Maybe it’s just me, but some things don’t make a lot of sense. I mean, I can understand why the same Republicans who four years ago were saying that the president (then George W. Bush) had no power to control the price of gasoline are now blaming Obama for the high price of gas. Hey, that’s just politics.
But, as I say, some things just don’t make sense. Here are a few that have been puzzling me of late:
- How can John McCain sound so nutty one minute and so intelligent the next? The latest example of that oddity is his insistence that the U.S. needs to seriously consider yet another war or two (in Syria and Iran), on the one hand, and his strong statement against the attack on women his party is conducting with respect to birth control, on the other.
Has this guy ever seen a country in turmoil that he didn’t want to bomb before trying diplomacy, which is, of course, exactly the opposite approach to use if you want diplomacy to work at all? Moreover, doesn’t he learn any lessons from history? I mean if he didn’t learn anything from his own Viet Nam experience (where he spent five years as a prisoner of war) shouldn’t he have figured out from the more recently disastrous escapades in Iraq and Afghanistan that war is not a great option even under the best of circumstances?
But McCain sounded like a true statesman on domestic matters this week when he strongly suggested that Republicans should get off of the women-bashing that has seemingly become the party’s new cause célèbre. He sounds like a true statesman in telling his party to get back to issues of concern to all Americans if it has any hopes of regaining the White House in the fall
Tone deaf in one area; courageous leader in another. Hard to figure, but there you have it.
- And speaking of hard to figure, what’s with this Obama guy? How come he’s so dynamic and inspiring when he’s campaigning and so commonplace and desultory when he’s actually doing the work of running the country? Are the two roles so different as to require completely distinct personas?
As a candidate, Obama captures the imagination of his audience. He speaks intelligently, but without sounding like an egghead. He strikes themes and fleshes them out with specifics, thereby both engaging and educating his listeners.
On the stump, the guy is hard to dislike (unless you’re convinced he’s out to destroy the country, of course) and, in fact, seems like the perfect politician: forthright and decisive, a fighter for causes he believes in, and someone who can rally a nation around him.
But in his work as president he’s been as lackluster as some of his predecessors (Jimmy Carter comes to mind, just to mention another major figure of the recent past who was hard to figure). Where a fighter is called for (as when the opposition party is playing games with his legislative proposals), he gets all wonky and feigns mild disappointment that others aren’t seeing what he sees.
What makes this dichotomy even harder to understand is that Obama has amassed an impressive record in his first term, both in foreign and domestic affairs. He’s kept the country free from terrorist attacks and has largely defanged our principal adversary, al Qaeda, by killing its leader and several of his lieutenants. And he kept the country from an economic freefall and now has it on the road to a gradual recovery that might actually start to feel pretty good in another year or two.
But in terms of keeping the country with him as he has moved it forward, it’s almost as if he either didn’t care or didn’t know how. His amazing powers of communication while he is on the campaign stump somehow turn to the typical politician’s rhetoric when he is in his office.
A powerhouse when he’s running for office, a milquetoast when he’s actually in it. Once again, hard to figure, but pretty much undeniable.
- And then we have that most august of American institutions, the United States Supreme Court. Comprised of nine of the country’s best and brightest men and women of the law, this single branch of government has perhaps more power to change the broad course of our developing history than any other entity or individual. And yet, it acts in the kind of that might have existed in the darkest days of Soviet control of the Kremlin instead of opening itself to public view as the bastion of freedom and protector of individual rights that it is.
A perfect case in point will occur next week, when the Court will hear three days of oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare reform law that Republicans derisively refer to as “Obamacare.” The arguments will be attended by members of the press who will report on it in varying degrees of unsophisticated media-speak. Perhaps a hundred or so regular citizens will be able to attend for short periods as the relatively small courtroom is periodically emptied to permit as many as possible to see a little of the “action.”
And, the arguments will be recorded for audio, but not video, same-day re-broadcast. Amazingly, even that lifting of the opaque curtain surrounding the Court’s work is a major concession by the justices, who continually refuse to allow the hearings to be aired live on television, and usually even prohibit same-day release of the audio recordings.
C-Span, the commercial-free, non-partisan public affairs network has asked for permission to set up cameras in the courtroom to show the country in real time how the arguments on the healthcare law proceed, but it has been denied, as have any others who have deigned to request such a monumental privilege on behalf of the very people the Court is supposed to serve.
In a third-world country such disdain for democracy would be expected, if regrettable. In the country that espouses all the freedoms democracy promises, it’s an outrage.
It doesn’t make sense, but, as I say, maybe it’s just me.
Yes, Ed, it’s just you–and the Obama re-election campaign. I give you cre for criticizing the President for not “keeping the country with him,” even though you are disoriented about the direction he has taken us. You have a point about gas prices, but again there is the usual sin of omission: recall that Democrats excoriated Bush over spiking gas prices. Anyway, these disagreements between us are routine. But you really go overboard by characterizing the Supreme Court’s refusal to allow TV cameras as a third-world disdain for democracy. I would enjoy seeing arguments on C-SPAN, but I can understand the Court’s reluctance. Given the leveling effect of culture, it puts the Court on the ground of reality TV; it magnifies the political angles to a degree that would be as unhealthy as it is unnecessary; and it creates problems regarding security. Your average American paranoid schizophrenic would be unable to identify a Supreme Court Justice. Make the Supreme Court a new TV show, and Justice Ginsburg will be as identifiable as Snookie. (Snooky?)
As ever, I wish you would write more about baseball and less about politics.
Joel Cornwell
Regarding video broadcasts of the Court I’m unsure but it would be nice to hear oral arguments as there given. I wonder how many Americans know of the nine sitting justices six are Catholic! How about more writing on the Supreme court.
I lost all respect for John McCain after he selected Palin and continued to argue she was qualified for the presidency long after it was obvious to everyone it was untrue.
I pay little attention to sports but I am rooting for Jamie Moyer!
Don’t stop writing about politics Ed.
I can only assume that your comment, “Obama has amassed an impressive record in his first term”, is a deliberate sarcasm designed to provoke a discussion response. No need to take the bait.
Instead, some voters are rightly focused on another piece of his “impressive record”, while other voters are not.
It’s amazing that you can ignore Obama’s utter malfeasance regarding the deficit. Yes, he inherited a mess. However, the CBO is now projecting $1 Trillion of deficits through 2022. That’s 13 years after the recession ended. Obama and the Democrats are completely ignoring the issue, and liberal supporters are giving them a pass. Roughly stated, the U.S. will bring in $2 Trillion and spend $3 Trillion, and clearly Obama doesn’t care.
That is ALL on Obama and the Democrats, why? Just look at Obama’s budget and proposed tax increases. Obama’s tax increases by repealing the Bush tax cuts, and implementing the Buffett tax, and all his other various tax increases, will, at best, raise only $150 billion per year.
http://thedailyrecord.com/2012/02/13/obama%E2%80%99s-tax-plan-sets-up-ideological-battle/
Miniscule revenue. It’s campaign grandstanding. Nonetheless, Obama then blows even that and more with spending. “The budget projects that the deficit in 2017 will reach 3 percent of G.D.P., the level that economists generally consider the maximum sustainable one.”
I supposed that explains the cowardice of the Democrats in refusing to pass a budget for the last 3 years. And don’t blame “obstructionist” Republicans. The Dems had a majority for the first 2 years of Obama’s administration, and these projections are based on Obama’s tax and spending plan passing as is.
Today’s young generation will face a bleak American future because of the most obvious and predictable economic failure we’ve ever seen. Obama and the Democrats deserve the voter’s wrath on this issue alone. But sadly, Democrats aren’t stepping up. Obama supporters and Democrat apologists are the enablers and share the blame.
No, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I do think Obama has amassed an impressive record, despite the fact that much of that record could have been much better in terms of the specifics of the accomplishments. The health care reform is a good example. It’s impressive that he got it done (after failed efforts by previous presidents going all the way back to Nixon), but unfortunate that it is such a boon to the insurance industry and has to include the mandate that is likely to run it afoul of the Supremes in a few months.
But he has kept us safe from terrorist attack and largely defanged al Qaeda and most definitely saved the economy from free-fall, in part by rescuing the auto industry, in part by pushing through an admittedly too weak stimulus package.
As for deficits, here’s a shocker for you: I don’t regard them as a big issue. For as long as I can remember, which goes back to the Eisenhower presidency, conservatives have railed about budget (and trade) deficits. That’s over 50 years of hand-wringing about deficits. My view is that they will always be with us (although Clinton did manage to get them eliminated) and should not control our fiscal policies.
What we should be concerned with is maintaining a growing economy and reforming our tax laws. If the economy purrs along smoothly (3-5% annual growth, 4-5& unemployment) and we have sane tax laws (highly progressive with incentives for business development), the deficits will take care of themselves (again, think the Clinton model).
Obama is not perfect, far from it. But when compared with the alternatives the Republicans are prepared to offer, he is head and shoulders superior.
As you say, there have always been deficits, the critical point is of course, the size of the deficit. Over the last 60 years, the average deficit was about 2% of GDP. Now it’s nearly 9%. You’re position that this does not concern you is certainly unique.
Do you believe that Social Security and Medicare are a problem?
and let’s add to Mr. Obama’s impressive list of accomplishments that the House just voted down his latest budget 414 – 0