The Conservative Cave
Current Events => General Discussion => Topic started by: bijou on November 07, 2009, 01:32:53 PM
-
During the election campaign, Barack Obama's cool detachment was a winning quality, the "No Drama Obama" a welcome contrast with the "Mr Angry" John McCain, never mind the hot-headed "I'm the decider" President George W Bush.
A year into his presidency, however, Mr Obama seems a curiously bloodless president. If he experiences passion, he seldom shows it. It is often anyone's guess as to whether an event or issue truly moves him.
He has spent more than two months considering a troop increase but do we know how he really feels about the Afghan war?
In a sign that the Obama honeymoon truly is over, I began to hear this week the first stirrings of a wistfulness about Mr Bush. "I never thought I'd hear myself say it," one Democrat told me. "But Obama makes you feel that at least with Bush you knew where he was on something." ...When the television networks cut to the President, viewers listened to him spend more than two surreal minutes talking to a gathering of Native Americans about their "extraordinary" and "extremely productive" conference, pausing to give a cheery "shout out" to a man named Dr Joe Medicine Crow. Only then did he briefly and mechanically address what had happened in Texas.
On Friday, when most of the basic facts were available, Mr Obama tried again. It was scarcely any better. He began by offering "an update on the tragedy that took place" - as if it was an earthquake and not a terrorist attack from an enemy within - and ended with a promise for more "updates in the coming days and weeks".
Completely missing was the eloquence that Mr Obama employs when talking about himself. ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/6520286/Bloodless-President-Barack-Obama-makes-Americans-wistful-for-George-W-Bush.html
Toby Harnden nails Obama
-
Great piece. 'Bloodless' is such an apt description as is icy, unfeeling, wooden, amongst many others.
-
He speaks well when the lines are written for him, but doesn't know what to say if there isn't a hand up his ass working the levers and strings. It's a great pity he did not decide to become a news anchor instead of a politician, he is much more suited to that trade.
-
Money quote from the comments section --
I'm a lifelong Chicagoan, and knew of Barack Obama long before he came on the national scene. He was a typical Chicago Democrat, a thriving member of the most corrupt political organization in America. His 150 "present" votes in the Illinois legislature showed that he was not a man who took difficult, principled stands. He had the reputation of being a thin-skinned narcissist. And the fact that he had run nothing in his life, not so much as a hot-dog stand, did not bode well for his ability to act as chief executive of the largest single enterprise on the planet, the federal government of the United States. In his desire to be elected, he made impossible promises, such as making the oceans recede, which his acolytes swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
So now we have as president a thin-skinned, unprincipled, corrupt, inexperienced narcissist who is proving unable to fulfill his impossible promises. And people are surprised.
As for Obama versus Dubya, Bush was a disaster in many ways. But on Saturday, he and his wife quietly visited Fort Hood, which is about 30 miles from his home, and without fanfare met with soldiers and their families. Obama, meanwhile, relaxed at Camp David. Enough said.
-
Excellent summation.