Friday, April 10, 2015

The Brilliance of Obama

If a begrudging way I admire President Obama. He's not a policy expert, he's not a legal expert or Constitutional scholar. He's not a consensus builder. He's not a leader in the sense we think of American leaders. He doesn't inspire. He's not at all popular with other beltway politicians most especially members of his own party. He doesn't like smoozing or working the phones or any of the stuff that made LBJ so good (if that's the word) at getting his agenda passed. But what he is good at, what he does exceptionally well is retail politics. He's exceptionally good on the stump. He picks ruthless and competent professional campaign people. He realizes his fellow Dems don't have to like him because he's the only game in town and their prospects are tied to his. He's not afraid to go after his enemies with tactics Nixon would have found distasteful (and HIGHLY illegal). He understands that his racial circumstance makes him practically invulnerable to most conservative attacks. Therefore he is constantly on the attack with one outrageous policy shift after another illegal Presidential edict after targeting this group and wiretapping that group. There is so much malfeasance and nefarious dealings going on it's hard to keep up. He doesn't give us or the press time to digest (or investigate) one before another crops up. He's the whack-a-mole President.

I admire him because he gets his way. I admire him because in spite of everything, he refuses to back down. You might say that of course he backs down. Look at all those "lines in the sand". Sorry, I disagree. That is PLANNED weakness. That's weakness as a policy goal.

He is unique in that everything about the Obama Presidency is predicated on race, and he understand that. Although he is nearly (I say nearly) invulnerable to conservative attacks, he is absolutely invincible to liberal attacks. Any Democrat who dares oppose him will pay a heavy price (ask Senator New Jersey) and NO Democrat with national aspirations would dare risk pissing off the block vote of all block votes... the BLACK vote.

So say what you will about Obama, he's played the fiddle and made us dance to it. There's been NO talk about tax reform, welfare reform, entitlement reform ANYTHING in spite of two mid-term elections that should have put the fear of God in any clear thinking Democrat. No, we talk about what OBAMA wants to talk about. His policies are the worst. He is by far the worst President of my lifetime, but nobody sells suck like Obama.

1 comment:

JB said...

Hammer,

I take your point about Obama (particularly the weakness as policy goal), but I think I would've chosen a different word from "brilliance" to describe him - perhaps tenacious?

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