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| Home Front: Politix |
| VDH: The Art of Blowing it bigtime |
| 2010-07-14 |
| At the root of the president’s problems lies an erosion of public trust in his competence and his credibility. Voters simply do not believe much of what he says any more, whether or not they otherwise agree with his agenda. The old tonic, teleprompted “hope and change” banalities, has become a caricature, and his empty gestures are fooling few these days.... What is strange about all this is how the clueless behavior only intensifies. We expect each day another crazy outburst from another fringe appointee, another “battle” to push through something the public does not want — all overseen by the “healer” of “no more red state/blue state” fame. In short, in just 18 months, Obama has ended talk of permanent Democratic majorities and may well do to the Democratic party what Carter did in 1980 and Clinton in 1994, all while taking a once-obsequious press down with him. With idols like Obama, Mort Zuckerman, Chris Matthews, and Evan Thomas hardly need enemies. Overseas, so far, our nation has been lucky, but the world abroad is likely to reap what Obama has sown, and soon. “Bush did it” whining, “reset” diplomacy, outreach to thugs, serial apologies, and a habit of treating allies as neutrals or enemies and enemies as new friends — with this kind of foreign policy, some bad actor is bound to try a Falkands, a Kuwait, or a Georgia to gauge our response, which in turn will determine the behavior of other nefarious agents. Stranger still, all this took place in a period when Obama had all the cards of public good will — furor at Republicans between 2006 and 2008, Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, and a media with hagiographic tendencies. It’s hard to blow all that in less than two years, but that’s where we are. Anyone can fail, but it takes real brains and talent to fail this epically. Maybe he's smarter than we're giving him credit for. |
| Posted by:Mike |