Now the Republic’s enemies must be asking themselves: where is the bottom to these people’s incompetence? Can they do anything at all? How safe is it to rush ahead? Why don’t we try?
And if they do, what tools will President Obama have left? Diplomacy? Economic incentives or sanctions? Moral authority? Maybe the military. Yes that’s it. But his competence at war is predicted by his incompetence in peace. One would hope he’d have the sense to stay away from truly dangerous tools and that probably means he doesn’t know better.
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Wretchard was on fire yesterday.
A better quote of the day…
The last thing you ever want to put on your resume is… Obama Economic Advisor.
One can only imagine what O and Hill are now giving away to get the world’s leader to take their calls again? We’ll be lucky if we still own the Jefferson Monument when the apology tours are done.
The fruits of Obama’s hubris are bitter indeed.
What makes this nail-biting time for me is that I just don’t know how the President thinks. He is opaque to me because I can’t figure out whether incompetence or countervailing values explain why I am so disappointed with the results he has achieved.
I usually bet on incompetence, which is the political equivalent of “the house always wins.” The problem is that he was such a packaged product, and so protected during the election, that I never got a feel for who he is:
Is he a bright guy who got picked (prematurely) because he had this one kick-ass speech that spoke to the moment, and our aspirations as a nation?
Is he a grasping, ambitious climber who will say, and be, anything to get the brass ring?
Is he a fellow traveler of Bill Ayers who “loves” America, except for that fact that he views it as a negative force in history, and wants to change everything about it?
Or is he something else entirely? I’m not talking about the Kenya/Muslim/Manchurian Candidate nonsense, I just wonder who this guy is, and I have never been so frustrated by our media. I was no great fan of W, but I never felt like he was a riddle. The media exposed his character, albeit with great hostility. This has never been done with Obama.
dennymack,
Obama is a riddle because he is not an American. Not in the birther sense of “not an American” but in the sense of not culturally American. He never had a place. It is not his America.
Just as it was not the Corporal’s Germany.
The next two years are going to be very rough. In 2012 we are going to want some one with military experience I fear. And probably for a long time to come. I had no great hopes for McCain. I trusted he could be moderately competent in the war department. The current idiot?
In 2004 I was hoping for a second Bush term so that no matter how incompetent the next guy was the terms of the equation would be set. I got my wish. Thankfully. Unfortunately America had a bout of madness in 2008. Ah. Well. History is what a President gets when he is not prepared to be the meanest summabitch on the block.
It has been about 65 years since the end of the last lesson. I guess we are about due.
Anonymous December 1st, 2010 at 3:08 am
Was me.
“History is what a President gets when he is not prepared to be the meanest summabitch on the block.”
Boy – a great quote. Wondered who wrote something so pithy, till I saw your note.
Well crafted, indeed.
MM
Obama is pretty easy to understand, once you put aside the assumption he’s working to make things better for the USA. He’s from a radical family with hard left ideas. He was mentored by a Communist Party USA member. He followed the roadmap given to him by the CPUSA member. He’s admitted to seeking out radicals, commiserating with radicals, and said and done things that radicals would do. Now, of course, if you assume he’s just a Chicago version of the local Rotary Club member you know, and you would want to make America safer, wealthier, healthier, and then look at the results of Obama I can understand your confusion.
How many 1960s terrorists did you accidentally work with? How many foreign potentates did you accidentally bow to? How many marxist revolutionary preacher’s church did you attend for 20 years?
The confusion and “buyers remorse” about Obama is entirely due to the willful blindness of the public that refuse to read Obama’s books, read the investigations about Obama by Freddoso and by Stanley Kurtz. This is the first POTUS that knows he’s breaking the system, but too many refuse to see this so like the pre-heliocentric astronomers, they put epicycles upon epicycles to maintain to faulty model.
As Glenn has said, “and these people control nukes”. It’s scary to think of how g/d dumb they are – everything they touch turns to shit, and they touch everything.
Why do people always say Obama is a “bright guy” and things along that line? Stupid is as stupid does and he does nothing but stupid. He didn’t give a great speech in 2004. He read a great speech…off the teleprompters. The issue isn’t that he wasn’t experienced. He’s had two years on the job now. The issue is that he hasn’t LEARNED anything in those two years. That’s not an indicator of being bright.
Hanlon’s Razor states, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.” But I gotta tell you. It’s hard to believe an Administration this “incompetent” could even be elected in the first place.
“His appeal is less loud, more profound, less distinct, more stirring””and sooner forgotten”
~Joseph Conrad~
“The Nigger of the Narcissus”
Ralph, recall that it wasn’t just this administration that got him elected. It took 1) a national backlash against Republicans, 2) a compliant media willing to pull out all the stops to get him there, 3) a terrible opponent running ostensibly on a smaller government platform running back to Washington DC to create a grand plan for the gov’t to save us all (and then not delivering anything) and 4) record-breaking sums of money.
It took all four of those items to drag his ass over the finish line. It would take all four of those to make him seem competent. As it is, he still commands #2 & #4. That’s probably why his approval rating is as high as it is. 8{
Can anyone explain anything that HRC has ever worked on that she didn’t completely eff up?
I agree with Scott M. If you want to understand Obama, start by reading Eric Hoffer’s _The True Believer_.
He is President Opposite.*
He will do the opposite of what he says, count on it. When you understand that, some confusion should disperse.
(* Originally coined by Elizabeth Scalia last year at The Anchoress)
The other side of Obama is that he is a puppet, and he knows it. The only question is of how many puppet-masters?