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The Spectacle Blog
If there’s one thing that typified Barack Obama’s rise to power, it was his vow to combat the cynicism Americans have about what is possible in Washington. It’s a theme that he used as a state senator from Illinois who was seaking a U.S. Senate seat and that he would return to as a presidential candidate. But as he’s approaching the mid-point of his presidency, even his own White House staffers are starting to realize that their expectations for Obama may have been a bit lofty. Peter Baker writes in a New York Times magazine piece on Obama:
Some White House aides who were ready to carve a new spot on Mount Rushmore for their boss two years ago privately concede now that he cannot be another Abraham Lincoln after all. In this environment, they have increasingly concluded, it may be that every modern president is going to be, at best, average.
“We’re all a lot more cynical now,” one aide told me. The easy answer is to blame the Republicans, and White House aides do that with exuberance. But they are also looking at their own misjudgments, the hubris that led them to think they really could defy the laws of politics. “It’s not that we believed our own press or press releases, but there was definitely a sense at the beginning that we could really change Washington,” another White House official told me. “ ‘Arrogance’ isn’t the right word, but we were overconfident.”
Among other points of interest in the article…
— Obama says he now realizes that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects…”
— The White House doesn’t think Sarah Palin will run in 2012, doesn’t think Mitt Romney can win a GOP primary as a result of his Massachusetts health care plan, and instead expects to run against Mike Huckabee.
— Identifies outgoing Sen. Judd Gregg and Rep. Paul Ryan as the only Republicans he could work with who are serious about economic and fiscal policy.
View all comments (13) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/13/wh-aide-were-all-a-lot-more-cy
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Eric Cartman| 10.13.10 @ 2:48PM
"Identifies outgoing Sen. Judd Gregg and Rep. Paul Ryan as the only Republicans he could work with who are serious about economic and fiscal policy."
Hmmmmm. So why didn't he?
Flee| 10.13.10 @ 3:08PM
He didn't because it would be crediting Republicans as non-obstructors and that does not work for his aims. How can you demonize someone you want to work with? They are serious and well informed about fiscal policy and that is why they know better than to try to work with Obama before this election is over. When it's over and he is forced to work with them, then we will see if he is intelligent enough to know that Republicans have ideas that have to potential to work. No one has ideas that provide all the solutions to the problems that ail our country but to think that Republicans have nothing of value to offer is simply election season politics and that is truly what Obama relishes the most.
Eric Cartman| 10.13.10 @ 3:14PM
Seems to be so, Flee. But don't you feel bad for all these staffers? The poor babies. To have all that hope that you would come in, start issuing directives and have the people bow and scrape before you and your Dear Leader. I mean, this all these people have ever dreamed about. And now to have their dreams dashed up against the rocks of reality . . . . makes ya just want to laugh your ass off, doesn't it?
dc| 10.13.10 @ 3:57PM
EC, these staffers (you must include the Demons' congressional staffers too) are far worse people than you can imagine. I had the misfortune of having to work in close quarters battle against them for several years on a Senate committee staff, and from up and too-close personal knowledge I can assert: they are, literally, the re-education camp guards. They would kill your children for sport. There is nothing they would not do to advance their ideological imperative, which is to ration, tax, regulate annex and/or kill every productive man, woman, child or entity in this country, in the name of world socialism, Gaia-centric communism, or whatever their celebrated cause-du-jour might be.
They are, in short, embryonic totalitarians; all they need is a cowed, disarmed, and resigned populace and they nearly have it.
Let me emphasize: the Democrat staffers I worked with would kill your children in front of you to advance their hard-leftist causes. Pity them? My God, no--they are your vilest enemies, in perpetuity. Celebrate their defeats and wish them the worst on their way out.
Eric Cartman| 10.13.10 @ 7:52PM
No worries, dc. They are my sworn enemies, only to be destroyed, not befriended.
Franklin| 10.13.10 @ 5:29PM
“We’re all a lot more cynical now” NOW?? I was cynical as soon as the slobbering over little o started.
Richard| 10.13.10 @ 6:03PM
No, "arrogance" is the right word. In spades.
Christopher Holland| 10.13.10 @ 8:28PM
So people in the White House are surprised that an inexperienced, unqualified small time politician from Chicago who never had a job and never achieved anything in his life, is incompetent. These guys need to spend a lot more time in the real world.
Tenn Slim| 10.14.10 @ 8:50AM
Folks here in the Mid Mississippi Ridges and Deltas have a noun for this type of character. It cannot be printed!!.
However, we do have a remedy for such.
It also cannot be printed.
Semper Fi
end
p-squared| 10.14.10 @ 11:08AM
Every administration starts with pie-eyed staffers thinking they can, with the merest of touches, undo the fraud, waste, corruption, and rapant criminal activity that has taken over 200 years to create in Washington. They blow into town on the winds of change and are immediately set upon by the careerist jackals that infest the place.
Fergie| 10.14.10 @ 3:43PM
"We're all a little more cynical now."
So refreshing to know that even the Obama Zombies are feeling the winds of change, now that they are at hurricane force! Should have changed things when it was but a gentle summer breeze!
FLOYD KRAUTNER| 10.14.10 @ 8:45PM
The Republicans have sunk to rock bottom in the past two years by opposing the common good for political advantage.
Their hypocrisy and fundamental dishonesty became clear during the lengthy negotiations about health care reform. In committees, the GOP got amendment after amendment and compromise after compromise added to the law— then they refused to vote for the revisions THEY had made.
Their desire to destroy Obama goes so far that their behavior borders on treason.
I cannot recall seeing such perfidy in more than 50 years of political observation.
One more thing, when a man proves false to agreements, he can never be trusted ever again.
In my business people who behave like Republican politicians end up in the ditch (or in prison) with a big label reading NOT TO BE TRUSTED!