{"id":6304,"date":"2013-08-06T10:01:23","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T17:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6304"},"modified":"2013-08-06T10:01:23","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T17:01:23","slug":"obama-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-who\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Who?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Critics of the president are convinced that Barack Obama will do lasting damage to the U.S. I doubt it.<\/p>\n

Obama came to power in the third year of large Democratic congressional majorities. In his first referendum, he lost the House and he may soon lose the Senate; in other words, there followed a somewhat normal reaction against a majority party. Obama\u2019s popularity rating is well below 50%, despite an obsequious media and a brilliantly negative billion-dollar campaign that long ago turned Mitt Romney into a veritable elevator-using, equestrian-marrying, canine-hating monster.<\/p>\n

In the second term, there is little of the Obama bully pulpit left. \u201cMake no mistake about it\u201d and \u201clet me be perfectly clear\u201d can incur caricature, not fainting. \u201cReally,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not kidding,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m serious,\u201d \u201cin point of fact,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m not making this up\u201d often prove rhetorical hints that the opposite is true. When Obama warns about gridlock in Washington, the \u201csame old tired politics,\u201d the dangers of a tyrant or king in the White House, the need for an honest IRS, or the perils of government surveillance, these admonitions have tragically become a psychological tic to warn us about himself. Former jokes aboutsiccing the IRS on his enemies<\/a>\u00a0or using Predator drones to\u00a0go after suitors of his daughters<\/a>\u00a0are as eerie as they are comedic.<\/p>\n

Each new \u201chistoric\u201d speech is by now mostly history repeating itself as farce. The Victory Column oration gave way to a flat vignette at the Brandenburg Gate. The Cairo speech follow-ups were mostly confusion about Egypt and Syria, without the fictions of the West\u2019s underappreciated debts to Islam. The second Trayvon Martin aside on racial look-alikes was even more disturbing that the first. I don\u2019t think Obama\u2019s advisors will allow him to proclaim any more \u201cdeadlines,\u201d or \u201cred lines,\u201d or any sort of lines at all in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Aside from Obama himself, no one in the post-Benghazi, -AP, -NSA, and -IRS scandal era references the president any longer as the former \u201cprofessor of constitutional law.\u201d In Obama\u2019s case even\u00a0the inflated title<\/a>\u00a0has become an oxymoron.<\/p>\n

Ever so slowly, the press, albeit still for the most part privately, is learning that it has been had\u00a0by one of its own<\/a>. The breach of journalistic ethics turned out not to be a necessary means to an exalted liberal end, but instead was interpreted cynically by Obama as exemption for doing pretty much what he pleased \u2014 like going after AP reporters for leaking national security in a way the administration could only envy, given its own less impressive efforts to divulge what should not have been divulged. How odd that a truly adversarial press is an aid to conservatives in power, in keeping them on their toes about scandal, and how ironic that liberal media obeisance green-lights wrongdoing among those whom they deify.<\/p>\n

What does the Arab Spring conjure up? Or \u201clead from behind\u201d? Or \u201creset\u201d? (If only Obama could envision Putin as George Zimmerman, we might get real on Russia.) Or an \u201cOK\u201d from the Arab League to act? Or CIA gun-running in Libya? Or the military non-response to Benghazi? Or the incarceration of Mr. Nakoula, the supposedly evil filmmaker? Or \u201cal-Qaeda on the run\u201d? Or the successive flip-flops on Mubarak, Morsi, and the Egyptian military? Or serial \u201cdeadlines\u201d to Iran, or consecutive \u201cred lines\u201d in Syria? (If only these threats abroad carried as much weight as Obama\u2019s promises to \u201cbankrupt\u201d coal companies and send our power bills \u201cskyrocketing.\u201d) Or the \u201cpeace-process\u201d with the Palestinians? Or closing down the embassies of the Middle East? (If only Islamists were Republicans, they might be on the receiving end of real presidential threats like \u201cpunish our enemies.\u201d) What do all these misadventures abroad have in common? I think the answer is nothing and everything: no consistency other than confusion.<\/p>\n

In terms of future elections, Obama has created a new racial paradox for Democrats, the ironic wage of his own racial divisiveness. \u00a0As Obama turns off independent voters of all backgrounds by the now monotonous rhetoric \u2014 from \u201ctypical white person\u201d to his racial grandstanding in the Trayvon Martin matter, with help always from the reliably polarizing Eric Holder (\u201cmy people,\u201d \u201ccowards\u201d) \u2014 the president grows even shriller to make up the losses of moderate voters. Polls now show that the public is more likely to consider Obama racially divisive than a healer. In the upcoming midterm election, it is still unclear whether minority voters will continue to turn out in record numbers and vote in record lockstep Democratic fashion, a scenario increasingly critical to Obama as he loses independents. When one plays at zero-sum identity politics, each voter energized by racial referencing also means one voter \u2014 or more \u2014 polarized.<\/p>\n

Cap and trade is dead. EPA director\u00a0Lisa \u201cRichard Windsor\u201d Jackson<\/a>\u00a0proved a hushed-up embarrassment, a sort of asexual version of \u201cCarlos Danger.\u201d In any case, her quiet departure was no more noticed than was the entire tenure of Hilda Solis. Steven Chu and his hopes for gas prices to reach European levels will be as memorable a wish or prediction as was his sigh that California agriculture would dry up and blow away. Drivers have paid over $1 trillion more in collectively higher gas prices since Obama took office. That fact will be more remembered than the promised wave of new green electric cars and high-speed rail.<\/p>\n

When Obama occasionally soars with the old \u201cwind and solar\u201d and \u201cmillions of new green jobs\u201d tropes, most associate those references with \u201cSolyndra.\u201d How odd that those in the fracking business \u2014 reducing carbon emissions, lowering electricity prices, reducing dependence on foreign energy sources \u2014 have done Obama far more political good than his often inept and corrupt friends\u00a0in the green subsidy racket<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One way or another, Obamacare will be repealed. If a House representative in 2009 had suggested that those in the executive branch should not enforce the employer mandate of the newly passed Obamacare, he would have incurred charges of being disloyal to the Constitution. Now the author of the bill calls it a \u201ctrain wreck,\u201d and the president chooses not to faithfully execute elements of his own law, his \u201csignature\u201d legislative achievement. With friends like these, why does Obamacare need enemies?<\/p>\n

Why would the IRS, charged with enforcing Obamacare, wish its own employees to be exempt from the statutes it will enforce on others? Beware, Democrats: maybe Lois Lerner & Co. will do more freelancing and punish those who spiked their health care premiums. The more vehemently a group in 2009 demanded Obamacare \u2014 unions, government employees, pro-Democratic businesses \u2014 the more likely they were by 2013 to wish exemption from it. Is the lesson something like: \u201cI should be excused from it, since I promoted it more than others\u201d?<\/p>\n

If anyone were to repeat the Obama reform mantra of 2008 \u2014 a new transparency, an end to lobbyists, no more revolving doors \u2014 it would incur laughter. A Larry Summers or Peter Orszag forgot Obama\u2019s promises not to make millions of dollars from the influence gained during their government service. Citibank seems to be bankrolling the retirement plans of all those who worked at Obama\u2019s Treasury Department. I think Obama will do the same when he leaves office, in the fashion of both Hillary Clinton and Lisa Jackson. Expect soon his $1 million speaking fees to lecture Citibank and Goldman Sachs on diversity and green energy.<\/p>\n

When we recount Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS mess, the AP\/James Rosen affair, or the NSA disclosures, we think not of modern scandals per se, but rather in historical terms: which prior administration was more corrupt and dishonest \u2014 Nixon\u2019s or Grant\u2019s? Is that comparison fair to either of them? Did Obama, in compensation, give us Reconstruction or an opening to China? Has he accomplished as much as Harding?<\/p>\n

Americans are always up for a good class war. Obama gave them one, with all the talk of the \u201cone percent,\u201d \u201cmillionaires and billionaires,\u201d and the \u201cpay your fair share\u201d boilerplate. But to be a good class warrior also requires the pretense of populism. Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich were at least not habitu\u00e9s of Martha\u2019s Vineyard, did not make second homes out of tony golf courses, did not have the family jetting to Aspen and Costa del Sol to take time off with those who forgot when to quit their profiting. How can a president so rail at the 1% and yet so wish to play, vacation, and be among those who didn\u2019t build their wealth?<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s signature achievement? He has established a precedent that the president can play all the golf he wisheswithout being caricatured<\/a>\u00a0as a distracted would-be aristocrat.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Carter\u2019s four years had short-term consequences \u2014\u00a0almost all negative<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 but little long-term damage. Obama\u2019s eight years in theory\u00a0should have<\/a>\u00a0far more lasting ramifications, given the huge debt, radical appointees, job-killing regulations, and dismal economy of the last five years. Yet we are learning that he is proving even a more inconsequential figure than was Carter. And so likewise in years to come, even his true believers will talk more of an iconic Barack Obama before and after he was president \u2014 but rarely during.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media Critics of the president are convinced that Barack Obama will do lasting damage to the U.S. I doubt it.<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[247,536],"tags":[12,1055,405,357,88,40,67],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1DG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6860,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/vdh-quoted-in-barack-obamas-past-as-murky-as-his-word\/","url_meta":{"origin":6304,"position":0},"title":"VDH Quoted In, “Barack Obama’s past as murky as his word”","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jack Kelly \/\/\u00a0The Pittsburgh Press\u00a0 Onyango \u201cOmar\u201d Obama, 69, half-brother of Barack Obama Sr., came to the United States on a student visa in 1963, remained here illegally after it expired, was ordered to leave the U.S. in 1986, 1989 and 1992, but ignored the deportation orders. After Onyango\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1295,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-derangement-syndrome\/","url_meta":{"origin":6304,"position":1},"title":"Obama Derangement Syndrome?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media I\u2019d say if you live in the United States of America and you vote for George Bush, you\u2019ve lost your mind. \u2014 John Edwards When does the legitimate \u201cI oppose Obama\u201d descend into the illegitimate \u201cI hate Obama\u201d? 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But this time, and for the first time, he was pitted against a skilled debater who had both the better argument and the better\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6176,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-press-and-dr-faustus\/","url_meta":{"origin":6304,"position":3},"title":"The Press and Dr. Faustus","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Too late, American journalists realize their mistake. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In the old Dr. Faustus story, a young scholar bargains away his soul to the devil for promises of obtaining almost anything he wants. The American media has done much the same thing with the Obama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3256,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-enigma\/","url_meta":{"origin":6304,"position":4},"title":"The Obama Enigma","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Lame-duck Republican President Bush's dismal poll ratings have descended to those of Harry Truman's when he left office. The Democratic majority in Congress will probably widen after the election. Republican nominee John McCain has not run a dynamic campaign. Gen. Colin Powell, George\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2008"","block_context":{"text":"October 2008","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2008\/october-2008\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":392,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-game-changes\/","url_meta":{"origin":6304,"position":5},"title":"The Game Changes","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Usually after a presidential debate, both sides spin the results. But after the first face-off between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, Obama\u2019s exasperated handlers made no such effort. How could they when most opinion polls revealed that two-thirds of viewers thought Obama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6305,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions\/6305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}