Mar 07 2009
The Centrist Facade Falls From Obama, The Far Left Liberal Obama Emerges
Update: Yep, it is getting bad for Obama out there. Now the Washington Post is out saying Obama is no Reagan, he is just another George W Bush:
Then, according to today’s established wisdom, Bush squandered his chance to lead. Three cardinal errors are commonly cited: The president failed to ask a willing nation for sacrifice, instead inviting consumers to shop and heaping on more tax cuts. Rather than forge a bipartisan response to the crisis, he used it to ram through big, polarizing pieces of the Republican Party’s ideological agenda — from asserting presidential powers to breach treaties to eliminating protections for federal workers. Worst, he chose to launch a war of choice in Iraq, thereby shredding what remained of post-Sept. 11 national unity and diverting attention and resources from the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
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Last month, in his first address to Congress, Obama warned the country that fixing the huge problems in the financial markets and housing and auto industries would require a historic effort. “None of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy,” he said. “But this is America. We don’t do what’s easy. We do what is necessary to move this country forward.”
Minutes later, Obama spelled out what he proposes this to mean for 98 percent of Americans: “You will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime. In fact, the recovery plan provides a tax cut . . . and these checks are on the way.”
So much for summoning the country to sacrifice.
Ouch! That’s going to leave a mark – end update
I was listening to Obama’s speech in Ohio yesterday where he tried to spin the fact that 25 Ohio police recruits will be able to finish their training supposedly meant the far left policies he and the liberal democrats in Congress passed was saving the economy and jobs.. It was a truly historically pathetic moment.
With 651,000 jobs lost just last month, and the average job loss for the last three months topping 600,000 per month, the attempt to spin 25 jobs in Ohio into a sign of recovery was idiotically lame. Where is the vaunted PR king? Where is the silver tongued purveyor of Hope and Change? (To be honest, I never saw that magic in Obama – I assumed I was just too much of a DC cynic). With over 1.8 million jobs lost since Thanksgiving, 25 saved jobs is nothing to crow about. At this rate it will take centuries to get America back to work. I have never experienced a more embarrassing PR blunder outside a Hollywood movie.
There is a lot of soul searching going on in the moderate middle right now – though that is not necesarily good news for conservatives, and especially the far right ‘true conservatives in exile’ types that inhabit AM talk radio (Rush is excluded because he has always been a cut above Hannity, Savage, Levin, etc). Here is a reasonable round up of some centrists who have just last week come to realize Obama is not what he seemed to be:
Congratulations this week to three journalists who have finally taken up that constant struggle: Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David Brooks. All three used to insist that Obama was some species of centrist or moderate. Now that Obama has proposed the most massive expansion of government in the history of the republic, each has recognized that just conceivably he might have been mistaken.
In the middle of last year I noted Obama was gifted at being a blank slate upon which people projected their hopes and views. He was, as I said, Obama of Erised (which, coincidentally, was penned in response to another David Brooks article supporting Obama) – nothing more than a reflection which hid his inner plans and goals.
Obama is trying a totally different tactic here.  He is telling everyone what they want to hear.  Not what they need to hear. He is reflecting like the Mirror of Erised, a magical item from the world of Harry Potter:
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The Mirror of Erised is an interesting fictional device – something everyone should be able to relate to at some level. Here is a description of the device, that very much mirrors Obama’s media-image (pun intended, of course):
According to Dumbledore, the Mirror “shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our heartsâ€; which is why Harry sees his family, while Ron sees himself achieving more than his older brothers — but cautions Harry that the mirror gives neither knowledge nor truth and that men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they see.
The mirror’s purpose seems to be to distract people from their life, to rob them of their life, by showing them a false promise of a reality they cannot achieve. So what is Obama of Erised up to? What really bothers me is all those ‘present’ votes. They were calculated to keep Obama as much a blank page as possible, so people could reflect their deepest desires onto his vague positions and see what they want to see.
What people wanted was an answer other than the worn out, insulting conservatives who had the lost support of this nation. It is a combination of the two conditions (rejection of the far right, a desire for new opportunities) that allowed Obama to pull this shell game off. That is why this is not going to be a gift to the far right. Obama was the answer to their screw ups (cause and effect).
Today we have even more left-of-center centrists sharing their moments of awakening to the real Barrack Obama. First here with Stuart Taylor:
Having praised President Obama’s job performance in two recent columns, it is with regret that I now worry that he may be deepening what looks more and more like a depression and may engineer so much spending, debt, and government control of the economy as to leave most Americans permanently less prosperous and less free.
Other Obama-admiring centrists have expressed similar concerns. Like them, I would like to be proved wrong. After all, if this president fails, who will revive our economy? And when? And what kind of America will our children inherit?
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With little in the way of offsetting savings likely to materialize, the Obama agenda would probably generate trillion-dollar deficits with no end in sight, or send middle-class taxes soaring to record levels, or both.
All this from a man who told the nation last week that he doesn’t “believe in bigger government” and who promised tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans.
…
The house is burning down. It’s no time to be watering the grass.
Taylor goes onto echo the concerns of David Brooks of the NY Times, saying Obama’s failures do not automatically translate into support for the rejected far right – now in political exile. The country is caught between two extremes and is not happy. And it is about time the far right came to grips with how badly they communicated their views and values in order to be in exile. Obama was not just the response to the far right’s mistakes. No matter how much he screws up, he is not making the far right look good in comparison (check the polls). That is saying something about the far right.
Here is something from Mark (?) Tapscott at the DC Examiner (no right wing bastion, though the author appears to be a conservative booster):
Did you feel it? The political ground shifting beneath President Barack Obama since his speech last week to Congress? It’s been downhill since and I’m not referring mainly to the Dow Jones record-setting dive. The pivot point of the shift was the speech, or rather what the speech did to the evolving public narrative of Obama.
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Obama remains personally popular with the public, but worries and even outright opposition to some of his cornerstone proposals are growing. Democrats in Congress are even beginning to express in public print their worries that Obama has reached too far with the $787 billion economic stimulus package, the $410 billion omnibus spending bill and the $3.6 trillion budget proposal (and the trillions more senior aides whisper are coming in further bailouts, loan guarantees, “tax cuts” that are really just grants, and other spending accountrements of Leviathan Unleashed.)
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Paralleling these developments, a potentially devastatng conservative case against Obama is coming together rapidly. Two influential columns this week tell the tale: On Thursday, Daniel Henninger offers this crucial observation in a WSJ piece otherwise devoted to asking why Republicans aren’t more eagerly and quickly taking advantage of the fact the Obama Democrats have all but declared war on the 75 percent of the U.S. economy that is private and therefore productive of the nation’s wealth:
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The second column appeared today in The Washington Post and was written by Charles Krauthammer. Obama’s mastery of public speaking has heretofore served to deflect attention away from the details of what he is actually proposing. And there is in those details, according to Krauthammer, a fundamental deception: Obama summons visions of catastrophe that are the result of too little government regulation of the financial markets and he offers as a solution vastly more government regulation of …. health care, energy and education.
Actually, it is rapidly turning into a new battle line in America: the elites in DC and NY against Main Street America. Clearly that is not a politically sustainable position to be in for the democrats, which may be why we are starting to see the internal fissures on the left. But to me the most damning story line to come out around the water coolers is the betting on what is actually driving Obama and the Dems. Is it a power grab or simple incompetence? This was best captured by John Hinderaker at Powerline who was assessing one of the more radical positions (this is all a conspiracy to destroy America):
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The only plausible explanation is that Obama’s destruction of the economy is intentional.
It is based on a failed ideology that has never — and can never — succeed.
It is, I admit, an intriguing theory, but I don’t buy it. Obama can’t possibly want to be a one-term failure. That’s what happened to Jimmy Carter, and Obama must know that it will happen to him, too, if his policies are perceived as dragging down the economy.
More likely the explanation is that Obama is an economic illiterate, and subscribes to the idea–which I think is rather common among Democrats–that what the government does has little impact on the economy. Obama likely believes that the economy will recover on its own, and in the meantime–in Rahm Emanuel’s immortal words–he shouldn’t let the crisis go to waste. So he enacts every left-wing measure that he wanted to do anyway, expecting that when the economy eventually recovers he can take credit for it, even though his policies, if anything, retarded and weakened the recovery.
Debating whether the dems are just clueless are treasonously clever is not good for the Democrats. Â Too bad it is not helping the GOP either.
Going back to my June 2008 post, here is where I saw things going with Obama of Erised:
Is the power of the Presidency Obama’s final goal where he will rip off his cloak of political invisibility and finally show us what he is at his core? Or, is there something more to this calculating and devious maestro, who literally says all things to all people, thus hiding his true intentions from people under the cover of their own deep desires projected onto this political enigma?
Brookes is right to some degree, Obama is not some fool with naive intentions. He is much, much worse. He is a conniving charlatan who hides behind vacuous words like ‘hope’ and ‘change’, allowing each voter to project their deepest desires onto him, which he reflects back. All the time, hiding what the real purpose of his mission in life. I hope we figure this puzzle out before we give him the keys (and power) to the kingdom!
Well, we did not figure it out in time. We had to not only hand him (and the liberal congressional dems) the keys, we let them spend all the treasury.
That lame gimmick presser in Ohio does show one thing though – Obama is a one trick pony. He only knows how to hide a liberal agenda under the guise of Hope and Change, which is why he has not moved from campaigning to governing. And that trick is wearing thin, as Ohio showed. Obama came with a couple of tons of lipstick, we all know he was painting a pug.
Can he keep his cloak of invisibility in place? It would seem he cannot, if the revolt of the centrists (democrats, independents and conservatives) is any sign. Â But additionally, can a coherent opposition rise up with sufficient force to stave off further destruction?
Clearly I am on the far right fringe of the centrist group, more aligned with a steady conservatism that would prefer Palin over McCain, McCain over Obama, but not some far right conservative over Palin or McCain. I was one of the last in the middle to get fed up with the conservative self destruction. I was one of the first to warn the far right that the only result of insulting moderate allies would be political suicide, but I stood by hoping the fences would mend, the mutual respect would return.
It did not. The far right carries a lot of the blame for this mess. If they could have avoided being so repulsive the moderates and/or centrists would not have been repulsed into giving Obama a serious look. And to this day, with the GOP poll numbers in the tank compared to Obama’s, their inability to stop insulting the people they need to be their allies has allowed Obama, Pelosi and Reid to continue the destruction of our nation.
Because it is only with an uprising alliance of moderate left, independents, moderate right and some on the far right that these liberals can be thwarted. As long as the right looks to be as bad or worse than the current option there can be no counter force. Obama’s facade is shattering with shocking clarity. The question now is whether a alliance will rise up in opposition. And that will take a lot less “I told you so” messages from the right, who have not been listening to the “I told you so” messages aimed at them for years. Respect builds alliances, not berating.
Get a clue America, we are all in this together. Obama of Erised has turned us from our path. He pretended to be what we all wanted the future to be like: non-partisan, coalition driven, compromises providing coordinated and acceptable steps forward, good ideas and good intentions respected all around.
So, who will scratch this itch that has been festering now for decades? America wants anything but what DC is offering and has been offering for two plus decades now. Which is why I think (and hope) we shall soon hear a voice of moderation calling from Alaska (or some where else like that) very soon now. Not a facade or charlatan with a siren song of false hope, but a lead singer of the Main Street American choir, here to fix DC. As McCain said, it was DC that needed fixing, not America (as Obama claimed).
With all the power that is being grabbed by this administration, it is not inconceivable that they will grab the presidency for another 4 years. Afterall, there are THOUSANDS of community organizers in ACORN, IAF, etc not to mention that felons will probably be allowed to vote.
What hath those who voted for this wrought on America, the Beautiful?
They all need to look in the mirror and address the fact that they got conned…which usually means that they, themselves, ARE cons (ie they were fooled because they are unaware of their own internal con). And then there are those who simply hate capitalism, America and all for which we stand.
Imho, for the most part, the Depressed, Neurotic, Victim-mindsets and Guilt-ridden voted this man into office. In other words, those who are underfunctioning picked obama who is intent upon making MORE of us into them. Imho, that is a big part of what is happening. Spread the misery around….
AJ
You give far too much credit for the dislike of the republican party to the far right’s actions. Most of the public pay little or no attention to the infighting of the GOP. The blame lies entirely with the media. They have pounded into the public’s mind democrat good-republican bad for so long it has become truth to many. Their policy of never or hardly ever reporting the corruption of the democrats and every little piddling thing the republicans do is the problem. Their hatred of Bush was a phenoma of our times and they got away with it. I read a post somewhere (sorry forget where) this guy said his wife told him she hated Bush. He asked her why and she had no answer except she just did. This woman probably watched tv shows like “The View” all day and read the women’s magazines which all spewed venom toward this great president. She, like many others, fell for the media’s spin. Bush won re-election by a large majority of both electoral and popular votes but that popularity was stolen from him by the media within a year. The media repeated their tactics with even greater lies in regards to Palin. Their lies were disputed one by one but they never accepted this. Some still repeat these lies as truth. They have started on Jindal also. They will try to destroy any republican who they perceive as a threat to a democrat presidency or congressional majority. To this day the media doesn’t care if Obama is competent. They only care that the president has a “D” after his name.
Another problem is the republican party itself. Whenever one of its members is on the dock, so to speak, the party demands he/she step down echoing the mantra of the democrats. The public perceives this type of action as the republicans know the person is guilty. All the democrats have to do is accuse and that person is damned. I can name numerous republicans who were forced to step down at the republican party’s request who were guilty of nothing. Yet the democrat party is so entirely corrupt that Obama cannot find a really clean candidate for any of position in his administration and they are seen by the public as the good guys. This is all caused by media spin. On the other hand, the republican party’s stupidity is another factor. I give you the example of Hastert’s defense of Jefferson’s right of privacy regarding his congressional office being searched. This was a gold mine for the republicans but they let it pass as they let so many opportunities pass. Yes, it is the media working hand in glove with the democrat party that is the downfall of the republican party. The republican party lets the democrats and the media set the agenda and fall on thier swords at every opportunity to forward this agenda. The public and so many republicans see this as being a weak party. Until the republican party gets some spine they will never regain office. I had great hopes for Steele but he fell by the wayside also trying to appease the media which will never be appeased or stop trashing the GOP.
Very good assessment: I wouldn’t really argue with most of what you have written, some things might could be interpreted differently, but not necessarily.
It is, I admit, an intriguing theory, but I don’t buy it. Obama can’t possibly want to be a one-term failure. That’s what happened to Jimmy Carter, and Obama must know that it will happen to him, too,
FDR did many of the same actions Obama is and he was re-elected. I think they are relying heavily on the politically ignorant. Of course communications was not what they are today and FDR had the MSM on his side and was probably always smelling like a rose.
More likely the explanation is that Obama is an economic illiterate, and subscribes to the idea–which I think is rather common among Democrats–that what the government does has little impact on the economy. Obama likely believes that the economy will recover on its own, and in the meantime–in Rahm Emanuel’s immortal words–he shouldn’t let the crisis go to waste.
Not only economically illiterate. He may be only‘politically savvy’, knowing how to follow the directions of his handlers while they continue to get what they want. Obama may not know the difference. He’s in LaLa Land.
but not some far right conservative over Palin or McCain
Just curious, who do you consider to be a far right conservative that ‘ever had a chance’? I don’t know of anyone fitting that description.
The far right carries a lot of the blame for this mess. If they could have avoided being so repulsive the moderates and/or centrists would not have been repulsed into giving Obama a serious look.
Maybe, maybe not. It’s hard to blame anyone for not liking some of the things that were going on. Pres Bush, whom I admire, was certainly not as far right on economics as I would have liked, but I agreed with him on almost everything else. But when it began to narrow down to McCain, I can see where a lot of people would object, he was too far left of Bush, on most issues. The far left and MSM demonized Bush to the point that it made the mostly un-informed (and politically that’s most of the country) look further to the left.
their inability to stop insulting the people they need to be their allies has allowed Obama, Pelosi and Reid to continue the destruction of our nation.
Yes, this is the country’s first experiment with an extremely far left president. I don’t think it’s going too well for them. but I’m not sure I would blame the right for electing Obama. The far lefties now have to get all they can prior to the 2010 election, or it’s most likely over for them.
Get a clue America, we are all in this together. Obama of Erised has turned us from our path. He pretended to be what we all wanted the future to be like: non-partisan, coalition driven, compromises providing coordinated and acceptable steps forward, good ideas and good intentions respected all around.
What I don’t understand is, who was fooled? Obama is EXACTLY what I thought he would be. Some of the people you quote, Brooks, etc. I don’t think they are as fooled as they pretend to be. I think they were just hoping he wouldn’t be so bad. They wanted something different from Bush, and they got it. I think it will be the country’s last experiment with Socialism for a while.
Another thing. I have read numerous times posters on right logs saying the democrats will not see that radical Islam hates us and wants us dead. Republicans need to take a leaf from this book and realize that democrats hate us and want us dead also. They are at war with us and most republicans do not or will not realize this. Until they do we will lose elections.
[…] A. J. Strata sums it up very well, using the term “Historically pathetic”. […]
Obama’s War on America continues.
The Audacity of Imbecility!
Barbaras:
“Republicans need to take a leaf from this book and realize that democrats hate us and want us dead also.”
Really? Democrats are hoping for the deaths of not quite half the country?
I’m a Democrat. Are you actually trying to say that, because we disagree on the role of the government, or about the stimulus plan, or whatever – that I want you to *die*? Really?
Where would possibly get this idea from?
GayF
WTF does this mean?
Where would possibly get this idea from?
remember, asking me to correct your spelling and grammar for you. well, just helping out.
GuyF, the problem is that it isn’t simply disagreement about political issues. Stephanie Miller, a Democrat, on the Larry King show said that Rush Limbaugh should be executed for treason because he doesn’t like Obama’s agenda and doesn’t want to see it succeed. King never batted an eyelash or called her on it or asked her if maybe she was being a little “over the top” with her remarks.
Now people who disagree with Obama’s policies might take notice of a nationally known voice of Democrats calling for the execution of anyone who might harbor dissent of the current administration. This is particularly ironic seeing as how these are they very same people who were on record time and again expressing very strong dissent with regard to the previous administration.
Disagreement is one thing. Calling on the government to kill anyone who disagrees with it, carried on a national network, and not a PEEP out of the major media? What if Karl Rove had made such a comment. What if Hannity said such a thing? It would be in the news for MONTHS.
This goes beyond the pale of disagreement. This is outright fascism. Rush and anyone else is entitled to an opinion. The first amendment guarantees that the government will not suppress a person’s right to their opinion. And now we have a presidential administration that has gone on the offensive against a broadcaster and we have other broadcasters calling dissent “treason” when only a few months ago it was the “highest form of patriotism”.
Democrats are all for dissent when it is they who are dissenting and for the suppression of constitutional rights when the dissent is aimed at them.
Can you understand how people who hold a dissenting opinion of the current administration could experience such rhetoric, unchecked, on national television through our private media as being threatening?
King should be fired. Immediately.
crosspatch:
Oh please. Pick something else to get outraged about. Here’s the quote:
“If I could say something tonight that gets me that kind of attention, like maybe Rush Limbaugh should be executed for treason. How about that?”
She was intentionally being over the top to make a point. There is no way a reasonable human being could watch that segment (you know, watch the WHOLE thing, and understand the context), and think she really believes that Rush should actually be accused of treason, let alone executed. She was making a point about drawing attention to ones self.
I love how you all want to scream “context” when talking about Rush’s “want him to fail” quote, but ignore it when it’s a liberal talking. Pathetic, really.
You made my point, GuyF. Thanks. Limbaugh does the same thing and his stuff is taken out of context and makes the major media and the White House assigns someone to do nothing but go after him.
See the double standard?
If the Republicans did such a thing they would be keelhauled in the media.
Look at it another way, GuyF.
You have policies that a Democratic Congress had two years to change but didn’t. These were policies that were enacted by Congress and, actually, the Clinton Administration. But today the administration and Democratic Pundits want to say that the current problems are the result of policies inherited by Obama from Bush.
Now when the tech bubble burst in March of 2000, several months before the 2000 elections, and when Bush took office in January things were already tanking … everyone seemed to forget that the problems started in the previous administration. And when the Bush SEC busted Enron and WorldCom, nobody seemed to mention that they build their houses of cards under the Clinton administration and an SEC that didn’t seem to care.
I think it is quite hilarious, actually, that anyone would believe that drivel as truth and most people are going to see through the whining. Obama has had almost a quarter to turn things around and so far has only managed to make things worse. They won’t be able to blame it on Bush for long. Sooner rather than later it is going to go on Obama’s track record.
Obama made things worse by supporting “Porkulus” and doing EXACTLY what he told the American people he wouldn’t do while campaigning. Thankfully, it appears that we are looking at another one-term President. The bumbling shown by this administration is something we have not seen since Carter’s “Georgia Mafia” bungled their way into the dustbin of history.
Oh, and Democrat double standards aren’t limited to Presidential politics either. You have to get in step and toe the line else you are cast as “a Jew voting for Hitler” if you are a gay pr black conservative.
It’s ok. The pendulum will swing back in the other direction. It always does. People will once again get a belly full of “tax and spend” where they are left worse off and some small number of people get a windfall from “programs”. People don’t mind so much doing something out of the kindness of their heart but they really resent having their livelihood confiscated and redistributed.
It will take a while for that lesson to sink in for this latest generation of people under 30 as it did when Carter was President. But when it does, they will be out there greasing the rail on which the Obumbler will be driven out of town.
go get him Crossp. GayF sees no double standard. Dems good, Repub evil.
you need to help him out a little on his grammar
Still praying for those “voices of moderation”, AJ? Perhaps like the steel-spined, wizard of presidential contests, John McCain? Or maybe Lindsay Graham? Arlen Specter would also be a fine choice. True leaders, every one. And certainly right on the beam when it comes to the pulse of the American public. What a splendid performance by McCain in picking up all of those votes from disenchanted liberals…you know, the folks who were going to put him over the top because true conservatives were so undependable, so loony, so few in number. The poor electoral showings by Ronald Reagan were an obvious testament! Well, keep plugging away. Americans will undoubtedly tire of freedom and all of those pesky rights sooner or later.
Old Puppy – anybody but you and your ilk will do fine.
Cheers, AJStrata
crosspatch:
Wow – quite a rant. Unfortunately, you never proved the central point: who, exactly, in the Democratic party is calling for the mass execution of Republicans? Your original example proved the exact opposite.
[…] There was no way for the sluggish and bloated federal bureaucracy to even develop plans to spend money in the first 6 months, let alone actually get it out the door. It was a complete fiction, which the dems exaggerated with their claims and promises of immediate success. Remember those 25 jobs in Ohio Obama saved in March? […]