Posted on 08/14/2010 11:51:17 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
IN THE PAST two years, there was perhaps no more anticipated speech than the inaugural address given by President Obama in January 2009.
One can still recall the excitement of a new president – a new generation taking the mantle of national leadership. Hope and change. The festivities. The symbolism. And it all took place on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday no less.
Many were waiting for a "come with me to the mountaintop" speech, an inspiring oration like the one that Obama gave at Grant Park on election night or at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
It was not to be. Instead, in what will go down as one of the most significant speeches in history, Obama gave a somber address, talking about how tough things were and how Americans had to pull together to raise themselves up again. He quoted Scripture and talked about putting away childish things, by which he meant the childish politics of the last decade.
It was a speech for adults, and it stood in marked contrast to what passed for political discourse in this country in recent years, when the American public was frequently treated like a class of fourth-graders, divided like teams in the simplistic world of the schoolyard, complete with insults and name calling.
The Obama inaugural was the start of something different. It was the birth of "the politics of maturity."
Of course, being mature doesn't mean the Obama administration is mistake-free. Rather, it means that when they screw up — as was clearly the case with the recent episode involving U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod — the president and his team handled it in an adult fashion. They apologized. They admitted their mistake. They attempted to make amends.
A commitment to the politics of maturity is why Obama — despite all indications that his efforts will be fruitless — continues to reach out to Republicans in pursuit of bipartisanship. This commitment is what made his visit to the Republican congressional caucus retreat last January possible, and so extraordinary. It may not have been good political theater, but it engendered a remarkably rational dialogue, and turned out to be remarkably good politics — for both sides.
Alas, while Obama tries to act like an adult and serve as a father-figure of the Democratic Party, a number of his children — largely among the party's liberal base and grass-roots activists — are acting like, well, children. This is fast becoming a late summer ritual, an annual temper tantrum when Democrats go into fourth-grade mode and express their disillusionment, disappointment and even disgust with their own leaders.
Remember the summer of 2008? Democrats were stamping their feet, demanding to know why Obama the candidate wasn't responding forcefully enough to Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, on national security and taxes. They were scared of "Palin the superstar," with her smiling face on the cover of nearly every magazine. They were terrified that their party had no persuasive message for the middle class and independent voters. "We finally have a chance to win, and Obama's losing the election!" they cried.
Remember the summer of 2009? Some Democrats were demanding that Obama act more forcefully on health care reform. They were worried that the elusive dream of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and so many others would, once again, lose out to entrenched special interests and their congressional allies who didn't want any change at all. "Obama wasn't involved early enough, or personally enough!" they complained. "He let Congress run with the ball and now it is all falling apart!"
In 2010, we are — once again — about to enter this curious world of late-summer anxiety, the angst of August. Over the next several weeks, Democrats, mostly within their liberal base, will be on television talk shows, on their blogs, in the papers, whining that the Obama administration hasn't accomplished anything, how the president is "too aloof" for a nation with such high unemployment, how he is not partisan enough to the fight the Republicans.
They will argue that the president, who led his party to huge victories only two years ago, has compromised too much with Wall Street banks and given in on Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. They'll complain that he didn't spend nearly enough on the stimulus and "don't ask, don't tell" is still on the military books.
All this, and more, will come from Obama's own partisans. They will complain — loudly — how nothing in the country has really changed, and if there has been change, it hasn't been fast enough, or gone far enough.
The disconnect between the president and his own Democratic partisans is like the relationship between adults who know better and children who are acting younger than they really are. The Obama kids never listened closely enough to the president's thoughtful, father-like speeches from the campaign and certainly the inauguration. Somehow, they only focused only on the amorphous, and intoxicating, promise of "hope and change" — and forgot that Obama never failed to mention how tough the road ahead would be.
"The politics of maturity" doesn't begin and end with the president and his administration. His supporters have to remember that just because we have a new politics doesn't mean that we don't still have politics. The way this country governs — indeed, the way it was designed to be governed — is still, fundamentally, about bargaining, compromising, persuading and, ultimately, getting the votes.
If Democrats are going to defy the predictions of gloom and doom this coming November, they should grow up a bit and take the lead of their young, but very mature, president.
******
Ben Dworkin is director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University in Lawrenceville.
Dworkin lives in a very deep psychotic trance of deep want of a Soviet Union in the US. He cries for breadlines, no medical care and a POS Yugo or bus ride to a Government job (which, at Rider College, he has, effectively, in academia).
Selective memory...of the GOP retreat? The Lefty mind is truly warped, and needs to be ignored, and better yet, made irrelevant.
Obama’s Shrewd Like Abraham Lincoln http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20100815/EDITS/100819848/1021&ParentProfile=1065
I appreciate all the great articles you post on here, Vet. Thank you.
Thanks!
Connect the dots.
Ben Dworkin and Governor Chris Christie.
New Gambling casinos funded by ‘bailout’ money.
Wow this was really stupid. I feel dumber having read it. Not your fault 2ndDivisionVet, just a statement of fact.
At first you think it’s Greg Gutfeld or someone at Nat’l Review’s idea of what a typical leftist moonbat would write, then you realize he’s SERIOUS and has Kool-aid delivered by railcar.
My favorite Obama speech is the Selma speech commemorating the anniversary of the 1965 march, that he gave during the 2008 campaign.
Obama wrote his moving speech about the 1965 event and how it moved his parents to decide to get pregnant and have him.
Obama wrote the speech, gave the speech, and the teleprompter
never once pointed out to him that he was born in 1961.
PARENTAL WARNING : Do NOT send your children to Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey!
I was born in 1960 and he has a lot more grey hair than I do, so maybe he was born in the 1950’s. Who knows? I’ve never seen a shred of proof either way.
Selma speech
There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama.
What a lying sack of male bovine fecal matter he is! Even simple truths evade him.
Exactly how much glue has this guy been sniffing? That was the rant of a highly unbalanced individual who is trying to put a pretty pink bow on cow manure.
I’m glad we finally got to hear from Professor Ben Dover.
Judging by this sickeningly laughable article I believe the left has a commitment to the politics of manure-ity.
I was born in the mid-70’s and my hair is going gray fast. My dad was totally gray by his late-20’s. Some folks just go gray while others don’t.
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