europeans and Muslim crowds hailed him, they damned his country all the same. For his part, Mr. Obama played along, and in Ankara, Cairo, Paris and Berlin he offered penance aplenty for American ways.
But no sooner had the country recovered its poise, it drew a line for Mr. Obama. The “bluest” of states, Massachusetts, sent to Washington a senator who had behind him three decades of service in the National Guard, who proclaimed his pride in his “army values” and was unapologetic in his assertion that it was more urgent to hunt down terrorists than to provide for their legal defense.
Then the close call on Christmas Day at the hands of the Nigerian jihadist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab demonstrated that the terrorist threat had not receded. The president did his best to recover: We are at war, he suddenly proclaimed. Nor were we in need of penance abroad. Rumors of our decline had been exaggerated. The generosity of the American response to Haiti, when compared to what India and China had provided, was a stark reminder that this remains an exceptional nation that needs no apologies in distant lands.
A historical hallmark of “isms” and charismatic movements is to dig deeper when they falterâ??to insist that the “thing” itself, whether it be Peronism, or socialism, etc., had not been tried but that the leader had been undone by forces that hemmed him in.
It is true to this history that countless voices on the left now want Obama to be Obama. The economic stimulus, the true believers say, had not gone astray, it only needed to be larger; the popular revolt against ObamaCare would subside if and when a new system was put in place.
There had been that magical momentâ??the campaign of 2008â??and the true believers want to return to it. But reality is merciless. The spell is broken.
Mr. Ajami, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is the author of “The Foreigner’s Gift” (Free Press, 2007).
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Good ol’ Ryan, never lets me down. Keep the hate alive.[/quote]
We get it, you don’t like facts. Don’t take it out on me.[/quote]
Tell me what is incorrect in my post.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Strawman. Not everything is Bush’s fault (no one is making that argument). But this deficit is.[/quote]
Congress has been controlled by the Democrats since 2006. The budget, as proposed by Obama, will cause the deficit to soar. That is solely on Obama’s shoulders. The current economic uncertainty and perceived problems are due to Obama’s ineptitude and weak leadership on the economy. Business leaders do not trust him and his inexperience causes a lot of doubt. Companies will not hire in the face of uncertainty.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Good ol’ Ryan, never lets me down. Keep the hate alive.[/quote]
We get it, you don’t like facts. Don’t take it out on me.[/quote]
Tell me what is incorrect in my post. [/quote]
You were complaining about large deficits, when the vast majority was due to Bush.
Mind! I’m not even criticizing Bush, but this is the corner you’ve painted yourself into: you complain about deficits, but then when you actually dig into the numbers, you’ll find that it’s your guy who is to blame for them, so then you’re in an awkward position. I have not maligned deficits in general, and so I’m not in the same awkward situation.
[quote]hedo wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Strawman. Not everything is Bush’s fault (no one is making that argument). But this deficit is.[/quote]
Congress has been controlled by the Democrats since 2006. The budget, as proposed by Obama, will cause the deficit to soar. That is solely on Obama’s shoulders. The current economic uncertainty and perceived problems are due to Obama’s ineptitude and weak leadership on the economy. Business leaders do not trust him and his inexperience causes a lot of doubt. Companies will not hire in the face of uncertainty.[/quote]
So just for the record, we agree that $1.4 trillion of the deficit is due to Bush (and that he added $4 trillion in total to the debt, which you don’t really seem to care about).
Now, the deficit sure is high, but who cares? I haven’t come out militantly against them like you have, so I have nothing to defend here.
One correction, though. It is not Obama’s “ineptitude” or “weak leadership” that is to blame. The reality of the situation is that the magnitude of events completely overshadows who’s holding the reins (of course you braindead partisan attack robots won’t see this).
Basically, there are two possible approaches here: one is to maintain a high level of spending, put people to work and aggressively stimulate investment in order to pull the economy out of recession, hopefully in time that we can grow our way out of the deficits. The second is to try to control the deficit now, at the expense of probably weakening the recovery and prolonging stagnation. Now, you’re free to choose whichever of those you think is more appropriate, and I won’t argue, but your implicit conclusion, that there is a clean, more or less easy way out of this that Obama is not doing because he is an ideologue is, shall I say, wide of the mark.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Good ol’ Ryan, never lets me down. Keep the hate alive.[/quote]
We get it, you don’t like facts. Don’t take it out on me.[/quote]
Tell me what is incorrect in my post. [/quote]
You were complaining about large deficits, when the vast majority was due to Bush.
Mind! I’m not even criticizing Bush, but this is the corner you’ve painted yourself into: you complain about deficits, but then when you actually dig into the numbers, you’ll find that it’s your guy who is to blame for them, so then you’re in an awkward position. I have not maligned deficits in general, and so I’m not in the same awkward situation.
[/quote]
Who exactly is “my guy?” I made no such reference to anyone, all I said was that he kept blaming Bush. Obama made the choices he did, as far as the things I mentioned in my earlier post, which are all true. Did Bush make Obama not televise the healthcare debate on CSPAN? Did Bush made Obama create Cash For Clunkers? Did Bush make Obama bribe Nelson and Lincoln? My post examined what Obama has done at this point, of which he could have chosen other options.
both bush and obama are preogressive thinkers. but what always surprised me was how bush was so bad, yet obama follows the same stupid stimulus idea? give me reagan tax cuts anyday!! in reality, the constitition, a 17 PAGE DOCUMENt showed be the law of the land! not free healthcare free untitlements, welfare, free housing>
socialism doesnt work, it never has
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If Bush can be blamed for things that happen one year into Obama’s watch, should Clinton be blamed for 9/11?
[quote]ultrafit wrote:
both bush and obama are preogressive thinkers. but what always surprised me was how bush was so bad, yet obama follows the same stupid stimulus idea? give me reagan tax cuts anyday!! in reality, the constitition, a 17 PAGE DOCUMENt showed be the law of the land! not free healthcare free untitlements, welfare, free housing>
socialism doesnt work, it never has[/quote]
The Constitution is flawed because it was a half-measure. Instead of simply outlawing ALL taxes explicitly, it left an opening (the General Welfare clause).
It should have made it impossible for voters to empower demagogues so that the public teasury could be looted.
It should have made it abundantly clear that under no circumstances whatsoever may fiat money circulate as money. None. Nada. Zip.
Because of this and many other contradictions and flaws, we are in the spiral toward the nanny/fascist state. Human nature had to be saved from itself. The Constitution, despite being the best thing that humanity has ever come up with in this regard, failured.
It even allowed a criminal to lecture, in Congress, those whose job is to interpret said Constitution. Maybe that’s the root of its failure…
Sure, since you’re obviously only interested in pointing fingers, not in solving problems.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Sure, since you’re obviously only interested in pointing fingers, not in solving problems.[/quote]
I gather you’ve been reading John Dewey (the educator, not the prez candidate, father of modern education).
“We can’t worry about theories or long-term consequences! We have to deal with the problems of the moment!!”
In other words, the leaders can do whatever and our job is to keep fixing whatever they break. What if we don’t? What if we decide to let the Libs lie in their own bed without anymore help from us?
What about positive things that have happened…
* The last U.S. Marines are leaving Iraq.
* Credit card companies can no longer charge interest on fees, and can’t retroactively raise your interest rate on existing balances.
* We know who visits the White House, and who they’re affiliated with.
* There’s a quarter billion dollars more funding for National Parks, and $50 million more for the National Endowment for the Arts.
* We responded, imperfectly but with heart and sincere effort, to the disaster in Haiti. Just as we wish we had after Katrina. Leadership matters most in emergencies.
* Our current President readily admits when he’s made mistakes, respects the validity of arguments that he disagrees with, and has members of the opposing party in his cabinet.
* The Department of Homeland Security now allocates its security spending according to threats, not by spending the same amount of money on Montana as it does on New York.
* My 401k is up 30% since the current President took office.
* Our President asked both corporations and individuals to reduce their electricity consumption. He asked politely.
* Trains. There’s a plan to build more rails and more trains for transporting actual humans around the country.
* The Matthew Shepard hate crime bill was passed.
[quote]ultrafit wrote:
both bush and obama are preogressive thinkers. but what always surprised me was how bush was so bad, yet obama follows the same stupid stimulus idea? give me reagan tax cuts anyday!! in reality, the constitition, a 17 PAGE DOCUMENt showed be the law of the land! not free healthcare free untitlements, welfare, free housing>
socialism doesnt work, it never has[/quote]
Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money…
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Sure, since you’re obviously only interested in pointing fingers, not in solving problems.[/quote]
I gather you’ve been reading John Dewey (the educator, not the prez candidate, father of modern education).
“We can’t worry about theories or long-term consequences! We have to deal with the problems of the moment!!”
In other words, the leaders can do whatever and our job is to keep fixing whatever they break. What if we don’t? What if we decide to let the Libs lie in their own bed without anymore help from us?[/quote]
No, I’m just saying, you’re an utter moron, and it’s very clear that all you want to do is engage in a far-right circle jerk. And you’d be well-advised to “let the libs lie in their own bed.” They’re obviously not perfect, but it’s the republicans who have seriously fucked it up.
[quote]Ratchet wrote:
[quote]ultrafit wrote:
both bush and obama are preogressive thinkers. but what always surprised me was how bush was so bad, yet obama follows the same stupid stimulus idea? give me reagan tax cuts anyday!! in reality, the constitition, a 17 PAGE DOCUMENt showed be the law of the land! not free healthcare free untitlements, welfare, free housing>
socialism doesnt work, it never has[/quote]
Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money…[/quote]
That’s capitalism. In socialism, you have to spend your own money, you don’t get to live off of other people’s work.
LOL. Someone’s been spending too much time with the Mad Hatter.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
That’s capitalism. In socialism, you have to spend your own money, you don’t get to live off of other people’s work.
[/quote]
Mercury poisoning could explain a lot in Mr McCarter’s case.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
If Bush can be blamed for things that happen one year into Obama’s watch, should Clinton be blamed for 9/11?
[/quote]
Definitely and everything that’s followed because of it! He gave up on dealing with Osama Bin Laden and just pushed the problem on to Bush.
BWHAHAHAA the tables have turned.