Aside from the well-reported bumbling of the first few days, our new President seems to have brought an end to Bush-era civility and grace:
 ”You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders
…Â
In an exchange with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the proposal, the president shot back: “I won,” according to aides briefed on the meeting.
Bush was quite infamously not a great speaker, but he didn’t go around openly insulting his opposition’s leading lights and rubbing lawmakers’ faces in his victory.
Obama’s initial appointments suggested some moderation, but now it’s starting to sound like we elected DailyKos to the Presidency.
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From what I’ve read Senate GOP leaders were optimistic after the economic meeting with Pres. Obama. They said he seemed willing to work with them and their ideas.
Time will tell if this was just an act, but I don’t think there is anything to criticize just yet.
Those of us who did not vote for him need to be careful not to fall into the same hole the Dems did with Bush. Let’s give Obama a chance.
Amusing, isn’t it? Bush was YEARS into his Presidency before he (correctly) noted that he was "the decider" on certain questions.
So yes, it’s true that he won. It’s also true that he just came off very poorly for a President.
He’s not the New Messiah, he’s the New Decider!!!
Obama is just not that bright.
Educated, yes. Credentialed, yes. But not that bright. Nothing wonderful will come from this long-legged political calculator; no science, no art, no liberating structures. These things are not in him. He will be a fountain of cliche and ceaseless juxtaposition; it’s written all over his first few days.
Skilled in dialectical parsing with a hint of functional dualism, this is a guy who brought the street to the parlors of postmodernism to find Glory and affirmation. Timing is everything, and it was.
What we have is an archetypical university president with a law degree. A nice guy. Gracious poseur. A very, very clever man with incredible connections and the best credentials money can buy.
Problem is, there’s a real job to be done. It’s not simple. It’s not pretty. It doesn’t really care what you think or have to say. It’s not very tolerant of cleverness, grace or the suave of panache, though still the hit song plays.
Rico.Â
Obama.
But the hit song that is him will soon enough play out.
And when it does I fear the return. I fear the linearity, the life-narrowness, despotic predisposition and brittleness that I sense in this man; I worry who he becomes when his dictates trigger humiliating indifference and ridicule. Bush 43 was a master lesson in civility under the most arduous circumstances. Obama seems a polar opposite by comparison.
I hope the office changes him, and not the other way round.Â
Meh. We’ll see what we see. Early mis-steps almost always happen with a new administration, and a certain hubris is pretty normal in a new President.
It’s also a rookie mistake to treat Congressional leaders like they work for you. This will be aggravated by President Obama’s youth, inexperience, and the fact that he feels like he just got "promoted above" these people who used to be colleagues. Especially the Republicans, but the Democratic leadership will also grow annoyed by this attitude in fairly short order.
It’s also a function of something almost no one ever remembers: the President has the least amount of power in domestic policy; Congress holds sway over most of that. His real power in in foreign affairs. If he has a domestic agenda he wants to get through, he’s going to have to figure out how to get along with Republicans.
Someone’s doubtlessly pointed all this out to the President by now. He’s got enough people with Beltway experience to tell him. Now will he listen? Or will he learn the hard way.
TMV <a href="http://themoderatevoice.com/25920/obamas-i-won-comment/">links</a> to a different version of the "I won" statement.
Well, I’m not so sure anyone was looking for an auspicious beginning.
The better question is:
Is there any philosophical coherence to our new president ?
I’m still looking.
On the other hand there was:
McCain
Huckabee
Ron Paul
and
Romney
Think about it.
How could bumbling on the part of the new administration have been well-reported? I thought that the media had a geas laid upon them not to report anything bad about Obama or his minions.
Bias is never so blatant; that’s why it’s called "bias" and not "partisanship."
"If it bleeds it leads" is still what pays their salaries, too.
If you want any sort of real picture of the press still being in the tank for Obama, just imagine if Bush had appointed a five-year tax cheat who had illegally employed an undocumented worker in his house.
Oh. My. God.
Instead we get "honest mistake" or "innocent mistake" by people who know damn well that to do what Geithner did was OBVIOUSLY intentional tax fraud by a man who thought he was above any accountability for such things. And, as it turns out, he was clearly right in believeing that. It’s good to be the Democrat, or the Democrat’s appointee.
Real good.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..25 years ago today (or maybe yesterday by now?)
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