Wow! Maureen Dowd of the NY Times minces no words in skewering Barack Obama!

James Cessna · Sep 11, 2011

Wow! Liberal columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York times minces no words in skewering Barack Obama!

"Its still impossible to sum up what Obamas presidency is about right now, except saving his own job."

"Hes eternally the gifted and sometimes indolent student who has to be wooed and pressured into making the game-winning shot."

So while the country has grown ever more scared, miserable, broke and broken, the president has too often been absent, quiet, ambivalent, impenetrable and inscrutable."

Sleeping Barry Awakes

WOW, what a relief.

The president was strong and House Republicans were conciliatory.

There was only one teensy-weensy problem: The president is weak and House Republicans are obstructionist.

Obama, heeding plummeting polls and beseeching voices from his despairing base, finally deigned to get tough.

In the capital of political tactics, it was just another fine day of faking it.

The presidents supporters had a single reaction to the fiery address to Congress: Its about time. But as before when Obama had tried to pivot to jobs, an emergency intervened: Democratic surrogates on TV had to talk about the 9/11 plot before being able to talk about the jobs plan.

Slyly going into Cantor territory on Friday, the president promised a sustained campaign to sell Americans on his plan. A re-energized Obama urged students at the University of Richmond to lobby lawmakers: I want you to call, I want you to e-mail, I want you to tweet, I want you to fax, I want you to visit, I want you to Facebook, send a carrier pigeon. (No letters? No wonder the Postal Service is going bust.)

As always, the same questions persist in our long, fruitless effort to pierce the Obama opacity. How long can the president sustain the sizzle before the fizzle? Does he get it together when the countrys in trouble or when hes in trouble?

Certainly, Obama cares that Americans are in pain. Yet he has been unable to move away from his academic disdain for hardball and his alpha addiction to buzzer-beating wins.

So while the country has grown ever more scared, miserable, broke and broken, the president has too often been absent, quiet, ambivalent, impenetrable and inscrutable.
The master of his own narrative in print let the Republicans define the narrative in politics. And Obama likes to come in late, after the other players have staked out positions. Its a strangely risk-averse tact, given the fact that he took two of the boldest risks in history jumping into the presidential race in the first place and giving the kill order on Bin Laden on sketchy intelligence.

But when his polls plummeted, the Sleeping Beauty President roused himself to transform back into a semblance of the 2008 electrifying phenomenon.

He always must be chided and cajoled before he gets re-engaged. Among other times, it happened during his campaign, when key donors went public with their displeasure at his laconic attitude.

Hes eternally the gifted and sometimes indolent student who has to be wooed and pressured into making the game-winning shot. As one aide joked, We work 6 to 9 and he works 9 to 6.

But the odd rhythms of his temperament are less interesting when so much is at stake. Bill Clinton drifted for a time during his presidency, also needing the guillotine to focus his mind. But at least he was drifting on an ocean of peace and prosperity. Disengaging when the United States and the world are going to hell is playing with fire.

We never knew which Clinton would show up: Saturday Night Bill, as Dick Morris called the man of uncurbed appetites, or Sunday Morning Bill, a talented and passionate pol. Now Obama offers his own version of the split-personality presidency: Do we get Energizer Barry or Enervating Barry?

Its deeply confusing to a country thats already confused, as well as to the Democratic Party. Will he ever get that through his magnificent brain? The nation deserves clarity and consistency.

Each time Obama goes through a period of lying doggo, his opponents from Hillary in the primaries to the Tea Party in the summer of 2009 to the House Republicans during the debt-ceiling debacle get an infusion of oxygen.

When the president stays insulated with his little circle that doesnt know how to push his messages, and he lets the Republicans go unchallenged in their claims to be saving the country, he sets the stage for Rick Perry.

Its still impossible to sum up what Obamas presidency is about right now, except saving his own job.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-sleeping-barry-awakes.html?_r=1
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Wow! Maureen Dowd of the NY Times minces no words in skewering Barack Obama!

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Wow! Maureen Dowd of the NY Times minces no words in skewering Barack Obama!

James Cessna New Member

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