Obama’s Contempt For Voters
July 26, 2012 7 Comments
President Obama made some interesting statements to Charlie Rose a couple weeks ago that provide quite a bit of insight to his thought process. Obama said:
When I think about what we’ve done well and what we haven’t done well, the mistake of my first term – couple of years – was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that’s important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times.
In this statement we see Obama harken back to his Alinsky days as a community organizer. Alinsky taught in his book “Rules For Radicals” that communication is the key to success for a radical. If a radical cannot properly communicate with people, it matters not that his policies are good or right. While we see this line of thinking from Obama, we also see a complete lack of self examination concerning his policies. That’s really the problem with his comment.
Obama hasn’t stopped to wonder whether or not his policies have worked or whether they were even good ideas in the first place. They’re his ideas and his policies, so they must be good. He honestly doesn’t believe that his policies have failed. His only failure, in his mind, is that he and his spin team hasn’t done a good job with the razzle dazzle surrounding these policies. No doubt, the administration could have done a better job selling its policies. But when the President’s policies not only weren’t very good but have actually failed the problem wasn’t in the sell job.
Apparently this has never occurred to the President because he believes part of his job as President is to tell us a story. David Axlerod did a terrific job of this during the 2008 campaign, selling the American people a story of Obama that largely wasn’t true. At some point though a President has to be about more than a glitzy story, his policies have to be successful. Had the economy not turned around in 1983-84 Reagan wouldn’t have been re-elected despite his mastery at telling stories and selling policies.
We’ve been told for years that Obama is the Democrat’s great communicator, even he acknowledges he’s anything but. Even had Obama done a better job selling his policies he would still be looking at a failed Stimulus package, a failed jobs bill, 8.2% unemployment, $5 trillion in new debt and weak economic growth. How is he going to sell this to the American people? Is he going to razzle dazzle us with fireworks and a bedtime story?
While communication is important, we’ve had Presidents who have been largely successful even without having the best communication skills. President George W. Bush comes to mind. At the end of the day, communication is secondary to having good policies. Even if Bush had been a terrific communicator, by the last two years of his second term his poll numbers would still have been low because Iraq wasn’t going well. There was no putting lipstick on the pig, the public soured on the war. The same can be said for Obama, he can’t put lipstick on the economic pig right now. No amount of good communication will blind the public from the state of the economy or the fact that few are better off than they were four years ago.
For Obama to believe the problem is communication exposes his arrogance and narcissism. He cannot acknowledge his policies haven’t worked unless you consider his silence about his second term plan as an admission of failure. He refuses to point at policies or decisions he has made and say ‘you know, we should have done that differently’ or ‘that didn’t work.’ Instead he blames all of his problems on communication. In doing this he shows his lack of self critique and he shows an utter contempt for the intelligence of the American public. He honestly believes that a President can razzle dazzle us for four years without anyone catching on that things aren’t getting any better. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a President who has had this much contempt for the intelligence of voters.
About Steven
I have often wondered if President Obama is capable of admitting when he is wrong. His actions and his attitude lead me to believe he is not. They also lead me to believe he has a very poor opinion of people like you and me.
We’re the enemy according to Obama, so I should think he doesn’t have anything other than a very poor opinion of us. From all accounts the President doesn’t listen to any of his cabinet members. When he holds cabinet meetings, it’s a one man show. He dictates policy to the point of minutia. He appears to not listen to anyone other than Axlerod and Jarrett, in fact the latter overtly prevents those with opposing views from meeting with the President.
I hope Obama loses for no other reason than to see what his reaction is. Not just on election night but over the course of days, weeks, months and years. We’ll see so much more about the truth of Obama after he’s lost and out of office. That is if we can defeat him in the first place.
You’re right, I would also love to see him lose to see his reaction, and to hear the excuses he comes up with. He’s got such a thin skin, it would surely be amusing to watch him face rejection. You know he won’t go away quietly.
That’s what I’m thinking. I only hope he doesn’t try to start a race riot on his way out.
So Mr. Birn, when was the last time you admitted you were wrong? You never do. Is that arrogance on your part? Are you and Mr. Obama of the same kin? You refused to admit that calling a female college student ugly in a public forum is not a civil thing to do. You refuse to admit to the another writer herein that your statistics concerning the federal budget were wrong. You refused to admit that you have no proof for your claim that Roosevelt enacted Social Security to help his re-election.
You refuse to admit that Rush really did claim a Hollywood conspiracy concerning the Batman movie and the villain’s name of Bane. ( Maybe he was being sarcastic? LOL)
All you do is offer excuses and excuses for your cockeyed, misinformed view of the world. And now you theorize that Obama is going to react to his loss in the election by causing race riots!
Only a lunatic could come up with something like that. You are going to have to have better political observations than that if you ever expect to leave your dreary legal career and become a highly paid far-right political pundit. Although however, , Rush seems to do all right with his dim witted idiocy.
The best you can come up with is that I called Sandra Fluke ugly and I don’t buy that Limbaugh believes Bane is a Hollywood conspiracy. (I’ve since read a transcript of Limbaugh’s comments and it’s pretty clear he said that the Democrats would try to use the Bane-Bain name against Romney, not that it was some grand Hollywood conspiracy). Interestingly the only things you can cite about me are associated with Limbaugh. So do you just listen to him and compare his commentary to other conservatives?
I’m more than happy to admit when I’m wrong but I’m not going to write a post detailing each position I’ve been off on. To this day I’m surprised at how well Rick Santorum did in Iowa and in the GOP Primary generally. He became the anti-Romney despite having been written off in most of the debates by myself and most everyone else. I thought Occupy Wall Street would be more of a problem during 2012 but despite all the money spent organizing OWS has completely fizzled. Meanwhile the Tea Party, which I worried was fizzling, is winning elections in Texas and Georgia as recently as last night. None of us are right about everything, even if I’m right most of the time.
I guess that we should give Rush the benefit of any doubt even when there is no doubt in anyone’s mind but yours. I supplied you with a copy of the transcript because you said, ” I could care less what Limbaugh says. “So why should i bother reading it now?
Now about Limbaugh: He also makes the boast that he is always right. We both know that Limbaugh doesn’t know his left foot from his right foot-nor do most of his listeners-nor do most of his listeners care that he is a blithering idiot.
I’m glad you think your are right most of the time. I’m glad you think it is OK to say mean, infantile things about people in your public forum. Why I am glad? Because your ideas and observations as written here demonstrate just how intellectually and emotional impoverished someone one the far right can be. That is especially striking considering that you are a lawyer and you have had at least seven years of education to bring a little enlightenment to your perception of the world.
Although, I know that at Loyola University in New Orleans in the 1980′s there was actually a group of law students who met regularly to listen to white racist music and exchange other KKK material. So much for the enlightenment of a college education I suppose.