Aimless Obama walks alone

[PapaG]

Increasingly bizarre and detached behavior from Obama has people wondering in DC and NYC.

The reports are not good, disturbing even. I have heard basically the same story four times in the last 10 days, and the people doing the talking are in New York and Washington and are spread across the political spectrum.

The gist is this: President Obama has become a lone wolf, a stranger to his own government. He talks mostly, and sometimes only, to friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett and to David Axelrod, his political strategist.

Everybody else, including members of his Cabinet, have little face time with him except for brief meetings that serve as photo ops. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner both have complained, according to people who have talked to them, that they are shut out of important decisions.

The president’s workdays are said to end early, often at 4 p.m. He usually has dinner in the family residence with his wife and daughters, then retreats to a private office. One person said he takes a stack of briefing books. Others aren’t sure what he does.

If the reports are accurate, and I believe they are, they paint a picture of an isolated man trapped in a collapsing presidency. While there is no indication Obama is walking the halls of the White House late at night, talking to the portraits of former presidents, as Richard Nixon did during Watergate, the reports help explain his odd public remarks.

Obama conceded in one television interview recently that Americans are not “better off than they were four years ago” and said in another that the nation had “gotten a little soft.” Both smacked of a man who feels discouraged and alienated and sparked comparisons to Jimmy Carter, never a good sign.

Blaming the country is political heresy, of course, yet Obama is running out of scapegoats. His allies rarely make affirmative arguments on his behalf anymore, limiting themselves to making excuses for his failure. He and they attack Republicans, George W. Bush, European leaders and Chinese currency manipulation -- and that was just last week.

The blame game isn’t much of a defense for Solyndra and “Fast and Furious,” the emerging twin scandals that paint a picture of incompetence at best.

Obama himself is spending his public time pushing a $450 billion “jobs” bill -- really another stimulus in disguise -- that even Senate Democrats won’t support. He grimly flogged it repeatedly at his Thursday press conference, even though snowballs in hell have a better chance of survival.

If he cracked a single smile at the hour-plus event, I missed it. He seems happy only on the campaign trail, where the adoration of the crowd lifts his spirits.

When it comes to getting America back on track to economic growth, he is running on vapors. Yet he shows no inclination to adopt any ideas other than his own Big Government grab. His itch for higher taxes verges on a fetish.

Harvey Golub, former chairman of American Express, called the “jobs” bill an incoherent mess. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, he said that among other flaws, the bill includes an unheard of retroactive tax hike on the holders of municipal bonds.

“Many of us have suspected that economic illiterates were setting the economic policy of this administration,” Golub wrote, adding that the bill “reveals a depth of cluelessness that boggles the mind.”



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/aimless_obama_walks_alone_OUgoMTkORRJioLl7B6ZYmN#ixzz1aKVfV6G4

 

[ABM]

Really, is it at all surprising?

 

[julius]

he should try meebo.

 

[jlprk]

Speaking of leaders howling at the Moon, now that News of the World has committed suicide, the New York Post is the nutjob paper of the planet.

 

[Denny Crane]

Washington Post is the nutjob paper of the planet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-the-loner-president/2011/10/03/gIQAHFcSTL_story.html

Obama, the loner president

Beyond the economy, the wars and the polls, President Obama has a problem: people.

This president endures with little joy the small talk and back-slapping of retail politics, rarely spends more than a few minutes on a rope line, refuses to coddle even his biggest donors. His relationship with Democrats on Capitol Hill is frosty, to be generous. Personal lobbying on behalf of legislation? He prefers to leave that to Vice President Biden, an old-school political charmer.

Obama’s circle of close advisers is as small as the cluster of personal friends that predates his presidency. There is no entourage, no Friends of Barack to explain or defend a politician who has confounded many supporters with his cool personality and penchant for compromise.

Obama is, in short, a political loner who prefers policy over the people who make politics in this country work.

“He likes politics,” said a Washington veteran who supports Obama, “but like a campaign manager likes politics, not a candidate.” The former draws energy from science and strategy, the latter from contact with people.

Which raises an odd question: Is it possible to be America’s most popular politician and not be very good at American politics?

 

[julius]

[video=youtube;h_MCeiHR_Mw]

 

[MARIS61]

Washington Post is the nutjob paper of the planet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-the-loner-president/2011/10/03/gIQAHFcSTL_story.html

This president endures with little joy the small talk and back-slapping of retail politics, rarely spends more than a few minutes on a rope line, refuses to coddle even his biggest donors. His relationship with Democrats on Capitol Hill is frosty, to be generous. Personal lobbying on behalf of legislation? He prefers to leave that to Vice President Biden, an old-school political charmer.

Obama’s circle of close advisers is as small as the cluster of personal friends that predates his presidency. There is no entourage, no Friends of Barack to explain or defend a politician who has confounded many supporters with his cool personality and penchant for compromise.

Obama is, in short, a political loner who prefers policy over the people who keep politics in this country from working.

(FIFY)

His disdain for lobbyists, footdraggers and obstructionists is a big reason he got elected. If he's returned to that mode after seeing his many olive branches refused by the corrupt servants of the military industrial complex who got us into this mess, then maybe he'll actually get something done.

 

[MARIS61]

Increasingly bizarre and detached behavior from Obama has people wondering in DC and NYC.

Not wanting to talk to a bunch of idiots who bring nothing American to the table can hardly be seen as bizarre.

Enlightened seems a better term.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Well, maybe he's growing up as a man now.

Up until recently, he's been a far left small time hack politician paying back unions, punishing non union sectors of the economy, scheming up a mega huge punitive entitlement program... He had overwhelming majorities in both houses, rammed whatever he wanted thru Congress with no regard to what the minority of Congress or the majority of the American people wanted. The economy got worse and he didn't really care.

Now, beginning with the recent election, reality has set in. maybe he's beginning to see that the President is that for the whole country- and not just an office used to punish those who he doesn't care for. Maybe he is beginning to understand, his job is not about lining the pockets of unions, and about a lot more that involves little people that are struggling just to eat and keep alive.

I think he just might be growing up a little bit.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

in the spirit of columbus day, i claim this thread in the name of the queen

[video=youtube;rNQRfBAzSzo]

 

[ABM]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-10-06-24-39

SPIN METER: Obama disconnects rhetoric, reality
By ERICA WERNER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In President Barack Obama's sales pitch for his jobs bill, there are two versions of reality: The one in his speeches and the one actually unfolding in Washington.

When Obama accuses Republicans of standing in the way of his nearly $450 billion plan, he ignores the fact that his own party has struggled to unite behind the proposal.

When the president says Republicans haven't explained what they oppose in the plan, he skips over the fact that Republicans who control the House actually have done that in detail.

And when he calls on Congress to "pass this bill now," he slides past the point that Democrats control the Senate and were never prepared to move immediately, given other priorities. Senators are expected to vote Tuesday on opening debate on the bill, a month after the president unveiled it with a call for its immediate passage.

To be sure, Obama is not the only one engaging in rhetorical excesses. But he is the president, and as such, his constant remarks on the bill draw the most attention and scrutiny.

The disconnect between what Obama says about his jobs bill and what stands as the political reality flow from his broader aim: to rally the public behind his cause and get Congress to act, or, if not, to pin blame on Republicans.

He is waging a campaign, one in which nuance and context and competing responses don't always fit in if they don't help make the case.

For example, when Obama says his jobs plan is made up of ideas that have historically had bipartisan support, he stops the point there. Not mentioned is that Republicans have never embraced the tax increases that he is proposing to cover the cost of his plan.

Likewise, from city to city, Obama is demanding that Congress act (he means Republicans) while it has been clear for weeks that the GOP will not support all of his bill, to say the least. Individual elements of it may well pass, such as Obama's proposal to extend and expand a payroll tax cut. But Republicans strongly oppose the president's proposed new spending and his plan to raise taxes on millionaires to pay for the package.

The fight over the legislative proposal has become something much bigger: a critical test of the president's powers of persuading the public heading into the 2012 presidential campaign, and of Republicans' ability to deny him a win and reap victory for themselves.

"He knows it's not going to pass. He's betting that voters won't pick up on it, or even if they do they will blame Congress and he can run against the `do-nothing Congress,'" said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning and Development.

John Sides, political science professor at George Washington University, said Obama's approach on the jobs bill is "more about campaigning than governing."

"He's mostly just going around talking about this and drawing contrasts with what the Republicans want and what he wants and not really trying to work these legislative levers he might be able to use to get this passed," Sides said. "That just suggests to me that he is ready to use a failed jobs bill as a campaign message against the Republicans."

The president's opponents aren't exactly laying it all out, either.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tried to force a vote on the bill last week, innocently claiming that the president was entitled to one. McConnell knew full well that the result would be failure for the legislation and an embarrassment for Obama.

House Speaker John Boehner, meanwhile, claimed that Obama has "given up on the country and decided to campaign full-time" instead of seeking common ground with the GOP. But Boehner neglected to mention that Obama's past attempts at compromise with Republicans often yielded scant results, as Obama himself pointed out.

The approach for Obama, who is seeking a second term in a dismal economy, is far different than the one he took when running for president. He criticized the GOP then, but talked about ending blue-state and red-state America, replacing it with one America, fixing the broken political system, and fundamentally changing Washington.

That ended up being change he could not bring about, and now analysts say Obama may have little choice but to campaign more narrowly by attacking opponents rather than trying to bring people together.

Obama's attempts at compromise with the GOP on the debt ceiling and budget won him little in the way of policy, instead engendering frustration from Democrats who saw him as caving to Republican demands.

The new, combative Obama isn't looking for compromise. He's looking for a win. And if he can't get the legislative victory he says he wants, he has made clear that he's more than willing to take a political win.

It is, he acknowledges, a result his campaign for his jobs bill is designed to achieve.

Talking up the bill in an appearance last month with African-American news websites, Obama said: "I need people to be out there promoting this and pushing this and making sure that everybody understands the details of what this would mean, so that one of two things happen: Either Congress gets it done, or if Congress doesn't get it done, people know exactly what's holding it up."

 

[maxiep]

What we're seeing is what happens when someone who has been told they're special all their lives runs into criticism. Bottom line, he's not that bright.

 

[MARIS61]

What we're seeing is what happens when someone who has been told they're special all their lives runs into criticism. Bottom line, he's not that bright.

What we're seeing is a President who has finally realized most of both parties in the House and Congress are in the pocket of the military industrial complex.

 

[jlprk]

Obama came into office as a conservative Democrat who wanted to be better friends with Republicans than with his own party. Republicans wouldn't give him the time of day, despite his compromising and turning against his party's liberal base on every issue.

So he's lonely, without a group. He's figuring out that his group should be his own party, and that no matter how much he gives in to Republicans, he won't make any friends there. With his poll numbers dropping because we liberals hate him, maybe he's growing up and learning to not take us for granted.

He's transitioning from being a Republican to being a Democrat. He's temporarily alone and between groups.

 

[Denny Crane]

Obama came into office as a liberal Democrat with control of both houses of congress. He didn't bother to include any republicans in considering his agenda, which was socialized medicine and cap & trade (instead of economy and jobs). He had to move more to the center than he really is because he has people in his own party he had to deal with who were more conservative, and the people did not approve of his agenda.

 

[Denny Crane]

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/186635-democrats-scramble-to-save-face-on-jobs-bill

Democrats scramble to save face on President Obama's jobs bill

Democratic leaders in the Senate are scrambling to avoid defections on President Obama’s jobs package, which appears headed for defeat on Tuesday.

A lack of Democratic unity on the president’s bill would be embarrassing for the White House, which has been scolding House Republicans for refusing to vote on the measure.

Obama has been touring the country, aiming to put pressure on the GOP to act. But Senate Democrats have indicated they are feeling some heat. Last week, Democratic leaders revised Obama’s bill, scrapping his proposed offsets. Instead of raising taxes on families making more than $250,000 annually, Senate Democrats lifted that figure to $1 million.

Despite the changes, the legislation still does not enjoy the support of all 53 senators who caucus with the Democrats. A handful of Democrats are undecided or leaning no on the bill.

Democrats who will vote no or are leaning no include Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), who all hail from red states and are up for reelection next year.

Republican and Democratic analysts say it will be politically difficult for Obama to blame the GOP for blocking the bill if more than a few conservative Democrats break ranks.

“It is important to have the vast majority of your people, because what we are doing here is a political exercise at the moment, since there doesn’t seem to be any chance that the Republican side really wants to do anything,” said Steve Elmendorf, a senior adviser to former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt (Mo.) for 12 years. “This needs to be a 90 percent vote.”

If there are substantial Democratic defections, “Republicans will be able to point out in the media that this plan hasn’t got enough support on either side of the aisle and argue it wasn’t thought through,” according to Ron Bonjean, a former communications director to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

Senate leadership is aiming to at least get a majority of the upper chamber on board for a procedural vote this week.

That 60-vote threshold vote on whether to take up the bill is set to fail, given near unanimous GOP opposition.

 

[BrianFromWA]

What we're seeing is a President who has finally realized most of both parties in the House and Congress are in the pocket of the military industrial complex.

Because THAT's what drove Obamacare.

BTW, the military has chopped almost 10% off their budget for FY12. They've been directed to draw down nuclear weapons for counterproliferation issues (which isn't working, and hasn't since before the Cold War ended) and the ones we are keeping are being pushed past service life b/c their budgets are being cut. Ships and airplanes are at their lowest levels in 40 years, and the ones we do have are being utilized a lot more than they were designed to. Boeing, Lockheed and Northrup have had to lay off thousands of engineers in the last 3 years.

Meanwhile, Medicare has an overrun larger than the Department of Defense and the Wars combined, and ObamaCare was pushed/bribed through Congress without even being read. Maybe it's the hospital-industrial complex we should be worried about.

 

[jlprk]

Imagine how many more unemployed there will be when a Republican's in power, worried about more tax cuts for the rich and how to start more wars.

If Obama loses, this country goes down the toilet even faster. But I'll be happier because then I can criticize the President over civil liberties and torture instead of holding back.

 

[BrianFromWA]

To retort binarily to your statement, I'd rather our country have economic prosperity and the chance for anyone to make something of themselves than worry about how a criminal in another country reacts to something that almost every single flight crew member of the US military goes through at SERE school. But that's just me.