Obama, we hardly know you

[rpannier]

I was having dinner with friends the other night and the subject turned to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Fouad Ajami called "The Obsolescence of Barack Obama." The subject of the piece -- which I had not seen, but now have read -- was essentially the decline and fall of the Obama presidency. Ajami wrote that "the Obama strategy has lost the consent of the governed."

Ajami's central assertion was that as far as this presidency is concerned, it is all over but the entropy. Due to mistakes already made, he suggested that the president had sealed his own fate, couldn't recover and that he (and we) are doomed to a Carter-like descent into presidential impotence and irrelevance. "There is little evidence," the professor writes, "that the Obama presidency could yet find new vindication, another lease on life. Mr. Obama will mark time, but henceforth he will not define the national agenda."

It was a well-argued, quite passionate piece. The problem with it was that it was arrant nonsense. (I recognize that the term "arrant nonsense" should usually be reserved for gaunt English character actors playing the Sherriff of Nottingham but in this instance it fits, and if you heard me say it with my not-so-plummy Central New Jersey accent, you wouldn't think it sounded half as pompous as it might appear in print.)

snip

This is just silliness, of course. First of all, at this point in the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush they had not defined themselves and indeed, each appeared very different from how we view them today.

Kennedy was still pretty much a work in progress and the Cuban Missile Crisis was still two months away. Johnson accomplished a great deal including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act and, if defined by his first 18 months, would have been regarded as a great success. It wasn't until after 1966 that his political fortunes began to turn with the deepening involvement in Vietnam and spreading unrest in American cities. Nixon was years away from Watergate at this point. It was in August of his second year that the Camp David process began in the Carter presidency and a deal would not be struck until March of the following year. The "malaise" speech and the Iran hostage crisis were well over a year away.

Reagan, whom Ajami deeply admires and distinguishes from Obama because he allegedly believed in America more than the current president (setting aside Obama's life story as testimony that argues to the contrary), was during the first two years of his presidency still trying to find his sea-legs. Yes, he had handled the air traffic controllers but the "evil empire" speech and the "Star Wars" proposal were still, at this point in his presidency, more than half a year away. And the Iran-Contra affair (which may have slipped Ajami's mind) and the "tear down that wall" speech and the four Reagan-Gorbachev summits were all years away.

link:
http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/08/19/obama_we_hardly_know_you

[PM Martin]

1. The current numbers for this fall's elections do not bode well.

Should the GOP retake either house of congress, nothing will get done.
It is obvious to all of us that the GOP has become a reactionary party and are hell bent on getting back into power by any means, including taking the country down.

[boppers]

2. If you can't spell, writing may not be a good profession.

Arrent and errant split in spelling, and meaning, a long time ago.

[John Q. Citizen]

3. Oh, I don't know. My writing teachers never gave a fig about spelling. Not like my spelling

teacher did.

Confusing quality writing with spelling is common. Very common.

But they are both entirely different animals.

Spelling is spelling. It's not writing.

Please try to differentiate the two disciplines.

Thanks.

[golfguru]

11. +100

[boppers]

12. "My art teacher never cared about brush strokes."

You make points both for, and against, current spelling, I admit.

[smalll]

6. No, I think the OP got it right -- it's "arrant nonsense" not "errant nonsense" --

that's the way I've always seen it. Plus, arrant is defined as utterly, complete, without qualification.

[boppers]

13. Obama is a group of bandits? His detractors are a group of bandits?

Who are the arrants?

[depakid]

7. The spelling was quite intentional

and comes up from time to time:

Arrant Nonsense: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/magazine/22wwln_safire.html

[cliffordu]

9. Note to self:

Don't fuck with the Grantcart on speling

[boppers]

14. Missed what you're responding to...

...but grantcart argues quite well.

As do you, actually (I recall you giving me a total head-shift years ago on some thread).

[cliffordu]

18. Thanks, I think.....

:rofl:

I was speaking to his use of 'arrant' as opposed to 'errant' and an upstream accusation of misspelling......

[grantcart]

4. I believe this paragraph best sums up the writers main point

In other words, no recent president (I left out Gerald Ford due to the unique circumstances and tenure of his presidency) has been defined at this point in his presidency and most saw major swings in popularity and objective successes and failures throughout their terms. In short, recent history suggests that it is almost impossible to know a president or characterize a presidency at this point in a term of office.

[rpannier]

5. You're right

I should have used that paragraph instead

Glad you put it up and I hope people see it

For all the hand-wringing you see about 2012, you'd think it was December 31, 2011

I understand the anxiety, but I'm focused on November 2010 right now

[SeattleGirl]

8. I agree, grantcart.

Obama still has over 2 years to go in his Presidency. The writer of the article in the OP is dancing on a grave that hasn't even been dug yet.

[rpannier]

10. Actually the writer is responding to a WSJ article

His argument is "The guy who wrote the article that he's commenting on is a fool."

[depakid]

15. Try not to confuse the poster

[flamingdem]

16. As are so many. They have nothing to say, so they join the chorus of the dumbed nt

[unblock]

17. well, i had shrub's presidency pegged before he seized office

but then, i used to live in texas, so i had a better idea than most of the rest of the country.

i also had reagan's presidency pegged before he was elected, because i had read pat brown's book "reagan: the political chameleon". way back in 1975, brown figured that reagan would cut taxes massively and then keep raising them, but only ever talk about the cuts -- how did he know? because that's exactly what reagan had done as governor of california.

poppy was the president who surprised me, i never figured he'd usher in the ada, nor did i think he'd be remotely responsible on taxes. he still sucked, of course, but i expected him to be worse.

[Steely_Dan]

19. We all know the reasons why..

so many on the left are disappointed in our President. They have been stated here many many times.

One point that I think has been missed is this.

I honestly believe that the level of disappointment in Obama is directly tied to the Bush Administration.
Had Bush not screwed everything up so badly, there would not be a sense of urgency in the minds of the left. The level of destruction by the previous administration is so profound that many of us on the left expected (and even demanded) that the ship of state be turned around quickly. Maybe it was being unrealistic. But Bush's actions play a huge role in the mindset of the left when it comes to our expectations.

-P