..I want to talk about something that started to become apparent to me
during the debt negotiations. It's something I've never seen in national
politics.
It is that nobody loves Obama. This is amazing because
every president has people who love him, who feel deep personal
affection or connection, who have a stubborn, even beautiful refusal to
let what they know are just criticisms affect their feelings of regard.
At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd
say, "Look, I love the guy." They'd often be smiling—a wry smile, a
shrugging smile. Nobody smiles when they talk about Mr. Obama. There
were people who loved George W. Bush when he was at his most unpopular,
and they meant it and would say it. But people aren't that way about Mr.
Obama. He has supporters and bundlers and contributors, he has voters,
he may win. But his support is grim support. And surely this has
implications.
...The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's
good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not
good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning
hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something
concrete that answers a broad public desire.
And so his failures
in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd—and
shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security
checks—until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting
inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have
made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated
into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a
crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.
So
he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency,
the U.S. senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him
too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a
loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser. (Full article here)
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