Excellent article about Obama's term up to this point - "What Happened to Obama's Passion"?

blueclown

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Sun Aug-07-11 01:18 PM
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Excellent article about Obama's term up to this point - "What Happened to Obama's Passion"?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/what-happened-to-obamas-passion.html?ref=opinion

This is an absolutely fantastic article written by Drew Westin for the New York Times opinion page.

Here are a few excerpts

IT was a blustery day in Washington on Jan. 20, 2009, as it often seems to be on the day of a presidential inauguration. As I stood with my 8-year-old daughter, watching the president deliver his inaugural address, I had a feeling of unease. It wasn�t just that the man who could be so eloquent had seemingly chosen not to be on this auspicious occasion, although that turned out to be a troubling harbinger of things to come. It was that there was a story the American people were waiting to hear � and needed to hear � but he didn�t tell it.

But there was no story � and there has been none since.

In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, �Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me � and I welcome their hatred.�

Those were the shoes � that was the historic role � that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill. The president is fond of referring to �the arc of history,� paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.�s famous statement that �the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.� But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics � in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time � he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.

I think what this editorial does a very good job of is articulating the fact that the President entered a unique point in history that not many Presidents have had to deal with - and as such, had extensive political capital to right some of the wrongs of the previous administrations. However, his demeanor is one of always trying to appease the other side, and with that demeanor came a fundamental muddling-down of his key policy initiatives. President Obama loves playing both sides of the issue - saying one thing, and then doing another - just to make sure that both sides approve of his moves. It does seem like he has a fundamental need for approval, an undying urge to compromise, when compromise should not be seeked, nor when it is welcome.

It's a very damning illustration of President Obama's term to this point, and I highly reccomend it to everyone.