The Great Mystery of the Obama Presidency

CLIVE CROOK

Walter Russell Mead argues that the Obama presidency needs a reset. He argues that Obama's instinct to split the difference keeps getting him the worst of both worlds: his allies feel let down, and his opponents are unappeased and press for more.



I agree with most of what Mead says in his long and thoughtful post, and I have been arguing along similar lines myself, but still I think his summing up is not quite right and there is a simpler way of putting it. Obama has not really been a consensus-seeker. Rather, he has acquiesced in compromise when he had to. Think the stimulus, health-care reform, the post-midterm tax deal, the new posture on the budget. The difference between leading the country to compromise and putting up with compromise when he has to is crucial. Obama has consistently failed to champion, before the fact and often even after the fact, the kind of agreements that he should have known at the outset were bound to be necessary. He stands aside, which diminishes him. And he gets no credit for the outcome, even when the outcome (as in those four cases) is nothing to be ashamed of.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/04/the-great-mystery-of-the-obama-presidency/238043/

even though he did not champion or lead and got far less than he could have had he actually chosen to be a leader?

Color me unimpressed - and perhaps a little embarrassed for electing a President so obviously lacking in the desire to lead.

right of his predecessor and making it go down so much better with a spoon full of sugar, style, grace, and panache? :shrug: :patriot:

obama is perfectly willing to suffer the loss of support form the left if he can make progress for the rich unable to be achieved by the repubs.

obama doesn't have to worry about not being re-elected. he'll be set for life either way.

Not to us, mind you. No we get all the 'tough talk'. No, all those 'mysterious' qualities are ascribed to actions/inactions benefitting the elites and big business.

So, where's the 'mystery'?

he tossed down his gun and ran in the other direction?

Posted slurs on an anonymous internet board???


That's cowardice.

Clive Crook:


Arguing that Obama compromised on the stimulus, health-care reform, etc., only to be disappointed that he hasn't embraced Bowles-Simpson "intelligent course of action."

Always a tool!

My concerns with the President, whom I supported and voted for in the last election, and still hold out hope, however slim, that he will change in a way I can believe in, are that he will always look for the middle ground, that he will always "act" like a Senator, that he will always try to be the President for both sides, even if one side is obviously wrong, that he will always look for the compromise that favors the status quo, that he has never understood the gravity of the situation, and that he wants very much to be a great President.

who favored the invasion of IRAQ?

His names rings a bell in that direction...but apparently he voted for Obama in 2008. How many other neocons supported him?