Robert Shrum: More premature and puerile verdicts on Obama

[flpoljunkie]

More premature and puerile verdicts on Obama
Is he imperiled by scandal? Does he fail to emote? What we talk about while Barack Obama shapes the future of America

Robert Shrum

June 3, 2010

“How could the nation have gone from hope to gloom in less than two years?”

“The President and his colleagues know that it’s not really working.”

Barack Obama? No -- assessments in The New York Times of Ronald Reagan and his presidency during his second year in office. Fortunately for the authors, these and similar verdicts are now hidden in the recesses of history and the attics of the Internet. But such verdicts are a powerful reminder of the perils of pack prognostication at a time when the pack has circled this president and variously proclaimed him remote, out of touch and a word we never thought to see applied to Obama—“incompetent.”

The immediate provocation is the oil spill, but the story line has been brewed before—the economic recovery act that was bogged down in Congress; the health bill that was doomed by Scott Brown’s election; the Tea Party movement that’s proving to be more tidal eddy than tidal wave except on the shrunken beachheads of Republican primaries; and the Wall Street reform that’s too hot or too cold, too much or too little, too soft on Fannie and Freddie, or too hard on derivatives.

And then there are the inconsequential obsessions of the insiders—the White House job “offers” to upstart Senate challengers Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff. We’re shocked, shocked to learn that politics has been going on in the place where Abraham Lincoln dangled appointments and patronage to squeeze the 13th Amendment banning slavery through a recalcitrant Congress.

more...

http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/203697/more-premature-and-puerile-verdicts-on-obama

[rpannier]

1. It never ceases to amaze me at what passes for expertise

These idiot reporters are wrong so often and the more they're wrong the more airtime they seem to get

The idea that in one year you can measure how a president or governor will be assessed in full is idiotic and incompetent

I'm not a fan of Shrum, but good on him for his well written article

[depakid]

2. When Bob Shrum comes to someone's spirited defense it ought to tell us something...

[flpoljunkie]

3. Bob Shrum's great with Pat Buchanan on MSNBC and writes good stuff for Dems.

That's good enough for me.

[depakid]

4. Might want to read this:

Shrum and Dumber: The Memoirs of a Political Consultant Who Knew How to Lose

http://www.alternet.org/story/55255/shrum_and_dumber:_the_memoirs_of_a_political_consultant_who_knew_how_to_lose/?comments=view&cID=688255&pID=688175

[flpoljunkie]

5. I do not blame Gore and Kerry's losses on Shrum.

[Jennicut]

10. Neither do I.

Multiple reasons for their losing, little to do with others besides themselves and Bush.

[Arkana]

7. Good, but please, for the love of all that's holy,

do not ever let him advise on a Presidential campaign again.

[jaysunb]

6. Excellent !

Shrum certainly gets it right. :thumbsup:

[Tarheel_Dem]

8. Thanks Bob. (nt)

[Cha]

9. "What we talk about while Barack Obama shapes the future of America "

Shrum has that right.

The mediawhores can bitch until they're blue in the face but it's President Obama who's doing the heavy lifting.

[FrenchieCat]

11. Watta ya expect? They ain't got shit else to do to get paid.

If they'd ever consider actually doing something good for this country
instead of constantly bitching, we'd probably have a national heart attack!

[paulk]

12. Andrew Romanoff is not an "upstart"

He is the former Speaker of the Colorado House, was considered by most to be the heir apparent to Salazar's Senate seat, and certainly was better known statewide than the true "upstart" Michael Bennet at the time.

Weasel words from Shrum... and it remains to be seen how "inconsequential" Obama's interference in state politics is. Shrum should know better than to draw a parallel between Lincoln's dealing with Congress - which falls within the realm of a President's job, and Obama's messing about in state primaries, which some would argue doesn't.

http://www.coloradostatesman.com/content/991665-open-letter-president-barack-obama-democratic-national-committee-officers-and-democra

I that's the best Shrum can do to make his point, then it's no wonder he was such a failure as a political consultant.

[Name removed]

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