Barack Obama, was a creature and the apple of the eye of a very
specific group of Senate Democrats. They were Hillary
phobes, who felt that Ms. Clinton would go down in flames from a well
established right wing and Moron Media attack. They did have a point,
the Right Wing Noise Machine had its wrecking ball primed for a Hillary
nomination.
This cabal always had a thing against John Edwards too. They considered him a total light- weight. As events played out, they were right about Edwards’ utterly uncontrolled narcissism. I cringe to think of what would have happened if the Rielle Hunter debacle had come out with Edwards as the nominee.
So the doyens of the Senate looked around for a anti-Hillary that was not John Edward and, hey presto, Barack Obama! They were gob-smacked by Barry’s Chauncey Gardiner impression. Trust me, Senators just eat up the type of crap that Obama was peddling. Obama’s transactional nature, his tendency to agree, at least in part, with almost anything his interlocutor said, was music to the ears of the self-involved Democratic leadership of the Senate.
The Senators also loved that Obama had no real history in national politics. By design, Obama had avoided all sorts of hot-button issue that usually trip up national Democratic candidates. This made him the most anti-Hillary of any candidate out there, a tabula rasa unencumbered by the baggage of a Kerry or a Clinton, or a Gore, or a Biden.
From the perspective of the Democratic Senate, Obama was their man. Joe Biden’s awkward bit of man love really did encapsulate the love the Senate had for Barack. With the push from the old Senate war horses, Mr. Hope and Change was unleashed on an unwary electorate.
Still as culpable as people as Dick Durban were, a huge portion of the blame has to rest with Obama. Having watched the man go through the motions, detached, reactive, unmotivated, I wonder why the hell he wanted the job in the first place. He worked so assiduously, making no false moves, saying all the right things, leaving no political trace, looking for his main chance to become the first African-American President. And it came to him only two years into his Senate tenure; woefully unprepared and unready for the slot of the Chief Executive.
What kind of egomania combined with cognitive dissonance allowed a man with not even two years in the Senate to think he was ready for the Oval Office? With his studied avoidance of hard political choices, and his constitutional inability to handle any kind of conflict, Obama should have known that his personal defects made him unsuited for the job during a time of hyper-partisanship.
I don’t like using the politically and racially loaded word “arrogant” to describe the Obama, but it is the only word that fits. The man is unbelievably arrogant. He bought into his own propaganda and drank deep his own kool-aid. He really believed that he was a transformational actor, a person for the ages. He believed that his unique gifts would lead the US out of the hyper-partisan hell it found itself in.
But Obama did not want to do the real work, he did not want to confront a Regan legacy head on, but co-opt it. He thought he could do the small bore Neo-Liberal politics of Bill Clinton without the charm and compassion that the Big Dog brought to the discussion. Barack Obama also thought he could do the politics without Bill Clinton’s willingness to scrap. Clinton always saw politics as a way to connect to people; Obama treats politics like a math equation.
Yet for all his faults, Obama was able to snooker the media and then, very narrowly, the Primary voters, into his myth of adequacy. He was able to convince the nation that he was a better option than McCain, which he was and still is. What he was not able to do, was resolve the central failure of our Political Duopoly, and the rabid partisanship it creates. He never had the tools to do that, he never had the foundational principles, he never had the emotional equipment, he never had the grit. Barack Obama only had his exaggerated belief in himself as a man that would use sweat reason and compromise to bring about unanimity. Not having any ideology to speak of, he never understood the ideological underpinnings of the Republicans nor his base. He knew not either himself or his opponents, which is why he keeps failing. Sun Tzu would not approve.
This cabal always had a thing against John Edwards too. They considered him a total light- weight. As events played out, they were right about Edwards’ utterly uncontrolled narcissism. I cringe to think of what would have happened if the Rielle Hunter debacle had come out with Edwards as the nominee.
So the doyens of the Senate looked around for a anti-Hillary that was not John Edward and, hey presto, Barack Obama! They were gob-smacked by Barry’s Chauncey Gardiner impression. Trust me, Senators just eat up the type of crap that Obama was peddling. Obama’s transactional nature, his tendency to agree, at least in part, with almost anything his interlocutor said, was music to the ears of the self-involved Democratic leadership of the Senate.
The Senators also loved that Obama had no real history in national politics. By design, Obama had avoided all sorts of hot-button issue that usually trip up national Democratic candidates. This made him the most anti-Hillary of any candidate out there, a tabula rasa unencumbered by the baggage of a Kerry or a Clinton, or a Gore, or a Biden.
From the perspective of the Democratic Senate, Obama was their man. Joe Biden’s awkward bit of man love really did encapsulate the love the Senate had for Barack. With the push from the old Senate war horses, Mr. Hope and Change was unleashed on an unwary electorate.
Still as culpable as people as Dick Durban were, a huge portion of the blame has to rest with Obama. Having watched the man go through the motions, detached, reactive, unmotivated, I wonder why the hell he wanted the job in the first place. He worked so assiduously, making no false moves, saying all the right things, leaving no political trace, looking for his main chance to become the first African-American President. And it came to him only two years into his Senate tenure; woefully unprepared and unready for the slot of the Chief Executive.
What kind of egomania combined with cognitive dissonance allowed a man with not even two years in the Senate to think he was ready for the Oval Office? With his studied avoidance of hard political choices, and his constitutional inability to handle any kind of conflict, Obama should have known that his personal defects made him unsuited for the job during a time of hyper-partisanship.
I don’t like using the politically and racially loaded word “arrogant” to describe the Obama, but it is the only word that fits. The man is unbelievably arrogant. He bought into his own propaganda and drank deep his own kool-aid. He really believed that he was a transformational actor, a person for the ages. He believed that his unique gifts would lead the US out of the hyper-partisan hell it found itself in.
But Obama did not want to do the real work, he did not want to confront a Regan legacy head on, but co-opt it. He thought he could do the small bore Neo-Liberal politics of Bill Clinton without the charm and compassion that the Big Dog brought to the discussion. Barack Obama also thought he could do the politics without Bill Clinton’s willingness to scrap. Clinton always saw politics as a way to connect to people; Obama treats politics like a math equation.
Yet for all his faults, Obama was able to snooker the media and then, very narrowly, the Primary voters, into his myth of adequacy. He was able to convince the nation that he was a better option than McCain, which he was and still is. What he was not able to do, was resolve the central failure of our Political Duopoly, and the rabid partisanship it creates. He never had the tools to do that, he never had the foundational principles, he never had the emotional equipment, he never had the grit. Barack Obama only had his exaggerated belief in himself as a man that would use sweat reason and compromise to bring about unanimity. Not having any ideology to speak of, he never understood the ideological underpinnings of the Republicans nor his base. He knew not either himself or his opponents, which is why he keeps failing. Sun Tzu would not approve.
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