Jonah Goldberg says that the public is starting to see the man behind the curtain of the great Ozbama:
Obama undoubtedly has major accomplishments ahead of him, but in a real way the Obama presidency is over. His messianic hopey-changiness has been exposed for what it was, and what it could only be: a rich cocktail of pie-eyed idealism, campaign sloganeering, and profound arrogance.
As president, he’s tried to apply the post-partisan gloss of his campaign rhetoric to the hyper-partisan dross of his agenda. And he’s fooling fewer people every day.
Indeed, the one unifying theme of his presidency so far has been Obama’s relentless campaigning for a job he already has. That makes sense, because that’s really all Obama knows how to do. He’s had no significant experience crafting major legislation. He has next to no experience governing at all.
But he’s great at giving speeches, holding town halls, and chitchatting with reporters. So that’s largely what he does as president. The problem is that campaigning is different from governing. The former requires convincing promises about what you will do; the latter requires convincing arguments for what you are doing. He’s good at the former, not so good at the latter. Or as columnist Michael Barone puts it, he’s good at aura, bad at argument.
It’s revealing that liberals suddenly want Obama to spare the god and use the rod. Specifically, as Dick Polman notes in the Philadelphia Inquirer, they want Obama to channel Lyndon Johnson (whom no one confused for a quantum leap in our consciousness). Liberal historian Doris Kearns Goodwin says she wants BHO to go LBJ: “to take charge, to draw lines, to pressure, to threaten, to cajole.” Liberal activist Dean Baker says Obama should “get the list of every hardball nasty political ploy” that Johnson ever deployed.
As Polman rightly notes, this is crazy talk for the simple reason that Obama has nothing like LBJ’s experience, skill set, or treasure trove of chits and political IOUs. Obama can no more decide to become LBJ than Carrot Top can decide to become Laurence Olivier.
I guess that some people continue to avoid looking behind the curtain.
It appears that the skills needed to campaign for and win the modern Presidency are so different from those needed to govern effectively that it’s rare for a person to have both. The whole “be like LBJ” fantasy seems to reinforce this. LBJ never actually campaigned for the job, having Kennedy do it for him. (No I’m not saying LBJ was involved in getting himself promoted…) In ’68, LBJ couldn’t even leverage the power of incumbency to get the nomination.
So think of it as a check-and-balance feature of our republic.
Whatever else you can say about the Bush administration, they at least had people (Rove and Cheney for starters) who could bend arms and break legs with the best. My take is that best choice for legbreaker in the Obama administration would be Rahm Emanuel who, as the Chief of Staff, probably does a bunch of such work. A lot of the other people seem to me to be showboaters who aren’t keen on risking their future political career and capital with Congressional brawling.
What I find interesting is that these people demand that Obama act more LBJ-like in order to pass universal health care. That would be a real waste of LBJ-level talent. I also hope that’s an indication that the proposed bills on the matter will be far harder to pass than first expected.
‘Tis a little unfair of LBJ to talk about ’68. LBJ had a bipolar disorder, and considered not running in ’64. By ’68, he decided not to run, because “he had lost Cronkite”… as if that should have mattered.
I am no huge fan of LBJ — he was a deeply flawed man (moreso than Arthur Fenstermaker, a character based partly upon LBJ**) whose capacity for arm twisting and intimidation exceeded his wisdom. He probably could have won in ’68, if his administration had done a more thorough job of Vietnam related PR.
**Obscure literary reference brought to you by the letter “D” and the number “4”
BTW, Rand, I like the title of this post. I finally saw the movie a few months ago. Michael Caine and Sean Connery at the peak of their powers.
It was the title of Jonah’s column. I know you’ll be shocked to read that it was a Star Trek reference.
Hmmm. My mistake then. I thought it referred to the climactic scene in “The Man Who Would Be King”.
I like my reference better. 😛
“it’s hard to get the divinity back in the tube”
Yep, once you get the divinity out of the tube the relationship is never the same.
Jesus bled.
Perhaps there is a better analogy.
If I wanted to understand what appealed to voters about Obama I probably wouldn’t ask Jonah Goldberg, who was and remains immune to that appeal. I do wonder why Goldberg is so concerned on behalf of disappointed Obama supporters.
If I wanted to understand what appealed to voters about Obama I probably wouldn’t ask Jonah Goldberg, who was and remains immune to that appeal.
Well, yes, but then, you’re a political idiot.