[img]1|left|Ari Noonan||no_popup[/img]Since three of the leading left-wing voices on left-wing CNN — David Gergen, Wolf Blitzer, Gloria Borger — agreed this afternoon that the opportunistic Republicans took the measure of You Know Who in today’s six-hour summit meeting, it is time to examine a major myth of the Obama administration.
Besides being assured that Mr. Obama could walk on surfaces shakier than grape jelly, we were guaranteed he was the most effective communicator to enter the White House since the Reagan Era.
Belatedly, we have learned he is the cloudiest message-sender since President Reagan — and George W. Bush was no Dr. King.
The psychological book on Mr. Obama would drive a team of psychiatrists to embrace cannibalism — definitely excluding the President. Him they would mail to a museum for further bemusing research. He is a mass of contradictions and incompletions.
More precisely, he is the most interesting character study since Ronald Reagan. Thousands have tried, but not one commentator, on the right or left, has satisfactorily dissected and analyzed him.
His Reputation Probably Is Broken
Unless a miracle of record proportion comes down from heaven, or Chicago, this spring, the boondoggle that is impenetrably dense healthcare reform will scar Mr. Obama’s rep for the rest of man-made history.
Mr. Obama’s No.1defender on earth, The New York Times, liberal (with the truth) and progressive (in the sense of inching toward bankruptcy), printed a half-truth on Page 1 yesterday without flinching.
Columnist Dave Leonhardt said: “The White House’s biggest mistake (in failing to pass healthcare reform, despite overwhelming majorities in all three arenas) has been its hands-off approach to the process.”
Until last Monday, Mr. Obama had not contributed a comma, much less a single idea, to the 3,400 pages of healthcare reform ideas passed by both chambers of Congress.
If he is as bright as we have been repeatedly told, he must be saving himself for his third or fourth term.
As a salesman, the President has been the flop of this young century, a jolting disappointment — like finding out the happily married father of 14 children is gay.
Incapable of extemporaneous oratory, an incredible handicap for one so widely touted as gifted, he can’t sell heat to Alaskans or ice to Miamians. Mr. Bush could and did.
For the past 13 months, Mr. Obama has given one speech every two weeks somewhere in the country, heralding the 72 virgins’ version of healthcare reform. The country has not budged. The liberal media tells you it is the beauty queen of legislation, but a large majority of angry Americans have rejected it. The soft underbelly prevented him from fighting back. Nobody reported that. Sycophantic journalists were too busy wiping him with a praise rag to admit that audiences were turning on him.
Isn’t Someone Watching the Road?
Polling for the last several months has held steady. By more than 20 points, furious Americans reject the House and the Senate’s separate, conflicting, convoluted, abstract and obscenely expensive versions of heakthcare reform.
With one or two exceptions, none of his predecessors knew how to be a President when elected. Except for Andy Johnson and Bill Henry Harrison, they learned on the job.
For more than a year, shockingly, the most closely watched President in history has shown no instinct for Presidenting. Nor has he shown a whiff of an appetite, a stomach, for the complicated job. He is buffaloed.
He loved the idea of auditioning for the White House. The light hours, the sealed off privacy, the astounding control of all persons and dialogues around him, appealed to his baser instincts.
Lightness and flash are his style.
Not one day in his 48 years has he moped home and sighed — “Pop (or Mom) (or Honey) (or Kids), I am pooped because I worked darned hard today.”
Significant labor is anathema to him. He is an affirmative action baby. He grew up, was schooled and ever since has lived as a person of privilege, always entitled to exceptions of the rules.
I believe last summer he was envious of Sarah Palin that she was able to walk away from the governor’s job without much fallout. He would love to emulate her.
He was sincerely interested in running for President, even if he was the least qualified in history. He wanted the job until he got it. The run-up was where the glamour was. But he also wanted the curtain to drop at the end of the day so he could leave the stage, go home and plan the next job of his career.
He is lost. He is overwhelmed daily. Many of us would be, too. But we did not run for the awesome office.
If you blindfolded Mr. Obama and spun him around 20 times, he could not feel more desolate than he has throughout the healthcare reform process.
The trouble is, while the President spins like a dreidl, his fellow countrymen get dizzy.
