Barack Obama is Cool
[Guest post by DRJ]
David Ignatius at the Washington Post notes how different Barack Obama’s cool leadership style is from the brawling, partisan attitudes of the Democratic leadership such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Ignatius spends most of the article detailing the bulldog-style, intemperate remarks, and hyper-partisanship of Pelosi and Reid but he concludes with some wishful thinking:
“It’s a virtue for Obama that he seems to be above the fray — so long as he shows the toughness and hands-on leadership to steer his party and the country out of what has been a dark, partisan period into something better and brighter.”
Barack Obama isn’t above the fray and he’s not running for coolest guy in America. He’s running for President, our nation’s highest leadership and political position. Wishing he can solve every political problem when even his own Party’s leaders are hyper-partisans is absurd and dangerous thinking.
One person can’t solve the problems of the world but a weak leader can make things a whole lot worse.
— DRJ
BO strikes me as more willing to fold than to fight; e.g. the housing project he let fail after he’d got his press release out of it.
Perhaps that’s why he picked Biden; he needs a hatchet man to do what he (BO) cannot. Biden’s role in their campaign is prob not to add strength to their ticket, but to raise their opponents’ negatives. I expect a lotta willy-nilly accusations in the hope that quantity will prevail over quality, and with a compliant press corps, it has a chance.
ras (fc54bb) — 8/24/2008 @ 3:34 pmVapid, insipid … what a silly article you found DRJ. It baffles me that the MSM is not embarrassed that they produce this garbage.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/24/2008 @ 3:35 pmSPQR – Why in the world would you be surprised ?
JD (5f0e11) — 8/24/2008 @ 3:49 pmIgnatius is way behind the curve. Bambi positioned himself as “above the fray” when his opponent was the inevitable Ms Clinton, a card carrying member of his own Party.
Now, he’s a tough as nails “street fightin’ man from Chicago’s South Side” up against that old rich guy in a leisure suit who hails from the Sun Belt.
Ropelight (4a83c9) — 8/24/2008 @ 3:56 pmWell, it’s not like we don’t have Jimmy Carter’s presidency as a Grade A example of that statement.
capitano (211a15) — 8/24/2008 @ 3:56 pmBarack Obama, the ultra-charismatic senator who landed on the national stage as if from outer space — seemingly untouched by the usual racial and political scars — promising a new era of bipartisanship and national healing.
Where is this bipartisan Barack Obama? – the guy who has an ACU rating in the single digits? The guy who, when asked to name a conservative position he supported, ended up settling on some obscure spending provision? Say what you will about McCain, but when it comes to bridging partisanship, he has a much better claim to being what Obama pretends to be.
But the supporting cast is a collection of red-hot politicians I’ve come to think of as the Get-Even Gang — led by the party’s congressional leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. They made their names clawing and battling against Karl Rove’s Republicans, and they are partisan politicians to the bone.
Our lord and savior, Karl Rove, laughs at prospect of either of them being in his same league. (He worked for Bush, not Congress.)
Obama (unlike Reid and Pelosi) is not someone you’d want at your side in a bar fight. But then, FDR and JFK weren’t exactly barroom brawlers, either.
The Krushchev episode aside, I think JFK (a guy who swam from one island to another in the PT 109 incident) deserves the benefit of the doubt that, at least in his younger days, he would have been good in a bar fight.
Anon (db8e0c) — 8/24/2008 @ 4:02 pmJFK let his enemies find common ground and they unified to eliminate him.
Remember the ancient lessons: keep your opponets at odds, confused, and divided, else they combine to destroy you.
Ropelight (4a83c9) — 8/24/2008 @ 4:28 pmSPQR @ 3:35…
Another Drew (03674a) — 8/24/2008 @ 4:29 pmHow can those without shame ever be embarassed?
How Michelle Obama earned that $300K.
I’ll bet she was worth every penny to U of C Hospitals.
By the way, when Obama was asked by Warren about a bipartisan act he had done in the Senate, he lied. He said he had worked with McCain on a bill. In fact, he had promised McCain his support, then reneged.
Mike K (2cf494) — 8/24/2008 @ 4:33 pmIgnatius’s first paragraph had me scratching my head.
“Barack Obama, the ultra-charismatic senator who landed on the national stage as if from outer space — seemingly untouched by the usual racial and political scars — promising a new era of bipartisanship and national healing”
[emph. mine]
If it were true that Obama was without the usual racial scars, what does it say that Obama himself, far more than anyone else during the campaign continually brought up race – whether to accuse conservatives of racism or assuming we would try to make voters afraid of him because of his skin color, etc., etc.
If he had had the usual racial scars, the accusations and insinuations would be somewhat understandable. However, that he is without those usual racial scars just makes him another guilt-inducing manipulator who paints with the broadest of brushes.
Dana (084de8) — 8/24/2008 @ 4:37 pmMethinks all the blathering about Obama’s professed “post racial” appeal is now on the way to extinction. When Obama’s people went all nutbaggy over Bill Clinton’s comments during the primaries, one knew that the jig was going to be up, sooner or later. We need to remember the Dem’s insistence that WJC was ex post facto “our country’s first Black President.”
Dmac (874677) — 8/24/2008 @ 4:57 pmThe sign of a weak leader is not knowing when to intervene, and Obama may be that. (I say there is evidence that way, but not yet overwhelming.)
However, it is equally bad, and often worse, when the leader intervenes when he should not have. And McCain gives very clear indications that he is that sort of leader–most recently, his grandstanding about Georgia.
kishnevi (1afea2) — 8/24/2008 @ 6:34 pmIs he cool or just uninterested?
I half expect to read a headline one day soon: “Obama Drops out of Race–Campaign Too Much of a Distraction.”
Patricia (f56a97) — 8/24/2008 @ 6:37 pmKishnevi,
When it comes to the economy, I agree that it’s better for a President to do nothing than to do something useless or foolish, but I believe markets can succeed without government intervention.
However, foreign affairs are not like markets. Like it or not, the US is and must be the world’s policeman – at least now and then. The question is which leader is best equipped to make those decisions. Many people disagree with the way President Bush made his decisions and history will enlighten us regarding how he did.
However, if you think Bush erred, McCain has said from the beginning he would not have made the same decisions Bush made. McCain also supported the surge and time has proven his judgment correct. Time has not proven Obama correct. When Obama gets the 3AM call, odds are he will hang up.
DRJ (a5243f) — 8/24/2008 @ 6:47 pmAny 3 AM call with Obama is going to be Obama drunk texting his people about his silly decisions like Biden.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/24/2008 @ 6:49 pmAs for Georgia, sometimes the way to resolve things peacefully is to get in the bully’s face at the first opportunity.
DRJ (a5243f) — 8/24/2008 @ 6:50 pmAnd McCain gives very clear indications that he is that sort of leader–
kishnevi, the guy the Dems are counting on to give Barack Obama foreign policy cred is also that kind of leader – most notably given Biden’s vote in favor of the Iraq war. But Biden’s also a guy who summed up his his beliefs in the past as:
It’s time to express America’s outrage once again towards repression, brutality, violence, the abuse human dignity throughout the world – and if the sparks fly, so be it.
http://www.4president.us/tv/1988/biden1988bio.htm
Anon (db8e0c) — 8/24/2008 @ 7:03 pm“…most recently, his grandstanding about Georgia.”
It’s not grandstanding when an ally is being invaded by a hostile country, and it’s own citizens are being raped and murdered. McCain knew exactly how to react, while instead we got Condi talking smack in a press conference.
Dmac (874677) — 8/24/2008 @ 7:05 pmAnd McCain gives very clear indications that he is that sort of leader–most recently, his grandstanding about Georgia.
A perfect illustration of an Obama voter. The Russians, last I checked, were withdrawing. Do you suppose Obama frightened them with his firm stance to blame both sides ?
The classical illustration of the lefty pacifist was the movie “Billy Jack.” Does anyone remember that movie ? There was this group of pacifist kids, Native Americans as they came to be called. The town bullies were giving them a bad time until BIlly Jack, the hero, showed up and kicked the crap out of the bad guys. Nonetheless that was a huge cult hit and the theme was about the pacifist kids and their school.
The story was about pacifism but, if you are a pacifist, you had better have a badass to kick the crap out of the people who torment you. Obama is the pacifist. Who is Billy Jack ?
Mike K (2cf494) — 8/24/2008 @ 8:57 pmThe coolest guy?
Is that what we’re supposed to be voting for? Really Mr. Ignatius?
Well hell then, I’m writing in Arthus Fonzerelli then…
Scott Jacobs (a1c284) — 8/25/2008 @ 6:21 amArthur, not Arthus… grrrrrr
Scott Jacobs (a1c284) — 8/25/2008 @ 6:21 amMike K #19,
Zato Ichi is my favorite Shane knockoff.
nk (3c7a86) — 8/25/2008 @ 7:03 amVery True DRJ:
“One person can’t solve the problems of the world but a weak leader can make things a whole lot worse.”
Bush is a perfect example.
Oiram (983921) — 8/25/2008 @ 11:00 amOiram @ 1100…
Another Drew (6c5558) — 8/25/2008 @ 11:30 amPlease get off/get on your meds, and give us back love2008.
AD – Sexist and racist, all at once. Bravo!
JD (75f5c3) — 8/25/2008 @ 11:54 am#24 Drew, I’m touched.
The fact that your acknowledging what I’m saying and mocking me without any real substance, tells me that I’m on the right track here.
Meds, how funny 🙂
Seriously my friend, what would you do without love and I and a couple other Democrats??
Your not tired of just coombaya republican bloggers?
Oiram (983921) — 8/25/2008 @ 12:00 pmYour not tired of just coombaya republican bloggers?
Ahm a cuzzin-humping redneck, clingin to ma guns and religion. Ahd wear a white shhet if Ah coud but even a bolwash won’t git the ones my gramma left me white.
nk (3c7a86) — 8/25/2008 @ 12:17 pm