Neo-Neocon writes, “I’ve figured something out about Obama, and that is this: nearly everybody’s trying to figure Obama out”:
That’s one of the few things that unites America at the moment. Left and Right alike, people are busy asking the question “Who is Obama, what is he?”
I cannot recall another president about whom this question could be asked so often and with such great urgency. To be sure, some of them gave us unpredictable moments, or favored policies that surprised us (think Nixon and China). Some of them changed while in office, such as the pre-9/11 vs. the post-9/11 George Bush.
But in some essential way, we knew who each president was and what he stood for, even if we might heartily disagree with every bit of his agenda or even dislike him personally. Obama is the first president we’ve ever had about whom many of us are beginning to suspect he has been lying not just about this or that topic, but about his very essence: who he is and what he wants for America.
Neo sketches an excellent portrait of Obama’s worldview — it won’t be much of a surprise to regular readers of this blog, or the starboard half of the Blogosphere in general, but regular readers of the Economist, David Brooks, Harper’s (especially Harper’s) or scions of the publisher of the National Topsider should definitely read the whole thing.™
Related: Jennifer Rubin outlines “Obama’s Cardinal Errors” — The four fundamental mistakes that have “drained the president’s early momentum.”
And when you hear the word “reform”, that means more government, in the form of more organized crime rackets.
An interesting point was made that Obama is sitting where he is because he was a shining, gilded, glib, and utterly blank slate that individual voters could write onto him whatever they wanted to see. (What other possible explanation could there be for a candidate backed, not even quietly, by the American Communist Party, and by the likes of Christopher Buckley and and other tepid conservatives?)
So that blankness got him elected. Now that same blankness works against him, in that those who don’t like him, or moderates who are starting to not like him, can read whatever they want to see upon that slate, and believe it, true or not. (Much of it is true, but not the point here.)
That could not be done (credibly) with any politician who was much more defined. And the only way Obama can start to reverse the latter, be they true or not, is by concrete actions and accomlishments that prove them wrong.
And I don’t think he has it in him.