Some great comments. I do think that the media, blocking for congress/liberals, did have a “ignore it and it’ll go away attitude” as mentioned above regarding the Tea Parties and Townhalls. And as rightly pointed out that in doing so and then carrying water for the “Nazi/undpatriotic” name calling left deprived themselves of the ability to ever be heard effectively again because there were no stories or segments devoted to “hey, these people might just have a point.” Combine this with the “civil disobedience” of the last 8 years regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, SS, immigration and the like, congress and the inability of the left to at least admit “yeah, we probably did go a bit overboard” and the MSM complicit in not pointing that out to the public just made the public that much more determined to be noticed.
I think many folks view the media’s “leg thrill” effort in 2008 as just that. They helped elect one of their college classmate who transcended the bounds on campus interacting with not only “eggheads,” but also the sport team and the prom queen cliques. “He’s one of us, he’s cool enough, and gosh darn it, people like him (or they will when we get done)” I think was how many journo types approached last fall as a self vindication of not being invited to the coolest college parties or dating the prettiest girl in class and took it out revenge style by helping elect one of their own.
This is obviously evident from MSLSD, CNN, and including people such as David “see the crease in his pants” Brooks, Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan to an extent. Even when the Republicans were in power they were never liked. People like this have a need to be consistently approved of and search for whereever that will come from. I think this goes with the territory. If you’re a columnist and not liked, you’re not a columnist for long. Though, there are notable exceptions, PJM, Rush, Hannity, and others who have the mind set of “this is who I am and what I do, take it or leave it.”
Additionally, and more importantly to the nation, during the last 7 months and much to the chagrin of the MSM, Obama has been laid bare before the country and the emperor has no clothes. When you’re in campaign mode, mistakes happen, things are sometimes said without thinking, and just the daily grind of travel makes it imperative that when you step before the microphone you have a consistent message. Pick two or three topics/themes and drive those home on a daily basis. Once elected, there are many more balls than hands available to juggle them and that’s where experience comes in. He doesn’t have it.
Obama’s “not above 8% unemployment” followed by “it was much worse than we imagined” cannot stand scrutiny when you play ad nauseum his “this is the greatest crises since the Depression,” “if we don’t pass the stimulus the world will come to an end” diatribe passing itself off as leadership. You can’t say the world is coming to an end so do this and then say the world coming to an end was worse than we thought. That’s where experience, not getting too far ahead of yourself and leadership come in. At that point, no matter how hard the MSM tried to cover with “he’s trying,” “people didn’t expect this to be so severe,” “there’s so many things that need to be done” just didn’t fly with the American public. They took him at his word because the hope-n-changey thing really let you see whatever you wanted to see last year. And then allowing for basically 75% of the money to be spent in 2010 and after, following all the rhetoric, just didn’t make sense to people who were told the world was coming to an end if we didn’t act immediately. And then waiting 4 days to sign it defies stupidity.
Following this error, he proceeded to double down with healthcare. The simple fact is, because of his missteps on the stimulus, rhetoric and a slew of lefty promises (closing Gitmo, eveasdropping, Predator strikes) whether you agreed with them or not, his “word” lost much of it’s standing. Add to this the fact that at that precise moment, just as the healthcare debate was going from “ram thru” to “slow down” (because after all, we are talking about the gov’t running healthcare) Cash for Clunkers appeared on the scene with all it’s ineptitude. “If the gov’t can’t run C4C, how is it going to run healthcare” is a question the WH nor the left could answer. The plan which was quickly and shabbily put in place had a much bigger impact on the healthcare debate than has been acknowldeged. At teh very least, it made people take notcie because everyone uses healthcare and almost everyone knew someone who participated in the C4C program and naturally drew parallels between the two. And when compared to S1.5T idea, a $3B program that can’t be run correctly, I believe really damaged this initiatitive.
But at the end of the day, I think many people just don’t feel he’s up to the task. Much of his public life has been gliding above everything waiting to see what the outcome is and then jumping on the train just before it leaves the station and taking credit for bringing everyone together on board. That’s easy to do when you’re talking about spending either $5B or $8B on a program. It’s just a matter of degrees on a policy with the rest of your brethren in the same bubble who all agree at least $5B should be spent.
Finally (sorry for the long post), when folks are having a hard time, saving, scrimping or choosing the least of two bad alternatives, the last thing they want to hear from their president is “It’s not my fault.” And that’s basically what he’s done with the economy and healthcare. People cancelling the premium portion of their cable bill don’t believe it’s their fault either, but realize they didn’t run for president claiming to be able to fix the problem. OTOH, nor do that want to hear “they’re just talkers, whiners and rabble-rousers and they just need to move aside” when people have legitimate questions.
The president is elected to lead. Outsourcing the stimulus (which will prevent the end of the world) and then healthcare (which everyone uses at some point) to Nancy/Harry/Henry/Barney etc, the president pissed away any rationale for electing him after having run on post-partisan-I can-bring-people-together-I-am-the-One-we’ve-been-waiting-for mantra. That is why his numbers are falling and will continue to fall.
I firmly believe had the left taken it’s lumps this August and every Dem member of congress held townhalls 2-3 times a week, regardless of length, opposition and size of audience, that would have gone a long way to making Americans believe this president and their representatives were listening to them. And when his Casey at the bat moment came (his last press conference) – he couldn’t explain his healthcare program in short, simple answers. I think that’s when the tide became tidal. He then left most people with the thought that he actually had paid attention at Trinity by jumping into the Gates affair, invited them for a beer and then went on vacation. The emperor truly has no clothes and no matter how hard the MSM tries to cover him up, they can’t. If anyone doesn’t think this is true, watch what audience share he gets at his next news conference. Barring a major catastrophe, people aren’t going to tune in. This is quite a fall in 5 months for a guy many thought was a messiah.
