Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
Editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, David Shribman had a fascinating column out over the weekend. A superb writer and an astute observer of the political scene, Shribman, I think it fair to say, has been well-disposed toward our chief executive.
Until now.
Excerpts:
Timing is important in presidential politics, but sometimes so is audacity. Obama knew that intuitively, and it is not a coincidence that he married audacity with his greatest campaign gift and titled his second book "The Audacity of Hope." It was audacious -- actually it stretched the conventional meaning of audacity -- for someone less than three years out of the Illinois state Senate to think he could or should be the president of the United States.
So -- and you knew this was coming -- the story of the past two years is that Barack Obama lost his sense of timing and his instinct for audacity….Yet there are increasing signs that the president is paralyzed by caution….
The president's budget speech last week was clearly an effort to regain the offensive, but the pertinent and persistent question is why a president who faces no discernible opponent for re-election and who has a party majority in the Senate is so much on the defensive….
By most measures, Speaker John Boehner is not the president's equal in intelligence, eloquence, elegance or nimbleness. Then again, by most measures, Boehner has bested the president every time they have tangled….[Obama is reinforcing] the notion that Republicans are the party in power in Washington.
The Republicans have seized the initiative, making the Democrats appear overcautious and out of touch, while Speaker Boehner has bested President Obama "every time they have tangled."
I was as angry as anyone that that $38 billion in cuts the Speaker negotiated turned out to be closer to $20--or, depending on whom you listen to, even less. But if David Shribman says our side is winning, well then, it might just be so.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
If it were only true. I'm not sure our side has won anything on the domestic front since Coolidge. A Washington bureaucracy hasn't gone away since rationing and price controls ended and the Office of Price Administration was disbanded in 1947.
Mar '11
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll might say President Obama suffers from the "paralysis of analysis".
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
The real fight at this point is not a fight over the tangible; it is over the intangible. It is not about how much we will cut out of the budget this year; it is about whether draconian cuts are necessary. Boehner is winning that fight. Obama has conceded the argument. This means that, unless Obama and the Democrats come up with a proposal adequate to the crisis, they will have proven themselves incapable of governing. Boehner is setting up the Republicans for a great victory in November, 2012. The only question left unanswered is whether the Republicans can find a standard bearer capable of articulating their argument.
Mar '11
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
Do you believe this is part of Boehner/Republican strategy or have they simply stumbled into something? Does it matter which?
May '10
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
As usual, the relevant question in Washington is not, "who's winning?" but rather, "who's losing."
Dec '10
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
Your premise anticipates the closer the reality of someone being cut off from the government support he receives, or been promised, the more appealing that cut will be to him.
That the force of demagoguery and the art of sophistry Democrats have used since FDR to induce fear and anxiety of the future for their own political power will now fail during a period of high unemployment, in the era of the babyboomer retirement, and when there is a growing awareness that the lifetime net worth of any government employee is not only certain, it far exceeds the risky return from a private job.
Fear is on the side of the collectivists. Their appeal to emotion, their use of social media’s artificial personalization to herd cowardly flocks into formidable voting blocs or to cull the politically incorrect with threats of ostracism to the wilderness, and their best friend, facilitator-in-chief embed, Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R), constitute a coalition that even our own turn to Orwellian doublespeak—"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"—cannot defeat.
Nov '10
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
Huh? Obama hasn’t conceded anything and he never will. The fight has to be made and won, Obama has to be defeated. Obama is a radical leftist and they don’t concede. They fight. They never give up. They never concede. Until that is understood there is no hope. And no change.
If Republicans are not up to making the fight, and they seldom are, we’re screwed.
We must remember that independents supported Republicans in 2010 because they were repulsed by Democrats, not because they were attracted by Republicans. Relying on Democrats to drive voters away is not a good long term strategy. Boehner telling us he got $38 Billion in spending cuts when it turns out to be only $350 Million is not a good start. And now the R’s say they aren’t going to fight raising the debt limit. This “I have not yet begun to fight” stuff means the R’s are not even taking the field in the game, much less scoring any points.
Intrade prediction markets heavily favor Obama in 2012. Wonder why?
Nov '10
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
During the debate between Obama and Boehner over the latest continuing resolution, Obama threatened a veto of a Republican bill to fund military pay during a government shutdown. He was intransigent on continued funding of Planned Parenthood.
Why wasn’t Boehner willing to have that debate? Why wasn’t he willing to tell the American people Obama wants to shovel money to Planned Parenthood but he won’t pay our soldiers and marines in harm’s way? Boehner could have easily won that debate. He’d have got genuine spending cuts and be a hero to the base of the Republican party. But he was too afraid of Obama. Too afraid to fight Obama. Why would Obama concede anything to such cowards? Far from conceding anything, Obama’s smelling blood in the water.
Apr '11
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
"By most measures, Speaker John Boehner is not the president's equal in intelligence, eloquence, elegance or nimbleness."
I'm going to take this in a different direction, towards a question that I've been wanting to raise: Why do we always concede that President Obama is the smartest guy in the room?
Yes, he's had a great education and so he certainly has above-average intelligence. But that places him in a tier of top-performing law graduates; we produce thousands of those every year. I would think that among his cohorts he's actually about average.
I simply have not seen anything that reflects a great mind at work here. It takes forever for him to make a decision and there are no great insights or innovations; rather things seem inelegant, blunt and cynical. Why give him the benefit of the doubt of a "first class intellect"?
It seems long overdue to stop making this concession and to start pointing out that perhaps the key to the nation’s problems might be that he has (in fact) a very conventional mind willing to deal only with select (and equally conventional) solutions. Am I being unfair here?
Oct '10
Re: Audacity? Look to Boehner, not Obama
Peter, as I read the various threads on Ricochet related to this topic it seems to me that most contributors are not convinced that Boehner and Kantor are prepared to fight for what the base believes is the correct policy. It's almost like the Republican leaders think the current progressives are like the liberals of JFK's days--we all believe in the same direction for America, we just disagree about the way to get there.
I don't believe that is true. The progressives are ideological demagogues. Their view of America is diametrically opposed to mine. There is no room for compromise, and they are not willing to compromise. President Obama and the Democrat leaders have consistently demonstrated that. We have the winning policy arguments and we need to defeat them in the electoral battle district by district and state by state.
When they return to Washington in two weeks, they need to pass legislation implementing parts of Paul Ryan's budget and force votes in the Senate. They cannot give Obama's campaign speech last week the dignity of calling it a plan.
Edited on Apr 19, 2011 at 5:34am