A credibility vacuum is usually followed by something bad

[GG]

I think that each broadside that's hitting the Administration is properly handled in the respective threads, but the other thing to consider is the cumulative effect of last month's events (including the Boston bombing & Syria) to see the diminished credibility that Obama has in front of everyone's eyes. It was clear that senior Democratic leadership tuned him out a long time ago in policymaking and his only benefit to them was for campaign cash, but necessarily campaigning alongside them. Now with campaign cash possibly drying up and the urge to distance themselves more away from Obama, the White House will become an isolated island for some time.

 

Unless he discovers a governing and leadership gene that's been missing throughout his political career, he will be a lame duck president for three years. That is very dangerous because there's no shortage of bad actors who will certainly look to take advantage of the situation.

[3rdnlng]

I think that each broadside that's hitting the Administration is properly handled in the respective threads, but the other thing to consider is the cumulative effect of last month's events (including the Boston bombing & Syria) to see the diminished credibility that Obama has in front of everyone's eyes. It was clear that senior Democratic leadership tuned him out a long time ago in policymaking and his only benefit to them was for campaign cash, but necessarily campaigning alongside them. Now with campaign cash possibly drying up and the urge to distance themselves more away from Obama, the White House will become an isolated island for some time.

 

Unless he discovers a governing and leadership gene that's been missing throughout his political career, he will be a lame duck president for three years. That is very dangerous because there's no shortage of bad actors who will certainly look to take advantage of the situation.

 

Schit, he'll just find a way to blame the guy that was in office before this term. Ooops, that doesn't really work. How about, "I told you (the electorate) years ago that I wasn't ready to be President. You guys elected me anyway. That is your fault. Now that I have all this experience, I can be the President that I we all deserve.

[OCinBuffalo]

Yes. I was I just thinking about this when I was driving the other day. This Russian spy thing is a coincidence? 50/50 at best. It's not worth getting worked up over, but, we aren't any safer as result of this.

 

OTOH, if:

1. Obama is told 2014 is never going to happen.

2. There is no point in raising money.

3. There is no chance of any more of his domestic "change", without the Republicans leading it.

4. Basically Obama is cut off from the entire politics side of the job.

 

Then what else is there for him to do, besides govern? He fails so badly at the job, that he ends up succeeding at it, because the nonsense that he wants to do, and has spent all his time on, has been stripped from him, and now he is forced to actually earn his paycheck.

Edited May 16, 2013 by OCinBuffalo

[B-Man]

I do not know what a "community organizer" does when the community stops fawning over him, but I suspect it will messy. When you promise to "fundamentally change the whole country" and you lose your power to do so, the likelihood of a "drastic" measure is increased.

 

Either way, many people saw this coming, but were dismissed.

 

Jim Treacher: “The only difference between this week and every other week for the last 4 years is that for once we’re not the only ones paying attention.”

 

 

On May 5, Barack Obama shamefully told graduating students at Ohio State University:

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works.

They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

 

This statement is telling. Contrary to the manner in which both Al Gore and President Obama customarily use the term, “self-rule” does not in fact describe a process by which the citizen submits himself to the state and, in return, is given occasion to cast a vote on how the government may run the more significant parts of his life.

 

Instead, “self-rule” denotes a system in which a free man may maintain control over the lion’s share of his decisions while maintaining some say over the government’s conduct in those few areas where it is necessary for government to operate.

 

{snip}

 

James Madison, writing as “Publius” in Federalist No. 47, insisted that it didn’t matter whether tyranny was “hereditary, self-appointed or elective,” because tyranny was tyranny. Who cares whether l’état, c’est moi or l’état c’est nous? “Even under the best forms of government,” Jefferson recognized, “those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” Alas, in the age of universal suffrage, this truth has been lost on many. In response, we might insist more loudly that democratization does not necessarily equal government virtue and recall that the Bill of Rights effectively presumes that government is guilty, holding as it does that government may not intrude in certain areas of life however good it claims to be, and that the people may not be asked to relinquish their ultimate checks on power however secure they feel themselves to be. This is nothing short of codified paranoia, and America is better off for it.

 

The straw men who populate the Right of Obama’s imagination contend that, because the state is flawed, it should not exist at all. No conservatives think this. But they do understand that to acknowledge that we need a state is not to deny that the state is a credible potential threat. It is by no means “deranged” — nor does it imply that one need don a “straitjacket,” for citizens to worry that the bigger the government, the greater the chance that it will spin out of control, nor that the more potent the state, the more potent the temptation for rogue elements to hijack its power in order to harass those they do not like.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348328/praise-paranoia/page/0/1

 

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[GG]

Then what else is there for him to do, besides govern? He fails so badly at the job, that he ends up succeeding at it, because the nonsense that he wants to do, and has spent all his time on, has been stripped from him, and now he is forced to actually earn his paycheck.

 

This may be the only hope that he defaults back into the job for which he was elected. Let's hope it works.