Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
Last summer, I wrote a series of posts, examining the question of executive temperament. I started by exploring in detail its absence on Barack Obama; went on to examine its presence in Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, and Bobby Jindal; and ended with a piece suggesting that executive temperament, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt possessed in abundance, is insufficient: we need a President who is principled, and there are no better principles than those on which this country was founded.
I did not hear President Obama’s speech this afternoon. In the class that I am teaching with a colleague entitled Shakespeare: History, Politics, and Poetry, we had a guest lecturer, his subject was Hamlet, and I figured that I would learn more from listening to him than from listening to the President of the United States.
All of this notwithstanding, I could not help thinking of our President as I listened to the lecture – for he bears a certain resemblance to Hamlet. Like the Prince of Denmark, he is a product of the university. He may not have been taught at Occidental College and Columbia University what Hamlet was presumably taught at Wittenberg: that man is totally depraved, that the world in which we live is itself fallen as a consequence of original sin, that salvation is by faith alone, and that works are epiphenomenal and inconsequential. But he does appear, in the course of his education, to have come to believe that nothing is right or wrong but thinking makes it so, and he evidently prefers speech to deeds.
These days, to be sure, he gives fewer speeches. His handlers, who recognize the damage that overexposure can do, see to that. But he does even less – unless you consider playing golf, partying, and vacationing here, there, and everywhere a species of praxis. He could not get around to thinking about the Libyan crisis because he had . . . ahem . . . a scheduling problem. And when he finally made a move, it was, typically, too little, too late.
This afternoon’s speech – which, as a penance for my sins (which must be many and grievous), I just ploughed through – was in keeping with the President’s habitual practice. He said nothing, and he said it at considerable length. Paul Ryan and the Republicans in the House have laid out a plan to balance the budget over a considerable span of years. It is imperfect, but it is also impressive. The recent budget agreement, negotiated by John Boehner with the Democrats may be a con, as many now contend. But Paul Ryan’s budget is nothing of the sort. It is a serious, responsible attempt to chart out how we might cope with a crisis that poses a grave threat to our long-term well-being.
Obama’s response was to posture – to take cheap, predictable shots at some of the cuts proposed by the Republicans; to propose severe cuts in defence, the one part of the federal budget that may merit an increase; to lie, just as he has in the past, about the putative savings implicit in the healthcare bill passed last year, and to propose tax increases on “the richest Americans” – which is to say, on anyone who threatens to become prosperous. In typical fashion, he made dramatic claims and mentioned large numbers but provided no information as to how those numbers were generated.
In short, he went through the motions. He acknowledged that the times are out of joint and that there is something rotten in the state of America: to wit, that the national debt poses a threat to our well-being. He promised to defend the programs that lie outside the constitutional prerogatives of the federal government; he proposed to cut the programs that are central to the constitutional responsibilities of the federal government; and he lied through his teeth with regard to the fiscal consequences of our raising taxes on those who aspire to be prosperous and not repealing his healthcare reform.
I will not revisit what I detailed last summer in my examination of Barack Obama’s lack of an executive temperament. Here it is sufficient to say that, whereas Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying, “The Buck Stops Here,” the motto of the Obama administration ought to be, “Passing the Buck."
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Comments:
Dec '10
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
His greatest strength is that he has no shame.
Jun '10
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
Oh! that this too too solid deficit would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of office!
Jul '10
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
This would be less galling if Americans weren't in serious distress from his policies. Sat with some liberals who count themselves as politically aware and somewhat wonkish last night. They were in disbelief that federal spending is now a trillion a year higher than the Bush average and that we are adding to the deficit at around 15 times the Bush rate. Serious educational efforts are required to at least net independent support. Not everyone reads federal budgets for giggles, as it turns out.
Dec '10
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
The motto of the Obama Administration really should be, "What The Buck?!?"
Jan '11
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
For me, the key is this claim about Ryan's plan: "The way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known certainly in my lifetime." Speaking about entitlements, Obama said: "We are a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments."
Obama sees America through government.
That's what matters to him. What he doesn't appreciate is that it isn't America. America isn't America's government. The Greeks believed that the state personified the greatness of the people; but we aren't Greek. Our system was designed to be exactly the opposite. We don't come together to be part of the government. We see government as a useful device to allow us to live our own lives, as we see fit. Government isn't our destination, it's something that allows us to go our own way.
Ryan's plan depends on an America that's different from Obama's America. Obama thinks that's bad. I think it's Ryan's strongest asset.
Dec '10
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
KC Mulville: For me, the key is this claim about Ryan's plan: "The way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known certainly in my lifetime." Speaking about entitlements, Obama said: "We are a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments."
Obama sees America through government.
That's what matters to him. What he doesn't appreciate is that it isn't America. America isn't America's government. The Greeks believed that the state personified the greatness of the people; but we aren't Greek. · Apr 13 at 5:20pm
Nor are we (generally) Muslim, in which morality is conferred via the state. A person is moral if they live in a country that forbids pork and alcohol, not if they abstain from temptation.
The notion of individual morality is actually quite radical in human history.
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
Cas Balicki: Oh! that this too too solid deficit would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of office!
· Apr 13 at 4:28pm
Marvelous. You make me envious.
Apr '11
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
Dr. Rahe, do you think this speech will play well to the political middle, or is it another speech quickly forgotten?
Sep '10
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
Jake Tapper hammered BO nicely: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/04/throw-grandma-from-the-train.html
Mar '11
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
He is pretending to be President of the World, not the USA - he is kinda ashamed of us, as was his wife before He was elected to lead us beyond our bitter-clinging guns, religion, SUV's, and unhealthy food.
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
A master of the aphorism.
I'd say that I'd rather read two sentences from Dr. Rahe than 76 paragraphs from President Obama (which is what this speech came in at -- speechwriters have weird habits) if I didn't think it was damning with faint praise.
Paul A. Rahe:
This afternoon’s speech – which, as a penance for my sins (which must be many and grievous), I just ploughed through – was in keeping with the President’s habitual practice. He said nothing, and he said it at considerable length.
Sep '10
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
He is pretending to be President of the World, not the USA
Well, why can't we all just get along?
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
It is already forgotten. I cannot this morning remember a thing.
Edited on April 14, 2011 at 12:04pmDec '10
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
"... to propose severe cuts in defence"
Dis be 'Merica. In 'Merica it be spelt defense.
Edited on April 14, 2011 at 3:24pmMar '11
Re: Barack Obama: Pretending to be President
It is amazing that Obama spent so much time in prestigious (and expensive) schools and learned nothing.
He is absolutely wedded to ideas that were discredited before he was born and facts, let alone arguments, do not influence his thinking.