E.J. Dionne assures us that the cornered rat is ready to fight
Bookworm on Aug 15 2011 at 8:11 am | Filed under: Barack Obama
For those on the Left who are worried about Obama’s seeming passivity — fear no more. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne assures us that Obama is packed so tight into a corner, he’s finally ready to fight. Finally. Really. Yup, the old fighter’s still there. Honest.
For Obama’s lieutenants, his comeback from the ’07 summer doldrums provided an overlearned lesson that encouraged them to ignore external criticism and cruise along with complete confidence in their man’s almost magical powers of restoration.
The president’s loyalists still have faith in him and still love to criticize media narratives they think underestimate him. But this time, both he and they are expressing a level of frustration that may be the healthiest thing happening to Obama in what is an otherwise dismal moment in his presidency. A White House crowd often too sure of itself is fully aware of the ferocious fight Obama faces and the seriousness of the problems he confronts. Their mood and past experience suggests that a new Obama — or, in many ways, the old Obama of 2008 — is about to reappear.
Dionne’s confident (kind of) assurance about the Obamessiah’s fighting spirit is followed by a convoluted explanation about the way in which the debt ceiling fight, during which Obama saved America, really galvanized him by giving him wiggle room. (My first effort at that sentence resulted in an amusing, Freudian typo: “a convoluted explanation about the way in which the debt ceiling fight, during which Obama saved Obama….”)
Maybe Dionne’s right. Maybe Obama will fight back. I wonder, though, whether he has enough fans left rooting for his come-back, or if his fans, Elvis-like, have left the building.
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8 Responses to “E.J. Dionne assures us that the cornered rat is ready to fight”
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A billion of his “fans” are sitting in his war chest, just waiting to be let loose. Also, labor will be working desperately for him. This will be a good test of labor’s influence.
When Obama enters the ring, will he be wearing the mom jeans?
The NY Times remains a stalwart, committed fan of Obama.
Here is (yet) another case in point where the NY Times skews all the news that’s fit to be skewed!
The American People are solidly for the deportation of criminal illegal aliens. There’s controversy brewing over what is known as the Secure Communities program. It coordinates law enforcement efforts at all levels, relies on a database, including a fingerprinting database, and is responsible for managing the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants.
Check out this NY Times article on the controversy around the program. As you’re reading the NY Times article, ask yourself: Based on this article, who is responsible for this popular program: George W Bush… or Obama?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/us/politics/13secure.html?_r=1&ref=politics
Answer: George W Bush’s administration created and rolled out the program. Obama has chosen only to allow it to continue as envisioned. He wouldn’t *DARE* cut it back now; that would a death kiss to his already plummetting popularity. As Wikipedia puts it (search under: “Secure Communities”) :
Secure Communities was piloted in 2008. Under the administration of George W. Bush, ICE recruited a total of 14 jurisdictions. The first program partner was Harris County Sheriff’s Office (Texas). By March 2011, under President Barack Obama, the program was expanded to over 1,210 jurisdictions. ICE seeks to have all 3,141 jurisdictions (state, county, and local jails and prisons) participating by 2013.
But you wouldn’t know this was a Bush program, merely continued by Obama, based on the NY Times!
PS – If there are problems with the program – which may be – they should fix the problems, not end the program. In my humble opinion… This is a highly effective program for an excellent cause – the deportation of criminal illegal aliens! I’m all for it.
It will be a ferocious fight – the Liberal/Left knows that this is their last chance to install their vision of Utopia and it is slipping through their fingers. Their captive entitlement groups (unions, welfare groups, government workers, etc.) know that the gravy train will end once the Republicans come back into power and that it may never come back within their lifetimes (reason: our country is broke!).
So, it won’t just be Obama that will get nasty, it will be his backers. I predict massives strikes, violent protests, trash-talking and smearing of Republican candidates, phony “scandals” concocted by the Justice Dept. and massive vote fraud. I also predict that this will totally backfire, just like the antiwar protests did in the 1960s (an era in which the Democrat Left seems to be frozen in amber).
Look also for the Gunwalkers scandal to erupt into the open next year, together with a major international crisis. As for Obama, he will try to get nasty and fail miserably with a whimper and a whine. I look for him to go into total meltdown and that won’t be good for our country.
Danny…
I love your optimism!!
One of my favorite Star Trek episodes is the one where Kirk and three of his crew members get tranposed to an alternate universe where the Federation is an empire and Star Fleet officers win promotion by assassinating the persons holding the rank above them.
Kirk and his people have to pretend to be murderous thugs until they can figure out a way back to their own universe. When they do return to their rigthful cosmos, they learn that the Empire Kirk and his crewmates were arrested within moments o0f showing up on the Federation transporter. It turns out, Spock explains, that
, being barbarians, the Empire Kirk, et al., did not know how to behave like civilized men, and were detected almost right away. Federation Kirk, being a civilized man, could pretend to be a barbarian, because it is always easier to imitate the behavior o something that is beneath you than it is to imitate behavior that is above you.
The left is down to its barbarians. What Danny predicts above will happen, but once the thugs are out roaming in force, whether in the streets or in the media, even more people will be turned off. The sad part for the left is that even if it sees its petulance backfiring, there will be nothing it can do about it. Like the Empire Kirk and crew, the left will not know how to conduct itself like civilized men.
I predict that things will get worse before they get stable.
Mart, I think my favorite Trek episodes were the evil versions of Janeway and what not. The universe looked a lot more aesthetically pleasing and interesting than otherwise.