As J. R. Dunn writes at the American Thinker, “There comes a moment in a failing presidency where the incumbent, through some single gesture, action, or statement, crosses a certain line from beyond which there is no return:”
Such moments are obvious in retrospect, though not always at the time. With Richard Nixon, it was the “eighteen-minute gap.” An oval office tape recording turned over to Judge John Sirica, who was overseeing the investigation of the Watergate incident, turned out to have a lengthy period of silence smack-dab in the middle of a conversation between Nixon and chief of staff H.R. Haldeman. The White House claimed that Rose Mary Woods, the president’s secretary, had inadvertently hit the wrong button for those eighteen minutes. This might well have been true, but in light of Nixon’s long reputation as Tricky Dick, it sounded like the cock-and-bull story to end them all. Nixon had been holding his own in the Watergate battle up to that point. The voting public viewed the uproar with bemusement rather than indignation. But the tape gap finished him. In less than a year, he was forced into resignation.
For Jimmy Carter, it was the “malaise speech” of July 15, 1979, in which he attempted to shuffle the blame for his tepid performance as president from his own administration onto the shoulders of the American people. Carter claimed that a national “crisis of confidence” (he never actually used the word “malaise”) made it impossible for him to adequately grapple with the country’s problems. It was America’s fault, not Jimmy Carter’s. The public reaction was open disgust and the abject collapse of any support for the Carter presidency.
AdvertisementWith Obama, we have an abundance of riches: the multiple vacations, the legal harassment of the state of Arizona on behalf of illegals, the clownish response to the Gulf oil blowout. But when historians come to select the moment when Obama went over the edge of the world, I think they’ll find the great Iftar mosque speech of August 13, 2010 hard to beat.
Through his own will and behavior, he so underlines his failings, so frames his negative image, that no further action can ever erase it. Fate, accident, and circumstance have nothing to do with it. It is the president himself who puts the period at the end of his own sentence.
And then there’s this to look forward to, Dunn writes:
The past two years are the best Obama will ever see. The real crises of his presidency are still to come, and they are easily visible as they move toward us — Iran, terrorism, the economy, the collapse of the national health care system hastened by his own policies.
What happens next for the rest of us? That depends on what happens in November, of course. Last month, Michael Barone laid out arguably the most optimistic case; something tells me that the reality of the next few years will be much more messy.
Related: The Petulant President.
Is he that tone deaf, or does he truly have nothing but disdain for America? How in the world did he step in this?
The two amazing things about the Ground Zero Mosque statement are the same two amazing things about his “beer summit”, Obamacare, the Arizona lawsuit, and his moratorium on drilling in the Gulf: 1) They are subjects that he needn’t have touched – the biggest issues are the economy and jobs, jobs, jobs; and, 2) He has chosen to take the side of these issues that the vast majority of Americans oppose.
But, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. Yesterday, Obama was at a fundraiser for “One-Term Ted” Strickland in Columbus, Ohio. At the fundraiser, he met and spoke with an architect [who, in Obama's narrative, represented small businessmen across the nation]. The Columbus Dispatch had this headline: “In Columbus, Obama contends that economy is on right track ‘We’ve made progress,’ he says during visit to family”
Of course, Ohio has double digit unemployment, nothing is getting better, and no one believes him.
But here is the kicker – he chose the architect as being illustrative of how his economic stimulus has helped the economy in general, and small businessmen in particular. Only one thing wrong with his statement – the stimulus package had nothing to do with the architect’s survival:
” WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama was incorrect Wednesday when, speaking in Columbus, Ohio, he credited the White House-based economic stimulus bill with helping to save a local architecture firm’s jobs, The Plain Dealer has confirmed.
The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has nothing to do with the renovation of a Columbus police station. Obama, however, said that the stimulus helped pay for the renovation, providing work to architects at a small firm that otherwise would have had layoffs.
The money came from a federal grant that was unrelated to the stimulus, according to sources in Ohio and Washington, D.C.
Construction and renovation of police facilities is not a permissible use of stimulus funds unless the project falls under certain circumstances, such as construction of a jail on an Indian reservation, according to guidelines for stimulus grant applications.”
Is he lazy? Incompetent? Not as smart as everyone says [sort of an idiot savant when it comes to giving speeches via teleprompter]? Or all of the above?
What I find fascinating is that so many people continue to ask themselves, “Does Obama realize what he is doing?”
If you are one among those, ask yourself: If you were fortunate to have gained the position of senator in your state, would you, or would you not, vote either “yea” or “nay”, and refrain from saying, “present”, as Obama did so very often?
Obama is a scoffer; he plays the game where he asks the pizza guy if he has any tacos, only to sneer at the vendor when he is told, “No tacos. Pizza? You want pizza?” I have known a few of these sorts of people, and they are quick with their lies and deceptions. They play a masterful game of saying one thing, only to resort to “clarification” when put on the hot seat. When given wine, they snort, “I should have been served champagne”.
Obama doesn’t know how to be a man, let alone a dog catcher. President? As far as history will tell it, he will be bunking with Jimmy Carter in the old derelict’s home.
My guess, and it is only a guess, is that we will have “Revolutionary Suicide” on the order of Jonestown in very short order. The only problem is that Obama aims to take the REST of America with him.
After all, Jim Jones was the original, “race transcender” who aimed for a “revolutionary” program of “hope” and “change” to remake society, starting from zero.
When that predictably came apart, so did Jim Jones. Like Jim Jones, Obama has NEVER, and I mean NEVER, known humiliating international, failure. He is not (nor are his followers and courtiers) equipped to deal with it, and move forward.
Revolutionary Suicide. It is coming, is my guess. Let us hope he does not turn to Jim Jones methods to “deal” with those arriving to pursue oversight.
“The past two years are the best Obama will ever see.”
There is a very good chance Obama will resign. God help us if does not. He will spend the rest of his term harming the country. Obama will perceive the American people as traitors to his grand vision. He will feel free to punish us.
He won’t resign. He’s much too arrogant. I think he’s beginning to see that he’s only gonna be good for one term, and he’ll cram as much through as he can get away with. If the moronic Republicans can keep from shooting themselves in the foot before November we might just have a chance to render BO “neutered” for the remaining two years and get someone in there who can actually do the job. The howls of “racism” from the left, if he loses a second term, will fall on deaf ears, as they’ve exhausted that tired attack. In retrospect, that’s probably the best thing Obama has done for this country, by being elected by such a broad spectrum of citizens, only to fail for every reason EXCEPT race.