January 7, 2010

Can Cocksure Obama Change Course – and Keep His Nerve?

A year ago, I was privileged to be one of several guests at a dinner with President-elect Barack Obama. One thing that struck me and others, aside from his courtesy and fluency, was his air of self-confidence. The man who had risen in just four years from state senator to president of the United States seemed sure he could master the job.

I wonder if he is as sure now. It seems to me that two assumptions that Obama carried into the White House – assumptions that were shared by many who hadn’t voted for him – have proved to be unfounded.

The first is that economic distress would lead more Americans to favor big government policies. The second is that Obama’s personal characteristics and his repudiation of many of his predecessor’s policies would change the minds of America’s critics and enemies.

Any doubts that these assumptions were mistaken were dispelled at Christmastime. On Christmas Eve, the Senate passed a massive health care bill that according to every public opinion poll is opposed by most Americans. And on Christmas Day, Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came close to destroying an airliner as it was preparing to land in Detroit.

The unpopularity of the stimulus package, cap-and-trade legislation and the various health care bills probably surprised the congressional Democratic leaders who put them together and the president who, with surprising passivity, indicated he would sign them. After all, weren’t these ways to spread the wealth to ordinary people, as Obama put it to Joe the Plumber?

But through most of our history, Americans have preferred policies that enable and help them to amass wealth rather than those that purport to transfer someone else’s wealth to them. The biggest outpouring of political sentiment this year came from those who thronged to “tea parties” and denounced increases in the national debt as stirringly as did the first Democratic president, Andrew Jackson, who actually paid it all off.

On foreign policy, Obama imagined that confessing past American sins, announcing the closing of Guantanamo and abandoning enhanced interrogation techniques would make Islamist terrorists think better of the United States. He thought he could induce the leaders of enemy nations to change their ways by referring respectfully to regimes like Iran’s and downplaying all talk of human rights abuses.

It turns out that just as the financial crisis and recession did not much change Americans’ fundamental attitudes on the balance between government and markets, so emollient talk and confessions of past American sins did not much change the behavior of those who consider America a sworn enemy. The mullahs still want their nuclear bomb.

American officials could stop talking about a “war on terror” and speak instead of “man-caused disasters.” But that did not disarm the Islamist terrorist who shot up the recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., or the Muslim psychiatrist who opened fire at Fort Hood or the pampered Nigerian who tried to bring down Northwest flight 253 over Detroit.

Obama did manage to abandon his statement that the Detroit bomber was an “isolated extremist” and admit that he was in touch with al-Qaida terrorists in Yemen. Yet his administration quickly sent him into the civilian justice system, where he predictably clammed up, and until a reversal yesterday, proclaimed that it would keep sending Guantanamo detainees to Yemen.

We have all experienced the cognitive dissonance that comes when it turns out that the world doesn’t work the way we assumed it would. It’s hard to give up your assumptions and easier often to believe that unexpected events and results were an aberration from norm that would quickly snap back to what we expected.

Midcourse corrections in these circumstances are often awkward and difficult to execute, the more so when all eyes are on you and any change in direction is the subject of universal comment and adverse criticism.

Getting elected president of the United States must be an enormously confidence-building experience: So many people wanted the job, and you got it. Being president can be more chastening when events don’t turn out as you anticipated.

The great presidents – Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt – faced events no one expected and in response changed policies and priorities without ever, so far as we know, losing their nerve. Lesser presidents, including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, did so as well. Will Barack Obama?

COPYRIGHT 2010 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.