Obama - The Untransformational President

While the GOP continues to offer up numerous would be presidential candidates of questionable sanity, the Democrats find themselves saddled with Barack Obama - probably one of the most disappointing presidents in decades. I, like countless others, foolishly believed Obama's statements and will confess that, in person he was so very, very convincing. Little did we know that he had no spine, was in truth a follower rather than a leader, and that he would time and time again give away half the store before he even began to negotiate with Republicans who seek to destroy him no matter what he gives up (something Obama still doesn't seem to have figured out). I've even gone so far as to say that I'd love to see Obama faced with a primary challenge. In response, one gets the mantra that he's better than a GOP president. But that argument ignores what could have been accomplished had a leader with a backbone been in the White House, especially while the Democrats held both houses of Congress. A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the disappointing reality of Obama's presidency. Here are some highlights:
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Remember back when Barack Obama talked about being a transformational president? You know, how Reagan was one, Clinton wasn’t, and Obama himself would be? Whatever happens in the ongoing debt negotiations, whatever happens in the next election, we already know that this is a fantasy. The news that Obama is willing to place Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid on the poker table reveals yet again, and more starkly than ever before, what’s most important to him. It’s not to lead. It’s not to fight. It’s not even to win. It’s to be the most reasonable and unflappable person in the room. Obama will not be a transformational president unless the transformation starts in his own DNA.
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I’m deeply sympathetic with the mental and emotional armature that must be donned by a young black man growing up in a white household and mostly white world—the need to prove that one is superior, and the need to do so quietly, in a way others have no choice but to respect. . . . . But in this White House at this point in history with this much at stake and facing this perfervid opposition, these qualities are serving him and the Americans who want to believe in him very poorly.
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They certainly aren’t the qualities of a transformational leader. Transformational leaders fight and draw lines in the sand. I’ve been stunned, both in the spring during the government shutdown negotiations and now, that Obama has hardly ever gone to the American people to insist firmly that there are some things he would never abide.
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Obama might end up being Reagan-like, but not in the way he used to mean it. Now that I think about it, Reagan-like would be an improvement. Reagan at least raised Social Security payroll taxes and cut benefits only to future retirees, and only way, way down the road. Obama is cutting those taxes and (probably) cutting benefits now, and taking his fellow Democrats’ best campaign issue (the Ryan budget) out from under them. It's all quite reasonable--but I don't think it's the kind of transformation most of his 2008 voters had in mind.