Jumping Ugly on Obama

On Tuesday WSJ printed an OP-ED piece,  "The Obama Spell is Broken" by Fouad Ajami. The author is a senior fellow at Stanford University Hoover Institution - a  Republican leaning Small Government Think Tank. I mention the author's credentials because this piece reveals how utterly wrong a fancy pants intellectual can be when his research is colored by his preconceptions.

"The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-American

   moment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financial

   panic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon. 

  The nation's faith in institutions and time-honored ways had cracked. In a little-known

   senator from Illinois millions of Americans came to see a savior who would deliver the

   nation out of its troubles. ..."

Ajami seems to forget that the reason for Obama's election.  A lot of voters felt like we needed a drastic change in 2008.  There was a huge shift of independent voters who had voted for Bush in 2004 but who became alienated by the Bush administration's arrogant excesses in the name of the 'war on terror' -  which had badly damaged US credibility around the world. 
Voters were further driven away from the republican party by the failure of the "small government" party to keep the government small and instead of tax and spend, they were cut-tax and spend.  Added to that was the palpable weakness of the McCain-Palin ticket.  Then came the stunning collapse of the financial sector, widespread job loss, and the clear indictment against unregulated free markets.   Compared to the alternative, Obama seemed to the majority like "not such a bad guy". 
To those who see Obama as a Socialist and therefore a threat, his popularity is explained by his appeal to the leftmost of lefties.  But that position ignores the fact the independents are the biggest chunk of voters, and neither Bush nor Obama could have won if their support lay only among ideologues.  It may have seemed to his opponents that Obama was protected by some magic spell.  There were furious and unrelenting  efforts to smear him (via associations) as a Socialist bomb throwing sympathizer and Black Nationalist - even questioning his citizenship.   To their chagrin, only the conservative choir seemed to resonate with this negative nattering. 

When Obama won the big election decisively, and delivered a supermajority to his party,  the opposition  -  failing once again to understand that most of the people who actually show up to vote might actually be thoughtful and deliberative -  wrote off the President's popularity to charisma, magic, mystique. 

Progressives pressed for a draconian attack on the workings of our health care, and on the broader balance between the state and the marketplace. The economic stimulus, ObamaCare, the large deficits, the bailout package for the automobile industry—these, and so much more, were nothing short of a fundamental assault on the givens of the American social compact.

I don't think most voters were tuned-in to the same things that conservatives worry about  about all the time.  Sure, people want security, but some of us are not convinced that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are making the US more secure.  Most people don't feel that the mistakes that have been made over the past year were intentional assaults on the American social compact. 

The vast majority of people are mainly concerned with their jobs.  Moreover, they understand that there is little that the government can do in the short term to "create jobs" in the private sector.  Voters are unhappy that the unfettered free market doesn't work.  Most people don't think tax cuts for the wealthy will generate more jobs either. 


Ajami projects his idea of Obama as Icarus; he  has over-reached and has flown too close to the sun

And then there was the hubris of the man at the helm: He was everywhere, and pronounced on matters large and small. This was political death by the teleprompter.

In effect, Ajami (and others) are declaring that Obama has "jumped the shark". This phrase is used to declare the clear turning point where a sitcom or celebrity has lost it's popularity and has started sliding downhill.  

I think they may be jumping the gun.  The shot across the bow sent by Massachusetts was a warning shot, to be sure.   To the amazement of everybody, it changed everything.  It stopped the bloated shipwreck of a healthcare plan dead in the water.  But it does not necessarily sink Obama.

 Deliberative minds might see the election of a Republican to the "Ted Kennedy" seat as a statement about status quo, not so much about Obama.  The conservative claque has been unrelenting in their criticism of every word and gesture of the new president.  But many of those who have expressed disappointment with his results have maintained a positive view of the man.  Much of the criticism is leveled at the leadership of the partisan congress who have botched the public trust.

Obama has 3 more years to get things right.  News of his demise may be premature.