Making Bad

Posted: August 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, the villagers, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, We are so F'd, WE TOLD THEM SO | Tags: , , , , , | 21 Comments

Experiencing a little buyer’s remorse villagers?

 

“Barack Obama feels more and more like a president from the Jimmy Carter tradition: well meaning but ineffectual”.

Peter Oborne from  ‘In this grave crisis, the world’s
leaders are terrifyingly out of their depth’.

“IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze.”

Drew Westen from  “What Happened to Obama?”

“Obama has suffered, in part, from a clarity gap. Even his own supporters aren’t always sure what he’s willing to fight for.

“He needs to plant a flag somewhere,” complained William A. Galston, a former top aide to then-President Clinton. “I don’t care what color it is. But periodically planting a flag and then lowering it is no way to inspire confidence.”

The president took a clear position on only one issue in the debt ceiling negotiations: He said any deal had to be “balanced,” meaning it had to include new tax revenue as well as spending cuts. But in the face of Republican opposition, he backed off even that one demand.

Obama’s negotiating victories in the final deal weren’t on matters of substance, like tax revenue. They were on matters of process: on making sure another debt-ceiling vote doesn’t happen until 2013 and making sure the mechanism for choosing further spending cuts isn’t tilted in the Republicans‘ favor. Try selling those to voters as a victory for the beleaguered middle class.”

Doyle McManus from “Obama’s clarity gap“

“The one thing I might say is that we shouldn’t really wonder what happened to Obama — he is who he always was. If you paid attention to what he actually said during the primary and the election, he was always a very conventional centrist. Progressives who flocked to his campaign basically deluded themselves, mistaking style for substance. I got huge flack for saying that at the time, but it was true, and events have borne it out.”

Paul Krugman from “Stuck in the Middle”

“I think that – I don’t – I’m not sure that that’s true. I – I think that it is working. I think that people still, you know, in my interactions with the American people, they liked the guy a lot. They respect him a lot. They don’t feel that he’s in touch with their lives, and his calculation is this, that as this goes on – and – you know, he will be the least damaged of all the various parties.

And that’s what we’ve seen. His standing in – standing in the polls have gone down, but the Republicans’ standing in the polls has plummeted. And so, you know, he’s got to be feeling not terrific at this point, but not too bad politically either, because sooner or later the Republicans have to choose some candidate to oppose him and that candidate is going to have to make a calculation about how close to the Tea Party – which does remain a minority of a minority – how close to the Tea Party does the Republican presidential nominee want to be?

And so, I think the president is bemused by all of this and kind of horrified by the nonsense he’s – you know, that he’s had to deal with. He’s made concessions, unlike – as Arianna was saying – unlike anything we’ve ever seen a Democratic president make before. He proposed raising the age of eligibility for Medicare to 67.

I’m not sure I’m in favor of that.”

Joe Klein on on Global Public Square

The signs were all there in 2008.  It’s just so many people chose to ignore them.  Now, well,  now, we are so f’d.  Go ahead and add to the list.  The Sunday talk shows are full of pithy quotes.