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This week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline, but in two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment.
From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, "a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes for his presidency began to wonder whether they had misjudged the man." They once held "an unromantically high opinion of Obama," and were key to his rise, but now they are concluding that the president isn't "the person of integrity and even classiness they had thought."
It is tough being President, especially when you don't realize that you are in over your head.
Just as stinging as Elizabeth Drew on domestic matters was Leslie Gelb on Mr. Obama and foreign policy in the Daily Beast. Mr. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and fully plugged into the Democratic foreign-policy establishment, wrote this week that the president's Asia trip suggested "a disturbing amateurishness in managing America's power." The president's Afghanistan review has been "inexcusably clumsy," Mideast negotiations have been "fumbling." So unsuccessful was the trip that Mr. Gelb suggested Mr. Obama take responsibility for it "as President Kennedy did after the Bay of Pigs."
He added that rather than bowing to emperors—Mr. Obama "seems to do this stuff spontaneously and inexplicably"—he should begin to bow to "the voices of experience" in Washington.
When longtime political observers start calling for wise men, a president is in trouble.
Too many from the foreign policy Old Guard never really got beyond the Cold War. That ilk was where PNAC came from. It isn't all Bushies fault by any means, but even people set in their ways from decades worth of top-notch experience need to start realizing that after Iraq and the economic crisis, the world is a different place and its attitudes toward America have changed, not necessarily for the better. We are never going to be the sole superpower in the way that so many thought we might after the breakup of the Soviet Union. We will clearly continue as a major player, but we are nowhere near being a majority stockholder here, and we will need to curry and maintain productive working relationships with other blocs if we mean to prosper. Europe will continue to be important, but the focus for various reasons is shifting to Asia and to South America. We need to to demonstrate to all potential partners there that we understand how the new world works and want -- with them -- to play a meaningful and cooperative role in moving it forward. For all the whining over him, Geithner did a tremendous job last Spring in toning down animosity over the US-initiated credit crisis and setting a stage on which the US and the rest of the G-20 can move sensibly forward on financial and economic issues. Obama and Clinton have the task of duplicating that success over a broader range of issues. So far so good. We don't know yet what will come out of this recent Asia trip because it's much too soon to tell. What we do know is that we have made our new appeal to all four major players there without causing any of them any significant grief. That's a sign of promise, one that some of the proverbial nattering nabobs inside the Beltway are mistaking for a sign of weakness.
No one loves Barack Obama. Half the American people say they support him, and Democrats are still with him. But there were Bill Clinton supporters who really loved him. George W. Bush had people who loved him. A lot of people loved Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. But no one seems to love Mr. Obama now; they're not dazzled and head over heels. That's gone away. He himself seems a fairly chilly customer; perhaps in turn he inspires chilly support. But presidents need that rock—bottom 20% who, no matter what's happening—war, unemployment—adore their guy, have complete faith in him, and insist that you love him, too. Peggy Noonan--Wall Street Journal
I read this article and agree with Noonan on all points but this one above. She obviously has not hung out with 95 percent of black folk who love his skid-marked drawers, no matter what he did!
There is an irrational love for this man amongst blacks. If he said that all old folk must die, they'd say, "Hey....he's just cleanin' up behind Bush". I got black folk who are against gay marriage and they do the "well but" thing.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista
Too many from the foreign policy Old Guard never really got beyond the Cold War. That ilk was where PNAC came from. It isn't all Bushies fault by any means, but even people set in their ways from decades worth of top-notch experience need to start realizing that after Iraq and the economic crisis, the world is a different place and its attitudes toward America have changed, not necessarily for the better. We are never going to be the sole superpower in the way that so many thought we might after the breakup of the Soviet Union. We will clearly continue as a major player, but we are nowhere near being a majority stockholder here, and we will need to curry and maintain productive working relationships with other blocs if we mean to prosper. Europe will continue to be important, but the focus for various reasons is shifting to Asia and to South America. We need to to demonstrate to all potential partners there that we understand how the new world works and want -- with them -- to play a meaningful and cooperative role in moving it forward. For all the whining over him, Geithner did a tremendous job last Spring in toning down animosity over the US-initiated credit crisis and setting a stage on which the US and the rest of the G-20 can move sensibly forward on financial and economic issues. Obama and Clinton have the task of duplicating that success over a broader range of issues. So far so good. We don't know yet what will come out of this recent Asia trip because it's much too soon to tell. What we do know is that we have made our new appeal to all four major players there without causing any of them any significant grief. That's a sign of promise, one that some of the proverbial nattering nabobs inside the Beltway are mistaking for a sign of weakness.
This is a great post, Saga, and I hope to expand on what you meant below.
I think what you have said is true. The paradigm shift represented by the move away from the Cold War to the War on Terror has not really set in among many circles. People do realize that Peggy Noonan was one of Reagan's speechwriters, right? The height of her career was spent crafting a pre- post-Cold War American image.
The images of nuclear holocaust arising from that era are simply no longer relevant. I think today's 20-year-olds get that. They really don't remember a world in which the Soviet powers of Old Europe matter. They are much more interested in Central and South America, Asia, and the Middle East. Nobody is interested in taking German anymore, for example, they are instead learning Spanish, Mandarin, and Arabic. In my experience and as a group, they tend to look at established adults' chagrin at the President's Asian bow with a sense of wonder, bemusement, and shock. I can't say that I disagree with them. September 11th's efficiency and shock confirmed my earlier 12-year-old incredulity at the futility of stockpiling arms that could theoretically blow the world up 30 times over. To people who were too young to understand Cold War logic, Cold War logic literally made no sense.
They look at the President's bow to what other people call the Third World's leaders as exactly what it was--an attempt to adapt to other people's cultures that to them have always mattered. I am between older Baby Boomers and them in my worldview, although, as a member of Gen X, there are fewer of me than there are of the generations bookending mine. But I see their point. Peggy Noonan and people like that are a non-issue to me. Their prime was 20 to 30 years ago, and it is now past. The WSJ still publishes what they have to say, but the WSJ is itself becoming less and less relevant. This phenomenon is less a result of any particular forces than it is the result of the passage of time. I trust today's young people to lead us into a future that only they understand, and I am sick of older people forcing a Cold War paradigm down our throats. I know who I think will prevail, simply because they will have time and energy on their side.
GRRRR How Dare Obama show respect to another nation! We are Americans WE RESPECT NOTHING!
Lulz, the WSJ has fallen so far from what it once was. It allowed any integrity it once could convey to be sold away when newscorp/Murdoch bought it (for the very reason to 'buy' and redirect that public capita)
Must be why he ditched Netanyahu, feeling a deep one coming on and his last worn shred of self-respect, he headed for the nearest exit.
One could only wish.
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