Tweet
From this weekend’s NYT:
One and Done?
Is Maureen Dowd getting smacked by reality? The White House is "repugnant"? Wow, somebody better steer clear of sharp objects.
Of course, Ms. Dowd misses the point completely. Like most lefties she assumes that the answer to all our problems is more government. It's not that Obama couldn't deliver on the leftist agenda. He did...with trillions of dollars. The program didn't work because the entire raft of leftist theory is now revealed as demonstrably false. So now she, predictably, puts the blame on the man. Hey, Maureen, it's the theory, stupid!
In any event, Dowd is angry now but it won’t last. No matter how far left any politician takes the debate, the Left will continue to move the goals leftward toward a misty, distant ideal. They have no goal, merely the journey.
Right now, Obama is the center stage and those odd side stage acts are not eminent threats to the journey leftward. By the time we get to the conventions, the Left's endless reactionary fount of derision and bile will be reliably directed to the opposition again.
In the end, the Left will likely embrace the meme that the polity was not good enough for the President. Similar to the Left’s reaction when Jimmy Carter was run out on the rail for incompetence.
One and Done?
If the languid Obama had not done his usual irritating fourth-quarter play, if he had presented a jobs plan a year ago and fought for it, he wouldn’t have needed to elevate the setting. How will he up the ante next time? A speech from the space station?
Republicans who are worried about being political props have a point. The president is using the power of the incumbency and a sacred occasion for a political speech.
Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.
The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.
The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.
After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring.
“The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.”
The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.
Republicans who are worried about being political props have a point. The president is using the power of the incumbency and a sacred occasion for a political speech.
Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.
The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.
The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.
After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring.
“The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.”
The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.
Of course, Ms. Dowd misses the point completely. Like most lefties she assumes that the answer to all our problems is more government. It's not that Obama couldn't deliver on the leftist agenda. He did...with trillions of dollars. The program didn't work because the entire raft of leftist theory is now revealed as demonstrably false. So now she, predictably, puts the blame on the man. Hey, Maureen, it's the theory, stupid!
In any event, Dowd is angry now but it won’t last. No matter how far left any politician takes the debate, the Left will continue to move the goals leftward toward a misty, distant ideal. They have no goal, merely the journey.
Right now, Obama is the center stage and those odd side stage acts are not eminent threats to the journey leftward. By the time we get to the conventions, the Left's endless reactionary fount of derision and bile will be reliably directed to the opposition again.
In the end, the Left will likely embrace the meme that the polity was not good enough for the President. Similar to the Left’s reaction when Jimmy Carter was run out on the rail for incompetence.