The Untransformational President - DailyBeast

[WillyT]

The Untransformational President
Liberals thought they were getting a transformational president. Instead, they’re saddled with someone who cares far more about being the most reasonable guy in the room, says Michael Tomasky.
Michael Tomasky - DailyBeast
Jul 8, 2011 11:10 AM EDT

<snip>

Remember back when Barack Obama talked about being a transformational president? You know, how Reagan was one, Clinton wasn’t, and Obama himself would be? Whatever happens in the ongoing debt negotiations, whatever happens in the next election, we already know that this is a fantasy. The news that Obama is willing to place Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid on the poker table reveals yet again, and more starkly than ever before, what’s most important to him. It’s not to lead. It’s not to fight. It’s not even to win. It’s to be the most reasonable and unflappable person in the room. Obama will not be a transformational president unless the transformation starts in his own DNA.

I don’t want to psychoanalyze the president too much. I’m familiar with the theory that emanates from Janny Scott’s book about his mother—how the important thing in Indonesia, where Obama spent crucial socializing years of his childhood, is show that your small-minded foes haven’t rattled you. I’m deeply sympathetic with the mental and emotional armature that must be donned by a young black man growing up in a white household and mostly white world—the need to prove that one is superior, and the need to do so quietly, in a way others have no choice but to respect. In many walks of life, these would be outstanding qualities. Obama would, like his brother-in-law, make a good college basketball coach. But in this White House at this point in history with this much at stake and facing this perfervid opposition, these qualities are serving him and the Americans who want to believe in him very poorly.

They certainly aren’t the qualities of a transformational leader. Transformational leaders fight and draw lines in the sand. I’ve been stunned, both in the spring during the government shutdown negotiations and now, that Obama has hardly ever gone to the American people to insist firmly that there are some things he would never abide. (He did so once, back in April, when he said that he would never again extend lower tax rates for upper-income Americans.) In these recent crucial weeks, the president has hardly said a word about what is sacred or inviolate.

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More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/08/obama-s-debt-negotiations-an-untransformational-president.html

:kick:

[bluethruandthru]

1. He transformed himself into a republican! n/t

[polichick]

2. He wants to look like the great peacemaker - at ALL costs...

The man needs a good therapist.

[Raven]

3. He TOLD us he was going to be a transformational President...

so much for that! Interesting that some of us are being criticized for thinking Obama was something other than he is. Fact is he told us he was something other than what he is.

[jaxx]

4. The author needs to keep up with the times.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. the most reasonable guy in the room

Some people are constitutionally incapable of understanding that sometimes the most reasonable thing to do is be a little unreasonable.

[bbgrunt]

6. It certainly is a more comforting theory than some of the others

about what is driving his actions/lack of actions. I don't know, however, that it is more valid.