"Battered President Syndrome: If you ask me, Obama’s got it bad."

Listening to poor Robert Gibbs at his daily press briefing attempting to back away from a New York Times report that the administration may finally abandon the quest for bipartisanship and pass a healthcare reform bill with Democrats alone (Gibbs insisted that the administration is still committed to working with Republicans, including those who’ve pledged not to vote for any reform, even if they negotiated it), it occurred to me: we may be dealing with a White House in mental crisis.

Before I explain, and this is going to sound like a tangent — I once had a co-worker, years ago, who had an abusive boyfriend. They weren’t married, but had lived together, and he was extremely possessive and controlling; he didn’t want her to have friends, or even to talk to anyone on the phone, except him. Eventually, as too often is the case, the relationship turned violent. When she’d finally had enough, she moved out, and took out a restraining order. It was at that point that she and I became friends. One day, we were going to lunch in Manhattan with another co-worker, who happened to be male. He was interested in her, but hadn’t yet worked up the courage to say so. So at the time we all went out, there was absolutely nothing going on between them. Well try explaining that to her ex-boyfriend, who surprised us outside our building after apparently stalking her for days. He accosted us with a ferocity you’d normally assume was reserved for a police officer kicking down the door of a murder suspect, and while we made sure he didn’t hit her, the experience was one I could stand never to have again. A few days later, I got a call from her, saying she needed to decompress, and wanted to hang out. So off I went on the subway to meet her at her apartment, so we could catch a movie. Big mistake. No, the boyfriend didn’t show up this time, but we did get into a conversation about him. When I expressed relief that she was finally rid of him, I was treated to a lengthy defense of him as a good guy who really loved her but was “going through a lot at the time,” and the suggestion was made in no uncertain terms that I ought to mind my own damned business when it came to her man. Needless to say, we’re no longer friends. I pray things worked out for her.

I see some echoes of my former friend in Team Obama. They are like a woman who has seen the object of her affection grow meaner over time, and yet even after she’s been belittled, bruised and battered, she’s still hanging on, hoping he’ll change; holding out for the moments of goodness that she hopes will come. In real life, we alternately feel pity and scorn for such women, but nearly everyone understands that they need sustained professional help. Obama ran on “changing the tone in Washington” — a fancy way of saying “bipartisanship.” Somewhere in the course of the campaign, and the first eight months of governing, they fell in love with bipartisanship, and now, bipartisanship is kicking their ass. And yet, they still believe that the people abusing them — Republicans who have no intention of ever supporting a single initiative out of this White House, and who are playing, not to advance the debate or to reform healthcare, but to crush this president and seize back control of Congress so they can crush him even more thoroughly — are basically good guys who are just going through a lot right now...

There must be a clinical name for an administration so determined to take beatings from the bullies in the Party of No, and yet so eager to trash those who are trying to help them (Christopher Hitchens early on accused the president of weakness in that he seems “more keen on appeasing his enemies than rallying his friends.” I’m starting to fear there might, at least in the healthcare debate, be something to that.) If Gibbs, rather than the New York Times, is to be believed, even talk of “pulling the plug on grandma” by their supposed GOP negotiating partners (later walked back), and armed nuts showing up at the president’s town halls apparently won’t dissuade President Obama and his team from seeking a so-called “bipartisan solution” to healthcare reform — which can best be translated as watered-down reform that Blue Dogs think will get them re-elected by conservative southerners and rural folk — I think we’re looking at the first-ever case of a new political diagnosis: call it Battered President Syndrome. If you ask me, Obama’s got it bad.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/20-2

Obama needs an intervention - Pelosi seems to have a clue these days, maybe she can work with him.

She beat the crap out of him, but he still thinks of her every chance he gets.

for as long as it takes. As long as Obama engages the GOP on some level, they are limited on how they can battle against reform. But if Grassley and Enzi were suddenly kicked to the curb, the GOP would then operate in a "no holds barred" fashion. We need to delay that as long as possible.

Obama's "powerlessness" is feigned. He's doing exactly as he intends--using the Republicans as an excuse to abandon any real healthcare reform.

x(

Does President Obama?

:hi:

I guess I was agreeing with you agreeing with me! I just get so pissed off about all of this! :mad:

x(

He knows what he is doing.

.

...I ain't buyin'.

President Obama gets a good deal of political milage out of seeming to be the one going the extra mile for compromise and common ground, while the opposition makes it abundantly clear they have no willingness to compromise or stand on common ground. It is a good act to run, and it keeps most people hostile to his opponents. This sort of half-baked psycho-babble is puerile, and contributes nothing.

What President Obama chooses to cash in his chips for is another question, and not always to my liking. But people who imagined him to be more than a bit to the left of center in our political spectrum fooled themselves, and did so willingly if not wholly wittingly. Their disappointments are largely self-inflicted.

Forgive me for being distinctly underwhelmed....

With the events of last summer and how pessimistic I was feeling last summer about Obama's prospects for winning the election and the dramatic turnaround (which I'm pretty sure was NOT merely fortuitous circumstances and/or luck) that followed culminating in his historic election, I have learned NOT to underestimate Obama- and neither should anybody else.
Obama's NOT "battered", NOT a victim, and NOT at the mercy and/or under the yoke or thumb of the GOP nor the insurance companies and while he has made and may yet make some concessions to the GOP and/or insurance companies to help get what he wants in the end, for all the advocacy he has done on behalf the PO, I honestly don't believe that it will merely be negotiated away and/or given up. He is NOT going to sign a bill that McCain, Romney, or any other Republican might as well have signed and the bill he signs certainly won't just be a SOP to the insurance industries and, frankly, it's quite amazing that some people are cynical enough to believe that Obama has folded or will fold like a cheap suit and that any legislation short of SP is just going to be a sop to the insurance companies.

I think it is part of being a democrat. Generally (at least liberal democrats) try to see things from other people's perspectives and make sure no one is being trampled. The right wing is dogmatic, intolerant and extremist. So naturally it will devolve into an abusive relationship.

Cenk Uygur did a good piece on the dems and battered spouse syndrome too, but I can't find it.

I like Obama, but back in the primaries Krugman was worried he didn't have the toughness people like Edwards did to bring about change. And I think he was right. It is possible Obama is doing political judo (letting his opponents use their own extremism, radicalism and hatred to destroy the respectability of their own movement, then moving in for the kill after they are marginalized), but I really don't know for sure.

But at the same time, Obama campaigned for Lieberman in 2006 over Lamont, Lieberman stabbed him in the back in the 2008 election (saying some really radical things in favor of McCain/Palin), then Obama just let it all go and allowed Lieberman back into the dem caucus w/o penalties after he won the 2008 election. Now Lieberman is opposed to a public option, despite having a 100% rating by APHA, which means he has backed every piece of public health legislation they have counted until this one.

So yeah Obama may be playing Judo. But he may also be being suckered like he was with Lieberman. He helped Lieberman get elected in 2006 (I think Lieberman begged Obama to use his popularity to help him win in 2006 in CT), Lieberman screwed him over in 2008, Obama refused to fight back and refused to retaliate, and now Lieberman won't back a public option.

Its hard to say. I am starting to fear this isn't part of some master plan or long term strategy. Maybe how Obama interacted with Lieberman is his true personality (help him, get betrayed, forgive him and refuse to retaliate, get betrayed again).

Yeah I know, flame me. But there is a difference between defeatism and realism. Is Obama playing Judo, or was his behavior with Joe Lieberman a sign of how his personality really works?