Posted by
Bill Crawford on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 8:31:53 PM
It took a little while to get to know Bill Clinton, who splashed on to our stage one year and was President the next. Jimmy Carter was a similar problem, but Bill was easier to solve because he was much more open a personality.
I didn't start putting the pieces together with Clinton completely until I read the best research on him, David Marianiss' First In His Class, a great work that centered around a government class he took in college that solidified his 60's mentality and it's messianic zeal to change the world.
I don't see such a work extant on Obama, although there may well be one coming. So I have to do the work on my own. The Audacity Of Hope doesn't help at all. It is too self centered and politically driven to break him down. He doesn't WANT to be broken down.
I listened to his Cairo speech and marvelled at how he created some sort of moral equivalency between Islamic repression and the French not allowing schoolchildren to wear head gear. He did the same thing here with Islamic behaviors and our treatment of the miscreants in Guantanamo.
Here is what struck me: he seems to think that he is above it all. He honestly thinks he is some sort of honest broker who the world should trust to mediate all their problems. This must be the basis of his political ploys to be a "post partisan" President. He doesn't regard his partisan views as partisan, because he is the fulcrum that brings everyone together.
The problem here is that he ran for and was elected to be the President of The United States. There is a proviso to that job that you are choosing sides a priori. For America, that is.
Sadly, while this may have helped pose him as a better 'not George W. Bush' in 2008, it will serve to take him down in office if he doesn't correct his instincts. I hope for his sake that he does.