by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n The China Presidency<\/strong><\/p>\n I have an heirloom china pitcher on my mantle that has dozens of glued cracks \u2014 so much so that it is now purely ornamental and will not hold water. When I was a boy I\u2019d ask my mother when, and under what circumstances, did the china crack apart.<\/p>\n She would provide stories about each fissure and mend, many of the break narratives handed down to her from her own grandparents in the house. There wasn\u2019t one single accident, but instead dozens that rendered a once useful pitcher into a non-functional art object.<\/p>\n Something of the same is happening with our President. He is experiencing the sharpest popularity decline in the history of first-year administrations. The problem is not just that he inherited a bad economy; Reagan did too. Or that the war in Afghanistan heats up, since it is not nearly as bad as the mess Nixon inherited in Vietnam.<\/p>\n Instead, after 11 months there has emerged a series of bothersome incidents that the public has come to associate with Obama, both the man and his philosophies. Some are major policy issues; others trivial acts of no cosmic importance. None in themselves matter all that much. Each gaffe or mistake was contextualized and mended, or attended to by Robert Gibbs. Some are Obama\u2019s fault; others the work of associates. Sometimes mere chance is the culprit.<\/p>\n I know Bush had his own list of catastrophes; other Presidents did as well. Again, my point is not trying to adjudicate relative culpability, but rather just to remind us all how and why Obama dived over 20 points in the polls in just 11 months\u2014and his speeches transformed from inspirational to caricatures.<\/p>\n In short, \u00a0taken together, after nearly a year, these fissures have nearly ruined the once pretty texture of the Obama administration, and almost rendered it incapable of effective governance.<\/p>\n Here is a random selection. I provide no chronology or theme. Nor do I judge the relative importance of any one incident. The point, again, is only that each was a fissure, some small, some major\u2014all were glued over. The result is that now the public understands that its china presidency is fragile and held together by mere glue.<\/p>\n Here it goes:<\/p>\n Constant apologies abroad for everything from slavery to Hiroshima<\/p>\n Bows to Saudi royalty, the Japanese emperor, and Chinese autocrats<\/p>\n The on-again\/off-again Guantanamo shut-down mess<\/p>\n The fight with the former CIA directors<\/p>\n The public show trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed<\/p>\n The reach out to Ahmadinejad Castro, Chavez, and assorted thugs<\/p>\n The Honduras fiasco<\/p>\n Czars everywhere<\/p>\n The serial \u201cBush did it\u201d\/reset whine abroad<\/p>\n The Queen of England\/I-pod fiasco<\/p>\n Gordon Brown gets snookered in his gift-giving<\/p>\n Unceremoniously shipping back the Churchill bust<\/p>\n The end of the special relationship with the UK<\/p>\n The New York on-the-town presidential splurge<\/p>\n Anita Dunn and her Mao worship<\/p>\n Timothy Geithner\/Tom Daschle\/Hilda Solis and their taxes<\/p>\n What ever happened to Gov. Richardson?<\/p>\n \u201cNo lobbyists\u201d = gads of them<\/p>\n The Podestas\u2019 insider influence-peddling empire<\/p>\n Sotomayor\u2019s \u201cwise Latina\u201d chauvinism<\/p>\n The Special Olympics silly quip<\/p>\n Trashing Nancy Reagan<\/p>\n The Skip Gates\/police acting \u201cstupidly\u201d mess<\/p>\n The get-Chicago-the-Olympics jaunt to Copenhagen<\/p>\n Cap-and-trade boondoggle<\/p>\n \u201cMillions of green jobs\u201d<\/p>\n Ignore gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power production<\/p>\n Cash-for-clunkers<\/p>\n The Joe Biden gaffe machine<\/p>\n Jobs \u201csaved\u201d or \u201ccreated\u201d rather than references to the actual unemployment rates<\/p>\n Van Jones, the racist and truther<\/p>\n Desiree Rogers won\u2019t testify<\/p>\n The blowback from, and silence about, the Rangel\/Dodd corruption<\/p>\n The White House party crashers plan to take the 5th Amendment<\/p>\n The \u2018bipartisanship\u2019 con<\/p>\n The pork-barrel stimulus spoils<\/p>\n The demonization of the Town-Hallers<\/p>\n The Acorn Mess<\/p>\n The Kevin Jennings\/Safe School Czar embarrassment<\/p>\n The SEIU direct access to the White House<\/p>\n The Asian Tour comedown<\/p>\n The politicization of the take-over of GM and Chrysler<\/p>\n The Obama readjustment in the order of paying back car creditors<\/p>\n Car dealerships closed on shaky criteria<\/p>\n Obama as \u201cCaesar\u201d<\/p>\n The Emanuel \u201cnever let a serious crisis go to waste\u201d boast<\/p>\n The Black Caucus\/Rangel\/Waters bid to bail out the inner-city radio stations<\/p>\n Yosi Sergant and the NEA<\/p>\n $1.7 trillion deficit<\/p>\n The planned $9 trillion added to the national debt<\/p>\n New income tax rates; health care surcharge talk; and payroll tax caps to be lifted<\/p>\n Rahm Emanuel\u2019s promised payback to those states that trash the stimulus<\/p>\n The supposed C-span aired health care debate<\/p>\n The promised website posts of pending legislation<\/p>\n Czechs and Poles sold out on missile defense<\/p>\n Sermons to and finger pointing at the Israelis<\/p>\n The failed \u2018Putin helps to stop a nuclear Iran\u2019 gambit<\/p>\n Voting present on the Iranian reformers in the street<\/p>\n Serial but empty deadlines to Ahmadinejad<\/p>\n The good war\/bad war twisting and turning on Iraq\/Afghanistan<\/p>\n The months-long dithering over Afghanistan<\/p>\n Renditions, tribunals, Patriot Act, etc. once trashed, now OK<\/p>\n Healthcare take-over<\/p>\n The 2,000 page proposed new health code<\/p>\n The embarrassing Nobel Peace Prize nomination<\/p>\n The attacks on surgeons, Chamber of Commerce, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc.<\/p>\n The Islam mythologies in the Cairo Speech<\/p>\n The al Arabiya \u201cBush did it\u201d interview<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s TV \u201cmy Muslim faith\u201d gaffe<\/p>\n The Nobel Speech<\/strong><\/p>\n I listened to it this morning quite early and posted at NRO. Bottom line: an academic sermon on peace\/war with the now accustomed Obama characteristics:<\/p>\n 1) long again (4,000 words); 2) \u201cI\u201d or \u201cme\u201d 34 times: same old self referencing; 3) the inadvertent cosmic arrogance [\u201cI do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.\u201d = you think?];\u00a04) straw men trope: some say this; others say that; but I uniquely say\u2026; 5) reference to my own personal inspirational \u00a0story; 6) trash my predecessor or his policies; 7) end with hopey\/changey cadences.<\/p>\n That was pretty much it \u2014 a pulpit exegesis that could have been cut to 500 words. I would have done the speech in 10 minutes and used the extra time to have lunch with poor neglected King Harald. (Second recommendation: Obama should try to hire some speech-writers over 40. There are a lot of old pro Democrat wordsmiths around that might come in and offer something new other than the now tired boilerplate.)<\/p>\n Some books\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n As I mentioned a few posts ago, I\u2019m rereading two great books on Belisarius\u2014the 1828 classic by the then 24-year-old Lord Mahon (with a new intro by Jon Coulston), and a new biography by Ian Hughes. They read like Greek tragedies: Belisaurius is Justinian\u2019s fireman, sent to stop Persians, Goths, Vandals, etc. always with too few troops, a plotting wife, court intrigue at his back, and a never satisfied emperor at home \u2014 apparently in some hope that Romanism could hold back the tide in the crumbling 6th century.<\/p>\n I am halfway through David Horowitz\u2019s moving tribute to his late daughter Sarah (A Cracking of the Heart<\/em>) that recounts their four-plus-decades relationship through turbulent politics, ill heath, and the often baffling past three decades in America. A sad, but fine reflection on life and the inevitably of change and death.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The China Presidency I have an heirloom china pitcher on my mantle that has dozens of glued cracks \u2014 so much so that it is now purely ornamental and will not hold water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[631],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-xe","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12305,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-power-of-media-ignorance\/","url_meta":{"origin":2060,"position":0},"title":"The Power of Media Ignorance","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Almost two weeks ago I offered at NRO a few\u00a0synopses\u00a0of various theories about why California \u2014 which, for a variety of reasons, had seemed so ripe for a New York\u2013style epidemic \u2014 had nonetheless strangely been exempt at least for a while from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3111,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-world-turned-upside-down-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":2060,"position":1},"title":"The World Turned Upside Down–Again","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Every once in a while, the world is turned upside down in just a few years, whether by ideological ferment or force of arms. 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