Obama delegates presidency
Thundering cow patties, what is going on in the White House?
Yesterday, President Obama turned a press conference over to former President Bill Clinton. He essentially, no he actually waived away his job’s duties in favor of attending a … Christmas party.
It’s not like he had to have the news conference when he did. He’s the President, he can call one anytime he likes. Instead he demonstrated what many have come to believe about him – he likes the perks of the job but isn’t too crazy about the job itself. It reminded me of the stories about his time as the editor of the Harvard Law Review. He never contributed a single article and, according managing editor, loved the prestige of the title, but wanted nothing to do with the day to day responsibilities it held.
The bizarre picture of Obama leaving the press room while Clinton takes the stage is more powerful than a 1,000 words on the subject by 50 different pundits. What was he thinking? What were his advisors thinking? It’s easy to say he’s been ill served by his advisors, but when Obama self-identifies as the “smartest person in the room”, you have to lay quite a bit of the blame squarely where it belongs – on him. Politically, what he did was absolutely stupid. I’m not sure what word better serves.
This again goes back to a constant and repetitive theme here (and now starting to grow elsewhere) – a true lack of leadership. I’ve known real leaders in my time, I’ve been a leader in more than one instance, and Barack Obama is no leader. He doesn’t seem to have yet even begun to grasp even the fundamentals of the concept of leadership. When there is a battle, leaders step forward (especially when it is a battle they’ve fomented), they lead from the front and they use every weapon at their disposal. Obama has “set a framework” (what, get into the nuts and bolts of actually helping draft the legislation? That’s work!), given a testy presser where he talked about hostages, bomb throwers and the "purists” on the “professional left” and then, with this latest news conference, delegated his presidency to Bill Clinton while he parties.
Tom Maguire says that one of the weirdest things about Obama walking out of his own press conference was:
…watching Obama implicitly declare that while Clinton and the press talked about stimulus and the recovery and unemployment relief, he had more important things to do, namely, get to a party with Michelle. Geez, why not announce he is getting back to the Oval Office to play Farmville?
Really. Or why not just be honest and say, “hey, this part of being president is not what I like to do”.
Maybe, just maybe, some adults in the Democratic party are finally admitting to themselves and each other that they made a hell of a mistake with this guy. And maybe they’ll begin what will be a painful but necessary process to find someone to run against this man in 2012. That, in my estimation (and barring an unforeseen event which might see the citizenry rally behind the presidency and the country), may be the only chance Democrats might have – and even then it might be a remote chance – of keeping the White House.
This White House gets curiouser and curiouser as the days go by. But it is becoming clearer, even to the “deep in denial” left, that this man just isn’t up to the job of being President of the United States.
~McQ