The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
I’m not one who puts much stock in conspiracy theories, especially Washington conspiracy theories. For starters, it’s nearly impossible to have more than one person conspire in that town without one of the conspirators leaking the story. For another thing, one always risks sounding a bit like a nutcake when writing about such maters. Having said that—I’ve always wanted to write “having said that” because it’s a phrase used by all the really top political analysts, along with “at the end of the day”—I have come to believe in a major conspiracy unfolding in the capital.
One of the great mysteries of recent history is how Barack Obama demonstrated such political skill as a candidate only to become so seemingly tone deaf as the President. Why does he continue to wade into waters that are nearly predestined to lower his and his party’s standings among voters? Why does he seem so unconcerned by the roiling seas around him? Why is he apparently so detached from the doom approaching in November when his policies will almost certainly be repudiated and a new generation of hated Republicans will march back into Congress? Does he not even care that he could very well become a one-term President?
No he doesn’t, because that’s the plan; that’s the conspiracy!
Let’s go back to the campaign and the heady days between his election and his assumption of office. The nation and the world were positively giddy over what was to come. He had literally talked of his nomination as a time when the rise of the oceans would slow and the planet would begin to heal. Not the party, mind you, nor the nation, but the planet. This was a man who clearly saw himself as the salvation of the world. But what he soon discovered was how small the Presidency can make a man appear. The day-to-day requirements of the office were anything but glamorous. Oh, there were photo-ops with athletes and movie stars and appearances on The View, but the rest of it was so...well, so beneath him: answering questions from snippy reporters, dealing with cabinet members who thought they were important, even treating Harry Reid, for God’s sake, with deference.
His poll numbers began falling, people began questioning his wisdom, and there was even talk he might have to compromise his grand vision for the world. This was a man who thought he had arrived only to find himself asking, “Is that all there is?” Had he worked all this time to become the Great One only to be reduced to this? So what’s a President to do?
Well, what if he began looking at his election not as the realization of a goal but as the next step in a process? What if he understood his greatest popularity remained not in this country, but in the rest of the world? What if he figured out the way to achieve real greatness was to rise beyond being the leader of just one (flawed) nation to being the leader of one (healed) world? In other words, what if he began to see the Presidency of the United States merely as a stepping stone?
Can you begin to see this conspiracy now? His party suffers tremendous losses in November. The country’s problems continue because those terrible Republicans have taken over and are fighting him at every turn. He throws up his hands in a year and says, “I will not run again! The challenges facing the world are too great for me to spend my time in office in one country when the whole world needs me!” The excitement returns! The adulation and anticipation are back! He is no longer the leader of a nation; he’s the leader of a World Movement!
It all makes perfect sense. Please, listen to me! I’m not crazy, I’m not! Really...get that jacket off me...don’t take me away....aaarrrrggggghhhhh!
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May '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
He belongs to the world. It would be cruel and selfish of us to try to hold on to him.
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
Somehow, as a matter of charity mind you, I could bring myself to share him. I'll even turn up at the airport to wave goodbye.
Jun '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
Hey, leave Pat alone. I've heard kookier things right out on the street in front of my little business.
" I'll even turn up at the airport to wave goodbye."
Unfortunately, George, he will probably just end up in New York, preaching to and demonizing the US from the UN, not from Kenya or Indonesia where we wouldn't have to listen to him.
May '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
Are you suggesting that Al Gore gets a sequel?
Jul '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
Obama is the paradigm for what I have always believed, that Intelligence occurs in inverse proportion to ambition. When one has any experience at gaining successive levels of power one learns how little power is ever invested in one man. What is gained is responsibility and the need to answer for the choices one makes. Never having experienced real power or real responsibility, Obama was unable to project where his meteoric rise was going to put him. All he could see was the power and it blinded him. Now, he wants to glory in the perks of power, the vacations, the adulation, but what he is discovering is his own incredible inadequacy. After he leaves office in 2012 he may be able to write an insightful autobiography in which he demonstrates that he as gained wisdom through his perfidious rise to power and his inevitable decline to ignominy.
Jun '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
Before he assumes command of the world, I suggest he spend six months (total of four years) in each of the following spots, just to help him "gain context":
Pyongyang (he could play golf with Kim)
Darfur
Evian Prison--Tehran (as a prisoner)
Libya
An Israeli village within rocket range of Gaza (Michele and his two daughters would need to be with him so he can appreciate the full effect)
Zimbabwe (to gain a good solid understanding of collectivism and crony capitalism)
Venezuela (maybe as valet to Simon Bolivar--oops! I meant Chavez)
Assistant to Thomas Sowell (so that he could finally admit that there is someone smarter than he is).
I'm not sure these would provide teachable moments, but it's possible.
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
I don't go for conspiracy theories either, Pat, mostly because they assume a level of intelligence in our leaders that, let's face it, they clearly don't have. But the real trouble with most conspiracy theories is that they solve mysteries that don't exist. A Communist assassinated cold warrior JFK, Americans landed on the moon, Islamists attacked the twin towers - why invent conspiracies to explain what makes perfect sense on the face of it? In this case, however, I think you're onto something. How else can we explain the disparity between the skillful campaign and the incompetent administration? I mean, unless the news media absconded from their responsibilities during the campaign in order to cover up Obama's deficiencies and demonize his opposition, there's just no way to make sense of it...
Oh, wait...
Jul '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
I need to add something to what I wrote above. I was just over at the NRO site and read Victor Davis Hanson's latest piece. What immediately came to mind was an old book that I love, The Peter Principal. In that book the author describes the behaviors of a person who has risen to his level of incompetence. Among those is the getting involved in irrelevancies, the Gates affair of last year and its consequent Beer Summit, a classic example of total irrelevance, more recently the GZ Mosque. By getting involved in these types of issues he is attempting to show that he is actually busy with the people's work. Another characteristic is focusing on another position, Head of the UN, whatever. Obama is very likely looking for someplace else where he can be god-like but ultimately not be held responsible for what he doesn't do. I really do believe that he fits the profile developed by Dr. Peter. If a conspiracy exists, it is a conspiracy of dunces.
Aug '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
Andrew Klavan: ...unless the news media absconded from their responsibilities during the campaign in order to cover up Obama's deficiencies and demonize his opposition, there's just no way to make sense of it...
Oh, wait... · Aug 19 at 10:31am
Exactly correct Andrew! No need to look for spooky, higher-order creepy things in closets once we've hit upon the news media. After all, it is well known that conspiracies on the scale that are often wildly projected by the wild projectors could never be kept secret. Why, by now we surely would have come across, say, an email listing journalists' activities in smothering news and shamelessly promoting one candidate; or we would have a detailed follow-the-money bean counting that showed how cash from a global, conservative-hating, money-moving individual funded Lefty dupes in a national organization of bishops from some big church (and news orgs) in order to close the "God gap" that cost the Demos the election of 2004; or at least we could show philosophical means, like a playbook from a Chicago, Commie radical--if there were a larger conspiracy involving academe, actors, churches, government…and news orgs... Oh wait...
May '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
This certainly puts the "night & day" of campaign vs presidency in perspective. Even if you don't have the whole puzzle figured out, you have quite a few pieces in place.
Calm down Pat, the jackets are quite warm. And make wonderful wind deflectors!
..Or so I've heard.
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
I couldn't think of a better job for Obama than "promoting" him to the job of U.N. Secretary General. He could pontificate all he wanted about the world's ills, but he would have no real power to hurt any countries. He would have a big bureaucracy to command, but no power to tax. He could travel to all the fashionable capitals of the world, for all the great photo op's, but not have to make any progress on any serious issues. It would be the beer summit writ large.
May '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
I think winning the Presidency was his goal. Being President is kind of a drag, really. But it's not a stepping stone. America is the Optimus Maximus, and so he had to win it, so being UN Secretary General will be a step down. This is his apogee.
May '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
You know, guys, it's not as if the Presidency is really that different from Obama's community organizer role. He can still delegate most of his work. I'm sure the daily security briefings weigh heavily upon him. But how many of a President's decisions are necessarily his own? Ultimately, he only has to sign papers and remember what his advisors tell him to say in diplomatic meetings. The problems Obama faces are certainly more severe than anything he dealt with in Chicago, but has his behavior really changed?
Obama was a rockstar before because nobody cared about his lack of accomplishments. It's only popular expectations that have changed.
May '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
A slight variation of what has been said before: It is "relatively" easy to run a great campaign if you hire great pros, have the ability to energize crowds, stay on script and have a worshiping to completely compliant media. Running stuff is a lot more complex. it becomes significantly more complex when you surround yourself with academics and professional pols who have no understanding of the world beyond their small circle - although they believe that they do.
I believe that it is more a shift from controlled competence (campaign) to increasingly out of control incompetence compounded by incomprehensible (to them) complexity of scope, speed and people playing by different rules, than it is a conspiracy. However I prefer the conspiracy theory as it assures his exit in 2 more years.
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
Well at least we can all take comfort in the apolitical way climate scientists have sifted through the global temperature record. If there'd been a high level Global Warming conspiracy in addition to all of the other strange happenings David Schmitt describes above, well I'd be seriously concerned.
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
Pat, I agree with you that it seems like he thinks this is a stepping stone. I wonder: is there any way we can speed him along on his way? Anyone we can call? Put in a good word for him?
May '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
I agree with Pat, but my thought was his desire was not so grandiose.
I think one can argue that he never really wanted to be President in the first place. All he ever wanted was status and celebrity, and the inclusion in the liberal country club elite that is the ultimate display of that status. I think he viewed a run for President as the key to get him in that door, but oops...he won!
Coming from a less than affluent background, but then being introduced to the possibilities that open to an up-and-comer in the liberal academic utopias of Columbia and Harvard, Obama probably realized the wonderful life he could achieve with relatively little work and the sustained utterances of the correct peans.
So now he has the ultimate stepping stone.
He will be President for 4 years, and try to get his lefty agenda passed. But he has his eye on a bigger prize. He wants to follow the path of Bill Clinton. Speaking, $$, and lots of adoration and fawning press coverage. Lots of stature, but without the responsibility. And as many vacations on the Spanish coast as Michelle can stand….
Edited on Aug 20, 2010 at 7:49pmMay '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
To follow up on my previous, here is a good take by Jennifer Rubin on the comforting liberal cocoon that spawned the Obama ego, and the world that I believe he wants desperately to get back to...
"To be blunt, Obama suffers from a lifetime of others excessively praising his intellect. It insulates him from ideas and facts that conflict with his pre-existing liberal rubric (so “every economist” believed his stimulus would work). It leaves him unprepared to engage in real debate with informed opponents (e.g. the health-care summit). It skews his understanding of how geopolitics works, as he imagines that his own wonderfulness can sway adversaries and override nations’ fundamental interests (the Middle East)."
This gets back to an earlier Ricochet conversation where Rob Long asked "Remind me again why he's supposed to be so smart?"
Aug '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
This reminds me of one of Rob's lines in a recent podcast. One gets the sense from Obama that he thinks he's in "mid-career." Perfect.
May '10
Re: The Presidency as a Stepping Stone?
All jobs disappoint. They look different from the outside than they do from the inside. We accept a position, there is a honeymoon period, and then we begin to recognize its limitations, to feel frustrated that all those things we thought we could achieve are more difficult, more painful, and often out of reach.
This is the moment when the fast-tracker, the rising star with the short attention span, begins to look for the next rung on the ladder.
For those of us who stay in a job past this inevitable period of disillusionment, there are deeper satisfactions. We learn that some of the limitations were ours, and gain new skills and insights that help us be more effective. We begin to set more realistic goals, focus on key success factors, and shed the secondary and the irrelevant. After a few years, we are able to look back with satisfaction on what we have achieved, and when we do go on to that next ladder rung, we are more patient and realistic.
The fast tracker just moves on, never learning, never growing, restless and dissatisfied, not seeing that he is the one who is limited and inadequate.