Leadership, Obama Style: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values...

[Bluebear]

Drew Westen

As the president's job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it's time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from the White House is those "pesky leftists" -- those bloggers and Vermont Governors and Senators who keep wanting real health reform, real financial reform, immigration reform not preceded by a year or two of raids that leave children without parents, and all the other changes we were supposed to believe in.

Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn't hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president's leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress's penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.

What's costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn't a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding either the middle or the left, not losing both....

I don't honestly know what this president believes. But I believe if he doesn't figure it out soon, start enunciating it, and start fighting for it, he's not only going to give American families hungry for security a series of half-loaves where they could have had full ones, but he's going to set back the Democratic Party and the progressive movement by decades, because the average American is coming to believe that what they're seeing right now is "liberalism," and they don't like what they see. I don't, either.

What's they're seeing is weakness, waffling, and wandering through the wilderness without an ideological compass. That's a recipe for going nowhere fast -- but getting there by November.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/21-9

[Laelth]

1. Sadly, this is mostly accurate. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[girl gone mad]

2. Hillary did warn us.

I remember being pretty annoyed with her for saying it at the time. Sorry, Hillary,turns out you were right.

[Horse with no Name]

3. It is a fun game to wonder "what if" HRC had received the nod

However, I honestly think we would be in the same boat right now with a different captain.
We should have worked HARDER to get someone who represented US at the top of the ticket.
I will tell you the ONE thing that made me suspicious of BO--that was the keynote address he gave at the convention--which was significant--however, even more significant was the multimillion dollar party he gave AFTERWARD on a State Senator's salary. It didn't compute then and it doesn't compute now. There are some MIGHTY deep pockets financing this administration and they have been there from the start.

[girl gone mad]

7. No, I don't wonder that at all.

She was the quantity I knew, which is why I picked Obama. You are right, we would still be in the same boat with Hillary.

I'm just saying that there was a moment when she let it slip that Obama was a Trojan horse. I had hoped it was just a cheap tactic on her part, but I have to give her a little credit. In hindsight, a lot of the things she said during the primary that I took as being cynical, mean-spirited political barbs were probably just her honest observations.

[Bluebear]

10. 'She was the quantity I knew, which is why I picked Obama.'

ouch :)

I'm glad you are making a self-reflection, something that a lot of people don't have the guts to do!

[Bluebear]

12. .

[RainDog]

14. Hillary campaigned for Lieberman against LaMont

She's no better than Obama. I did not want another Clinton presidency. I still don't. I don't think she would have been any better than Obama and I think she would have been worse on issues of foreign policy because so many across the world were ready to give Obama the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't bullshitting everyone...

...just like the American voters.

Rahm Emmanuel is behind both of them. The DLC is the issue. The way districts are gerrymandered is the issue. The way elections are funded is the issue.

Hillary would not have been anything better.

[snagglepuss]

4. Recommended. The article is an insightful analysis of Obama.

"if there's a conflict, he doesn't want to be anywhere near it."

That is what is so shocking. I would have thought he was going to be at the helm and get into the fray to insure his vision would prevail.




"What's costing the president are three things: a laissez faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting."

[bridgit]

5. Incredible! If people were paying attention from day one *of the primaries* this would not...

be SUCH a shocking, inexplainable conundrum too bad - cause now it is what it is oh well, good seeing journalists still paid by the column inch :thumbsup:

[griffi94]

6. should obama lose the middle

he's toast.
i disagree that this hurts progressives. in 2008 the majority of americans
overwhelmingly showed that they wanted to leave the status quo behind.
most people had very specific issues they wanted addressed with particular
reforms in mind.
the goals haven't changed rather obama has been shown to be more status quo.
find a real reformer and not only will the middle be happy the progressives will too. hell even the rw would be happier altho i wouldn't hold my breath waiting to hear them admit it.
the peoples desire for something better is still there. jmho

[GeorgeGist]

8. you forgot ...

Cowardly actions.

[paulk]

9. a devastating critique of Obama's first year

oh well - it's what I expected, actually. I saw nothing in his record that indicated he would be the leader he said he was.

Now all I have left is "hope" for the next three years. Hope that he will figure out that what he's been doing so far doesn't work.




hopefully, not just another meaningless campaign slogan

[sad sally]

11. You've nailed it when you say you don't know what he believes in...

when the words don't ever come naturally - either from the head or from the heart - it's harder to understand the meaning.

[L0oniX]

13. George W. Obama