The face you cannot see, is me. I'm hitting it.
Posted on 11/22/2011 5:16:56 AM PST by Kaslin
President Obama's cheerleaders are starting to peel away along with his approval ratings, and it's a fascinating sight to behold. They offer different reasons, but they all boil down to one obvious thing -- Obama is first and foremost about Obama -- and one less obvious: He has been a failed president.
Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen, admittedly more centrist than most of their Democratic counterparts, penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal urging Obama "to abandon his candidacy for re-election." The authors conclude that the only way Obama could possibly win in 2012 would be "to wage the most negative campaign in history," because he has no successful record to run on. If he would happen to win in that way, he wouldn't be able to govern, they say, so he should step aside and allow Hillary Clinton to run.
Their main beef with Obama seems to be his extreme partisanship, which is a particularly damning indictment coming from fellow Democrats. Should he resign, they argue, he would be in a better position to work with Republicans toward "a more constructive dialogue about our nation's future" instead of obsessing over whether he or George W. Bush is more to blame for our problems.
I don't agree that Obama would be any easier to work with if he were to withdraw from the race, but it is significant that two credible Democrats, both still loyal to their party, concede that Obama is hyper-partisan and hopelessly mired in the quicksand of scapegoating his predecessor.
Even more interesting was the viral video of Chris Matthews explaining to fellow MSNBC host Alex Witt why his Obama-thrill is gone. This represents quite a fall from Matthews' previous perch of Obama hero worship.
Matthews clearly believes that Obama peaked about the time his campaign ended and his term in office began, because "the day he was inaugurated, with the Mall filled with people, African-Americans and everyone else, he sent us all home and said, 'Thank you. Now watch how smart I am.' That's the worst kind of a notion of the presidency."
Matthews is also upset that Obama is running a "virtual presidency," through endless impersonal emails, rather than building and exploiting the interpersonal relationships that are vital for effective governance. On that score, he laments: "I hear stories (from members of Congress) that you will not believe. Not a single phone call since the last election."
Matthews is an incorrigible idealist, with a romanticized notion of politics, longing to relive his childhood conception of statecraft as a Camelot Neverland. He is livid at Obama for giving him a political fix with all that grandiose "Yes, we can" rhetoric and then removing it like a sadistic parole officer as soon as he was inaugurated.
Matthews wants a leader, not just to provide that fix but also to follow it up with a vision and policies to realize the vision. But here's what's revealing: Matthews excoriates Obama for failing to say "one thing about what he'd do in the second term. He never tells" us his plan for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the tax system or the long-term debt.
I think Matthews is disillusioned with Obama on two levels. First, he feels betrayed that Obama the person is so different from Obama the pseudo-messiah he calculatingly portrayed himself to be during the campaign. He's ultimately about himself; he's all hat and no cattle -- something many of us knew years ago. He doesn't share Matthews' idealism about politics, and he is an abject fraud for pretending to.
Second, whether or not he fully realizes it or its implications, Matthews is frustrated that Obama, the apparently quintessential liberal, hasn't been able, through their shared ideology, to produce prosperity and world peace.
There is a disconnect at work here with Matthews' anger at Obama for doing precisely what liberals do. Obama shoved through a radically liberal agenda -- the kind that should earn him permanent gratitude from a liberal such as Matthews, and it has led to economic catastrophe. Matthews, at least in part, is furious at Obama, perhaps subconsciously, for proving that Matthews' lifelong ideology is an epic fail.
But in fairness, Matthews is also rightly disgusted with Obama for refusing to provide leadership or show even a modicum of willingness to work in good faith to extricate us from these horrendous economic, entitlement and debt problems, which, maddeningly, are occurring on a liberal president's watch.
Matthews pleads: "Just tell us, Commander. Give us our orders, and tell us where we're going. Give us the mission. And he hasn't done it."
I feel your pain, Chris, but we tried to warn you.
Isn't it about Bachmann's turn to be at the top again?
She needs to follow Gingrich's advise and stop attacking the other GOP candidates. (and stop talking about being a tax lawyer who adopted 200 kids)
I beg to differ. The lap dog Dems will vote for Obama - because that’s what Democrats do.
The White House claims that the speech is "non-political", but I've already seen an advance excerpt and it is, of course, nothing but political. And that's what people hate most about Obama: he says everything and anything without fear of exposure or consequence, and it's always, always about him.
Obama can only quit. Dems won’t force him. Bob Dole, John McCain syndrome. Knowing they can’t win, run them anyway.
Yes... give us our orders of the day, Sir. We cannot function without your on-the-spot guidance, Sir. We are weak, helpless, incompetent waifs without your divine guidance, Sir.
*PUKE
Spot on. Obama will always own the "media" and his bedrock support is still high. And remember, people like Mathews are pissed that Obama hasn't gone far enough, not that he's gone too far. They'll be in his camp on the Election Day.. bet on it.
While the quote is spot-on I think Matthews also has a female view of the world- ceaseless gabbing and feeling. Might be early dementia.
You know why he does that? It’s to convince the country music fans to vote for him, just like he “promised” the veterans to help them find jobs. How stupid does he think we are
Remember how the supposedly anti-abortion "blue dogs" eventually slithered to their Dear Leader's side to seal the deal for Obamacare, just on the vague promise of an unenforced executive order?
A democrat is a democrat first, foremost and always. The needs of their beloved Party are paramount. Democrats would burn their porn collections before they'd let their Party go down to defeat in an election.
He has probably noticed that many of those gun and bible-clinging, C&W, white Americans are supporting Herman Cain in large numbers. BO’s not smart enough to realize they (we) judge a man by his character.
It's not the relevancy, my friend, it's the schadenfreude. You've gotta admit, it's sweet.
Chris Matthews doesn't get it. He's asking Beetle Bailey to lead him into battle.
The face you cannot see, is me. I'm hitting it.
I guess you could call what has happened to Chrissy a form of dementia. His brain and values have been ravaged by being in the political system. His entire world view is shaped by what goes on in Washington, DC. He is by no means alone in having lost his mind and soul, he just has a public forum to expose his corrupted and demented world view.
In any Obama speech, you just need to count the ‘me’s and the ‘I’s. It is amazing how many times he references himself in any situation.
Meeting the Pope he would say, “You know, I was Catholic once. I could have been the Pope.”
The guy is a child and an idiot.
He must be losing some of his luster.
The nooz is starting to report on deaths overseas again.
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