Obama's Leadership

[96Qowner]

This is the point I was trying to make in another thread. Obama just doesn't have any juice - never did. All this crap is the work of Pelosi and Reid.

Most of it – the position Democrats are now in – isn’t a result of any GOP narrative. It isn’t even necessarily because of the bad economy. It is a result of a poor leader caving into a special interest caucus within his party and putting that caucus’s priorities in front of the people’s priority.

Pretending it was anything else is simply nonsense. Democrats are facing an electoral avalanche in November because Obama let Pelosi and Reid usurp the leadership role that was his. And now they get to pay the butcher’s bill.

http://www.qando.net/?p=9552

[IBCoupe]

I don't buy it. Pelosi and Reid wanted things very different than what the President was publicly calling for. And we ended up with what President Obama wanted. The reason people attribute Congress' laws with the Administration's policies is because they are related.

You say President Obama doesn't have any juice, and I wonder exactly what you mean. The man is the best known person in the United States; perhaps in much of the world, too. President Obama remains the head of the Democratic Party, and he remains a public figure that can publicly put his weight (or publicly not do so) behind a policy initiative.

That's not to say that President Obama's leadership isn't to be criticized - he should have fired his Generals when they failed to give him what he asked for: more than one viable strategy for Afghanistan. But to say that these policies are a failing of President Obama's leadership, as if he had absolutely no input or control over what went into it, is a little silly.

[96Qowner]

Oh c'mon.

When we cling blindly to partisanship we resign ourselves to being manipulated by catch phrases and other symbols, like a school of fish or a flock of birds. Whether you're a socialist or a libertarian at heart, with firmly held principles to be argued and debated, you still have to view the world through a realistic prism.

Barack Obama is a cool guy. I was seriously impressed with his speech at the 2006 Democratic convention. The guy has amazing charisma, and at the time I wished he was a Republican. In 2008 he was also very impressive in his approach to race, soft-pedaling it and setting it aside at every opportunity - bravo. But the guy has no experience in what he's doing, and never did. I can't understand how anyone can seriously claim otherwise, unless it's simply going to be a quibble over hyperbole. Sure, he isn't TOTALLY lacking, but c'mon, as the SNL skits goes ... Really? ... really ...

People think that once you take the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office, people salute you and say yessir and rush to do each and every little thing you want. Again I ask .... really? Nu uh, not so much. It's not the chair, it's the guy. Pelosi and Reid have absolutely no reason to do anything they don't want to do, merely because Obama says so. It's simply naive to think otherwise. They're separate branches of government, for pete's sake. Usually, as you say, the President is the de facto head of the Party, but that's only because he was the "head" of the Party before he ran. Obama never had any power in the party. Nobody owes him anything and nobody cares what he wants if it conflicts with what they want (pardon my hyperbole).

Obama can fire all the generals he wants, but it doesn't mean the next one will do what Obama tells him to, if he deems it unwise. He'll stall and leak damaging info and call powerful allies in government to put pressure on him,etc. The same applies to the powerful, knowledgeable people in his administration, and to the unappointed civil staff who actually do all the work.

This President has been given the "honor" of being responsible for everything Nancy and Harry "accomplished", just as Bush took the "honor" of being responsible for everything the Republican and Democratic Congresses "accomplished". Neither was the case, and to believe so hampers ones ability to understand who's responsible for what's happened to this country and who has the ability to correct it.

We've been told that Obama is running the show, but it's just theater. Obama is the guy out front, hawking the attraction. He doesn't own the show and he doesn't run it.

If you want to, you can sure rehash all of Obama's previous record of experience and accomplishment. As far as I've been able to determine, he never worked at a for-profit business. He was always an appointee to some position that involved distributing other people's money. He was never much of an executive, etc. During his entire campaign, I waited to find out who his people were, what his power base was. We never did find out. Now we've met a whole series of odd activist types, never previously heard from.

Obama never had any juice. This is all the fault of Congress and the President who failed to stop it with his one Constitutional power - his veto.

[IBCoupe]

I'm not sure which part of my comment indicated partisanship to you, but okay.

You keep spewing conclusions: that President Obama can't get Senator Reid or Rep. Pelosi to do anything, that he has no control, that his character isn't such as to be conducive to getting people to do what he wants.

I'm left to ask exactly how it is you've come to these conclusions. You offer no evidence, no analysis. You point to the Articles of the Constitution as evidence as to how this Administration (and arguably any administration) works, but the Articles don't mention "political parties." They don't mention publicity. They don't mention speeches. They don't mention 24/7 media commentary. They don't mention campaigns and primaries. They don't mention a whole mess of things that come into play. So even if you're ultimately correct in your assessment, your argument is extremely weak, and you've provided absolutely no reason for us to be convinced.

Work with me, here. I already got your conclusions; you don't need to repeat them. Maybe we've been "told" that President Obama is running the show, but in response, all you've done is "tell" us that he isn't.

[AZhitman]

he should have fired his Generals when they failed to give him what he asked for: more than one viable strategy for Afghanistan.

Yeah, he's qualified to decide what's "viable" and what isn't.

Now, if you'd offered up his chest-thumping on how he wasn't going to listen to his Generals (and his subsequent backpedaling soon thereafter) as an example of an appropriately-criticized decision, I'd be right there with ya.

[IBCoupe]

Greg, he asked for multiple realistic options for a new tactic in Afghanistan.

The first plan the military offered was one that involved sending 10,000 more troops - laughably minimal by most assessments.

The second plan the military offered was one that involved sending 40,000 more troops. This was their Goldilocks plan.

The third plan the military offered was one that involved sending 80,000 more troops - more than they had available to send.

The proper thing to do when the military gives you one good option when you've asked for more than one is to shoot the messengers.