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His political history shows a very shrewd politician who no doubt cares and wants to make things better, but who still played the game. He won his first election to the state senate by technicality trickery, getting the front-runner knocked off the ballot because of signature irregularities on her ballot petitions. He ran a hardball campaign in the primaries that pretended it was clean, but that was as hard-hitting beneath the surface as any that's ever been run. You were a precinct captain for him, so you only saw him. I talked to a lot of people in different campaigns, and I saw how things were happening. He played hardball, he bent some rules, he ran assassin campaigns under the boards will smiling above the boards.
That's just politics.
I don't really mind that he did that. I didn't like him, and went through just about every other primary candidate before supporting him in the general. Next to Edwards, he was the one I trusted least--not so much because I thought he was corrupt, as that I didn't think he had the experience to know what to do. I think that's his problem now--he doesn't have the experience to understand that he's the leader, that he can order his advisors to change things, and that he doesn't have to make everyone happy. Legislators are trained to seek compromise, and that's one reason they aren't usually good executives. Executives have to make people angry, and they take the full blame on themselves for doing it. Obama knows that, but he still has no experience doing it, and it's something you have to learn to do.
An example that might not seem relevant is LBJ. He was a fantastic leader in the senate. As president, he couldn't understand Viet Nam. He opposed the buildup, but his advisors convinced him it had to be done for the rest of the world, and for America's safety, and for the good of the Viet Namese. If we just left, they would be massacred and would fall to tyrants. He believed them, but more than that, he believed that there was a middle ground he could reach with them and with the Viet Nameese. He once told a friend "If I could just sit down with Ho Chi Minh, we could settle this in an hour." He really couldn't understand the mindset of someone who would rather slash and burn everything than yield one inch. Intellectually, maybe he could, but in all other ways he couldn't.
That's the experience and wisdom Obama lacks. He doesn't want troops in Afghanistan, but he's afraid to do what he believes. He thinks if he pulls out, women and children will be massacred by the Taliban and it will be his fault. Hell, even Code Pink changed their minds on immediate withdrawal over that issue, and even us staunchest anti-war folk heistate over that issue.
That's the biggest reason I didn't want him in office. I saw that in him when he was campaigning, in the way he misrepresented other candidates' votes and positions, in the way he played politics. I can't explain, so you can reject it if you want, but I saw a candidate who thought he was doing what others were, but wasn't. It's like someone who tries to tell a joke and gets all the words right, but doesn't understand the punchline, so the joke fails, and they don't understand why.
The part of the presidency that forces politicians to compromise and yield and all that is easy to explain. It's the institutionalization of it. There are thousands and millions of agreements and arrangements made that are hard to break, and they are made by both parties, and changing one thing changes a hundred others, so there is always resistance. Take Clinton, for instance. One of his first actions was to overturn the ban on gays in the military. That's a good, bold stroke and seemed to be completely in his power, since there was no law banning gays in the military, only a military rule he could overturn with an executive decision.
As soon as he tried, though, the public, military, and Congress rose against him. Led by Sam Nunn, a Democrat, Congress told him if he overturned the rule, they would pass a Congressional ban against it, not only negating his decision, but making it a federal law that would then require a new vote and a presidential signature to overcome. It was clear Congress had the votes to override a veto, since the opposition was led by his own party.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon told him they would ignore his ruling and find other ways to enforce the ban if necessary. He had high ranking officers and advisors tell him they would resign over it. He had military groups promise lawsuits against it that would tie up the Justice Department. On and on.
So in other words, his executive order had no chance of changing anything, and likely would result in worse conditions. That's why he worked out the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, which was an improvement, but not a good policy. It was supportable by just enough in Congress to break the veto override on Nunn's proposed bill, so that he turned the problem back on Nunn. If Nunn didn't compromise, then Nunn could lose everything. That's how you compromise in politics. Neither side gets what it wants, but both avoids what it fears the most.
The president can't change the system. Obama did know this going in. He used absolute rhetoric in his campaign, but knew it wouldn't be that easy. Clinton tried a different approach, trying to show her understanding of the system by being more direct, but that was too negative (if more honest) and no one wanted to hear it.
So Obama won. The problem is, he won by creating expectations that he knew he couldn't meet, and that's the situation he's in now. No big deal, politicians do it all the time, but it makes reelection harder, and it makes accomplishing anything harder, since he angered a lot of people he has to work with with unfair accusations, so they are less eager to help him now.
So my basic opinion is the opposite of yours. I believe in the presidency, but I don't believe in many of the people who get elected to it. I never believed in Obama. But because I didn't, I'm not really upset with him and I'm still rooting for him to learn the system and get better. I feel a lot of "I told you so" towards his supporters, but I don't feel any betrayal by him. He's what I expected going in, and he's better than the other party. I will live the rest of my life absolutely sure that we missed our best chance to save this nation by electing him instead of Clinton (who wasn't my first choice in the primary, either). But Obama is what we have. He makes decisions generally that are more intelligent and better than his predecessor.
Who knows, he may wind up being all his supporters hoped for one day, too. I'd love to be proven wrong that way. :) If not, he's at least made a difference just by getting elected. So I don't dislike him, I can still pull for him, and even though I don't like all that he does, I still think it's an improvement.
That's my long, rambling response that no one will read much of.
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