OBAMA 2012: FOUR YEARS LATER
A LOOK BACK AT HIS PRESIDENCY
By JONAH GOLDBERG
It's hard to believe that just four years ago, some were talking about Barack Obama as a national savior, a secular redeemer, a "light worker." Even more shocking, President Obama lost the nomination of his own party to none other than Hillary Clinton. How did we get here?
There are no shortage of recriminatory theories for President Obama's precipitous fall from would-be messiah, to near pariah. Discussions with leaders within the Democratic Party, including prominent former members of the Obama administration, give a kaleidoscopic picture of missed opportunities, wrong turns and embarrassing blunders.
The first mistake many cite was actually made before Obama was even elected: the selection of Joseph Biden as his vice president. During the campaign, all eyes were on John McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. But even then there were signs of the troubles to come (ironically, Biden's biggest "gaffe" - about Obama being tested early in his presidency - proved eerily prescient).
Still, nothing prepared the country for some of former Vice President Biden's comments while in office. Early on, when he told the Russian foreign minister he'd "rather punch a nun in the throat" than cooperate on an Iranian nuclear deal, the Obama administration knew they had a problem on their hands.
The strange comments and behavior kept coming: at an international summit on child poverty, he accused the Dalai Lama of issuing a "brain fart," he phoned Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts at home and called him a "[re]tard in short pants," and of course the several stories - clearly leaked by aides to the president - of Mr. Biden sitting in the president's chair in the Oval Office and being more than reluctant to get out when asked to do so by the president.
The last straw was Biden's complaint, emphatically offered at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, that he would have more influence over foreign policy if he were black. His staff's effort to dismiss the incident as a joke - at the normally comedic event - fell short largely because Biden shouted "I am not joking!" two dozens times in speech that lasted less than 10 minutes. The fact that Biden had not been invited to speak at the dinner in the first place only added to the controversy.
Ultimately, the embarrassment became too much and Mr. Biden became the first vice president to resign from office since Spiro Agnew.
The subsequent battle over Obama's replacement sapped his presidency of much of its energy. Indeed, many credit Hillary Clinton's decision to run against Obama to her anger at being passed over twice for the vice presidency. The failure of two of Obama's ostensibly bipartisan picks - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords - because they were too "rightwing" only made him seem weak compared to the firebrand liberal 111th congress. Charges that the Obama presidency was really a Trojan Horse for a Pelosi prime ministership only grew louder when he was forced to accept Henry Waxman as his vice president.
Indeed, the overconfidence of Congressional Democrats posed another major challenge to the Obama presidency. During the 2008 election, Obama's conservative critics had long complained that the then-freshman senator had little to no record of standing up the leftwing base of his party in part, they argued, because he himself was much more leftwing than he had let on.
Whatever the truth of that, what is not contested is that the Congressional Progressive Caucus - the largest partisan bloc in the Congress when Mr. Obama was elected - believed that the new president was "one of us" according to many sources contacted for this article.
The CPC, colloquially known as the "big swinging caucus" after an unfortunate joke by then-Republican Minority Leader John Boehner after a scandal involving Rep. Barney Frank (see side story), pushed Barack Obama on a wide array of fronts: they demanded very large cuts in the military budget, a sweeping government expansion into the role of healthcare, and in a move that experts agree caused the Wall Street Panic of 2010, they persuaded Mr. Obama to make the government's partial ownership of the remaining "Big Five" banks permanent. Representatives Frank and Charlie Rangel argued that the stakes, bought by the Bush treasury department, in the banks provided, in Frank's words, a "once in a lifetime opportunity to inject some social justice into the capitalist system." Or as Senator Jesse Jackson Jr. said, "if we've got them by the b - - - s already, why let go?"
Americans also don't like it when White House press secretary Keith Olbermann tells them that complaining about higher taxes is "racist."
A general consensus among political observers is that Obama's essential problem was that he was oversold and too naive and arrogant to realize he wasn't as his most devoted fans believed. A senior Democrat on Capitol Hill marveled: "In 2008, this guy promised to send everyone to college, vastly increase foreign aid, create a 'civilian national security force' that was just a well-funded as the U.S. military, his wife said he'd fix our 'broken souls,' and he said he'd make the oceans stop rising, all without increasing the deficit. The amazing thing is he thought it was all true. He makes Jimmy Carter look like he should be on Mt. Rushmore."
Another advisor compared Obama to Max Bialystock, the con man from the Mel Brooks' film "The Producers." In the movie, Bialystock sells 100% ownership of the play to dozens of investors. "Barack Obama sold 100% shares in his presidency to every constituency imaginable and they all thought they were at the front of the line after inauguration day."
Meanwhile, in a sign of the bitterness within the Democratic Party these days, former vice president Joe Biden has not endorsed a candidate. But he did say that President Obama could be a great leader in his second term "if he would only learn that the square circle grows moss only when the fat man bathes in dirty moonlight."
Jonah Goldberg is the author of "Redistribute This! A Conservative Manifesto" (2012).
A LOOK BACK AT HIS PRESIDENCY
By JONAH GOLDBERG
It's hard to believe that just four years ago, some were talking about Barack Obama as a national savior, a secular redeemer, a "light worker." Even more shocking, President Obama lost the nomination of his own party to none other than Hillary Clinton. How did we get here?
There are no shortage of recriminatory theories for President Obama's precipitous fall from would-be messiah, to near pariah. Discussions with leaders within the Democratic Party, including prominent former members of the Obama administration, give a kaleidoscopic picture of missed opportunities, wrong turns and embarrassing blunders.
The first mistake many cite was actually made before Obama was even elected: the selection of Joseph Biden as his vice president. During the campaign, all eyes were on John McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. But even then there were signs of the troubles to come (ironically, Biden's biggest "gaffe" - about Obama being tested early in his presidency - proved eerily prescient).
Still, nothing prepared the country for some of former Vice President Biden's comments while in office. Early on, when he told the Russian foreign minister he'd "rather punch a nun in the throat" than cooperate on an Iranian nuclear deal, the Obama administration knew they had a problem on their hands.
The strange comments and behavior kept coming: at an international summit on child poverty, he accused the Dalai Lama of issuing a "brain fart," he phoned Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts at home and called him a "[re]tard in short pants," and of course the several stories - clearly leaked by aides to the president - of Mr. Biden sitting in the president's chair in the Oval Office and being more than reluctant to get out when asked to do so by the president.
The last straw was Biden's complaint, emphatically offered at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, that he would have more influence over foreign policy if he were black. His staff's effort to dismiss the incident as a joke - at the normally comedic event - fell short largely because Biden shouted "I am not joking!" two dozens times in speech that lasted less than 10 minutes. The fact that Biden had not been invited to speak at the dinner in the first place only added to the controversy.
Ultimately, the embarrassment became too much and Mr. Biden became the first vice president to resign from office since Spiro Agnew.
The subsequent battle over Obama's replacement sapped his presidency of much of its energy. Indeed, many credit Hillary Clinton's decision to run against Obama to her anger at being passed over twice for the vice presidency. The failure of two of Obama's ostensibly bipartisan picks - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords - because they were too "rightwing" only made him seem weak compared to the firebrand liberal 111th congress. Charges that the Obama presidency was really a Trojan Horse for a Pelosi prime ministership only grew louder when he was forced to accept Henry Waxman as his vice president.
Indeed, the overconfidence of Congressional Democrats posed another major challenge to the Obama presidency. During the 2008 election, Obama's conservative critics had long complained that the then-freshman senator had little to no record of standing up the leftwing base of his party in part, they argued, because he himself was much more leftwing than he had let on.
Whatever the truth of that, what is not contested is that the Congressional Progressive Caucus - the largest partisan bloc in the Congress when Mr. Obama was elected - believed that the new president was "one of us" according to many sources contacted for this article.
The CPC, colloquially known as the "big swinging caucus" after an unfortunate joke by then-Republican Minority Leader John Boehner after a scandal involving Rep. Barney Frank (see side story), pushed Barack Obama on a wide array of fronts: they demanded very large cuts in the military budget, a sweeping government expansion into the role of healthcare, and in a move that experts agree caused the Wall Street Panic of 2010, they persuaded Mr. Obama to make the government's partial ownership of the remaining "Big Five" banks permanent. Representatives Frank and Charlie Rangel argued that the stakes, bought by the Bush treasury department, in the banks provided, in Frank's words, a "once in a lifetime opportunity to inject some social justice into the capitalist system." Or as Senator Jesse Jackson Jr. said, "if we've got them by the b - - - s already, why let go?"
Americans also don't like it when White House press secretary Keith Olbermann tells them that complaining about higher taxes is "racist."
A general consensus among political observers is that Obama's essential problem was that he was oversold and too naive and arrogant to realize he wasn't as his most devoted fans believed. A senior Democrat on Capitol Hill marveled: "In 2008, this guy promised to send everyone to college, vastly increase foreign aid, create a 'civilian national security force' that was just a well-funded as the U.S. military, his wife said he'd fix our 'broken souls,' and he said he'd make the oceans stop rising, all without increasing the deficit. The amazing thing is he thought it was all true. He makes Jimmy Carter look like he should be on Mt. Rushmore."
Another advisor compared Obama to Max Bialystock, the con man from the Mel Brooks' film "The Producers." In the movie, Bialystock sells 100% ownership of the play to dozens of investors. "Barack Obama sold 100% shares in his presidency to every constituency imaginable and they all thought they were at the front of the line after inauguration day."
Meanwhile, in a sign of the bitterness within the Democratic Party these days, former vice president Joe Biden has not endorsed a candidate. But he did say that President Obama could be a great leader in his second term "if he would only learn that the square circle grows moss only when the fat man bathes in dirty moonlight."
Jonah Goldberg is the author of "Redistribute This! A Conservative Manifesto" (2012).
