Obamamalaise Part XXXVII: ‘You Can’t Change Washington from the Inside’
Obama in 2008: All things are possible, including slowing the rise of the oceans and healing the planet (and bankrupting whole sectors of the economy, etc.).
During the President’s Univision interview this afternoon President Obama was asked about his biggest lesson that he learned during his first term.
“The most important lesson I’ve learned is you can’t change Washington from the inside,” Obama said.
I know at least 50 million people who will be happy to help see him off with a helluva bon voyage party in November, as he plans his efforts to reform the system from the outside beginning the following January…
And when even former(?) JournoList member Ben Smith calls it “perhaps Obama’s worst gaffe since he met Joe the Plumber” rather than employing “the dark art of BenSmithing it away,” as Big Journalism’s John Nolte might put it, it’s quite a gaffe.
It’s also a reminder that Obama’s malaise mindset is a permanent part of his worldview, because it’s systemic to the core of post-JFK liberalism. Or to borrow a headline of mine from last year, Welcome Back My Friends, to the Malaise That Never Ends.
Update: Video found via Ace, who quips, “Now he tells us.”
The juxtaposition of the photo of Obama and his Carter-esque quote currently atop the Drudge Report is a classic. Oof!
At the Tatler, Bryan Preston lists plenty of other lessons Mr. Obama could have learned during his tenure in Washington, and welcomes additional suggestions in the comments to his post, as we do here as well.
More: “Obama’s Learned He’s a Failure,” Jonah Goldberg responds:
Two points: 1) Given how he so often says he wakes up every morning thinking about what he could do to create jobs, it’s interesting that he says his inability to pass comprehensive immigration reform (even when he totally controlled Congress) was his biggest failure. But I suppose that can be written off as simple pandering.
2) His biggest lesson, meanwhile, is that “you can’t change Washington from the inside.” Wait a second. In the 2008 primaries, his whole argument with Hillary Clinton was over this exact question. She believed that you can change Washington from the inside and Barack Obama said you couldn’t.
Read the whole thing. Plus someone isn’t letting his opponent’s many crises and gaffes go to waste:
Still More: Video flashback to Obama in 2008: “We will not take a dime from Washington lobbyists… We’re gonna change how Washington works…”
Meanwhile, an Onion article from the following year subtly foreshadows Obama’s non-official campaign staff’s dilemma in responding to today’s gaffe.
I am constantly reminded of one of George Will’s pithiest quotes, when he wrote (essentially) – “an idea that ebbs and flows with metronomic regularity, is the idea that Washington is entirely ungovernable, and is bound by archaic consitutionalisms and and an impossibly dysfunctional political culture. This idea can always be expected to return to the op-ed pages as soon as a Democratic President is having trouble getting his agenda through.” (And will of course, vanish entirely for the entire duration of a Republican presidency.)
True, that.
Don’t worry Barry, quite of few will take this to their hearts.
DoJ silences Obama associate Daniel S. Mahru with his freedom
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/09/20/doj-silences-obama-associate-daniel-s-mahru-with-his-freedom/
“2) His biggest lesson, meanwhile, is that “you can’t change Washington from the inside.” Wait a second. In the 2008 primaries, his whole argument with Hillary Clinton was over this exact question. She believed that you can change Washington from the inside and Barack Obama said you couldn’t.”
If he actually believed that, why the heck was he running for the Presidency in the first place? If he truly believed that, he had no business being a candidate for President or even the House or Senate since those people ARE the inside!
He would have saved us all a lot of grief if he had followed his own professed beliefs and actually sat out electoral politics entirely.
Still the operative question, which Romney should hammer him on in the debates. Why are you running if you believe you can’t change anything from the inside? Also, McCain never pressed him on exactly what he means by “fundamentally changing America”. I sure hope Mitt does. Beyond that though, I really worry about the “Obama Plan”, post re-election. Combine this statement, with “I was the change, now YOU (people) are the change” (fascist/cult of personality overtones?), and musings in the past about how it’s a big problem that due to some news outlets (he was clearly referring to Fox News), a lot of people “just can’t get the right information”, increasingly blatant ignoring of separation of powers, etc, etc, and I really worry. I’m leaving out the whole rumored accumulation of ammunition by domestic security agencies because I haven’t seen an objective source…and it’s almost too dark for me to contemplate. I have seen “reputable” liberal media commentators applauding the idea that after he wins, he simply is going to have to take more and more into his own hands, if the GOP won’t cooperate.
btw, unrelated…he’s one of those people who narcissist that he undoubtedly is, can’t really self-identify a single flaw in themselves…he only sort of said failure to pass immigration reform was a failing, but immediately attributed it only to his naievety about GOP obstructionism. Actually, not unrelated…tie that one back to “taking things into his own hands” comment above.
O,O
Where’s my dough?
Gave it to my cronies
Ho,Ho,Ho!
Sweet.
So why, exactly should we reelect him?
That’s the 16 trillion dollar question, isn’t it?
Actually, it is the 16,044.094,541,112 dollar question. Yikes! No wait … It just keeps … I think I’m gonna hurl …
http://www.usdebtclock.org/#
Maybe, with the help of groups like the New Black Panthers, Obama can leave office in January 2013 and return as the head of a Hope and Change Revolution who can crown King Barack I on the smouldering remains of the Washington Monument.
Naw. We got way more guns. (Go ahead, punk … touch the monument …)
Obama’s malaise mindset dovetails nicely with his comparison with Jimmy Carter. And I don’t think this country is ready for a THIRD Carter term, since Obama could be seen as Carter’s second term in office. I don’t want to sound nasty, but doesn’t the Constitution say that you can only serve two terms in office? Well, Carter has now had his two terms, so it’s time for Obama to leave.
You go, fella. Get nasty. Obomba is a nasty, nasty president.
As an aside, if you don’t mind my asking, what does your nick mean? I’ve always wondered.
After gutting our military, our natural resource production, our border security, our real estate, housing, mortgage and lending markets, our NASA space program, our small businesses, consumer confidence, public morale, racial and ethic harmony, and our standing with allies, with all that gutting…does Washington even have an insides any longer?
You’re right, Ed. From “Anything’s Possible” to “I Give Myself an Incomplete, Please Vote to Give Me More Time.”
p.s., “Obamalaise” rolls easier off the tongue, eh?
I don’t know — I think Obamamalaise has a nice Shama Lama Ding Dong quality about it.
True.
I’ll stay with Obamanation.
Obamamalaise sounds like a low-fat sandwich spread.
It’s a floor cleaner AND a dessert topping.
Delusionary-in-Chief works for me.
“You can’t change things from the inside”? Isn’t that what would be revolutionaries back in the sixties used to tell each other as a warning against selling out? So Obama is now advocating the over throw of the Federal government? That oath of office didn’t really mean much to him, did it?
Nope, his oath was to ” preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”. Governments come and go but the Constitution is eternal. With a bit of effort you can construe his statement to mean that the Federal Government is the greatest threat to the Constitution in the known, or unknown, world.
Since he despises the Constitution, and the freedoms that go along with it, he’ll need a bit of “spin-brushing” to burnish his image as The Protector of our Sacred Constitution. Fortunately, he has a staff of Dedicated Credentialed Hackmeisters at his disposal.
There is no doubt that the very first agenda item on the Liar in Chief’s list for every topic under the sun is who to blame for the disaster when he f*ks up whatever it is that he is undertaking. It’s also the last agenda item and there aren’t any in between.
It’s like an operating system that consumes 99% of the cpu.
There’s nothing left for anything else.
One could construe this as a call for insurrection, eg. the Occupy thugs. Or maybe martial law would seem simpler to him. Lenin he’s not, but his goal is the same, to erode the rule of law.
If you listen to the entire context of Dear Leader’s remarks, he ties “you can’t change Washington from the inside” into his ‘success’ in getting passes (excuse me, ramming through) Obamacare.
It may be taken as a gaffe. But I think, in his own mind, Dear Leader is thinking ‘I won’t let Congress stop me in my second term…I’ll ram it all through using executive orders and administrative regulations’.
And lets not forget his other memorable gaffe in that interview: “I did not make a promise that I would get everything done 100 percent when I was elected”. This sounds a lot like: “It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is”. Obama is redefining promise to mean something other than the common definition.
This sounds like the statement of someone who knows he won’t win the election.This gives him the face-saving opportunity to claim he didn’t want another term anyway.He’ll work from the real world to change the system.An interesting option for someone so unacquainted with the real world .Of course,if he didn’t want it,why did he run?
Boo hoo boo hoo poor me….I can’t get anything done….unless its something I want and I own all parties in government.
Maybe his failure at engotiations, leadership and all other things presidential is a good thing….its still hard to tell.