Rick Moran sent me Katrina vanden Heuvel’s latest dispatch from Planet Woot, and the third graf stood out, as maybe the perfect encapsulation of the progressive left’s frustration with President Obama:
On Afghanistan, the administration has intimated that the 2011 pullout date is “inoperable,” with the White House talking 2014 and Gen. David H. Petraeus suggesting decades of occupation. On bipartisanship, the president seems to think that cooperation requires self-abasement. He apologized to the obstructionist Republican leadership for not reaching out, a gesture reciprocated with another poke in the eye. He chose to meet with the hyper-partisan Chamber of Commerce after it ran one of the most dishonest independent campaigns in memory. He appears to be courting Roger Altman, a former investment banker, for his economic team, leavening the Goldman Sachs flavor of his administration with a salty Lehman Brothers veteran.
First off, look at how the nutty left sees their savior — he can do nothing right anymore. The disillusionment is complete. But that’s what happens when a man of very little experience takes on the toughest job in the world after setting expectations sky-high.
Secondly, I want you to perform a little mind experiment. Pretend for a moment that each of vanden Heuvel’s critiques is spot on the money, even the partisan ones against the GOP. Well, what does that tell you about the man in the Oval Office? It tells you he is a rank political amateur. He has no idea how the game is played — which is more than a little ironic, when you consider that he once compared his political skills to LeBron James on the basketball court, saying, “I can play on this level. I got some game.”
OK, great — he’s got game. He’s playing checkers while the rest of the world is playing 4th dimension Vulcan laser chess.
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