What Frank J. Fleming says here, to the effect that America has let President Obama down, is, I think, both very funny and nail-on-the-head accurate in describing the sort of man President Obama does indeed seem to be.
The other night I had dinner with a friend and I heard myself saying a couple of things about what might soon be happening in the US presidential election campaign.
First, I speculated that, any week or month now, the mainstream USA media might turn against Obama. All it will take is them deciding that he is going to lose and that nothing they can say will change that, and at that point they’ll stop publicly worshipping him and start reporting on what he says and does and on what people are making of it, almost like he was some kind of Republican or something. Their purpose will not be honesty. Their purpose will be to make the dishonesties they later unleash, upon President Romney in particular and upon the world in general, seem slightly more believable.
And when I got home, I found that something like this was already starting to happen.
Oh, they haven’t all given up on their guy yet, by no means. But they are surely starting to fret quite seriously that just shovelling out nothing but propaganda for him is making them look ever so slightly silly.
And the other thing I said was that if Obama himself decides that he is going to lose, no matter what he says (not least because of all the damn media people selling him out like so many rats running down a ship’s gangplank), he might, at some point between now and election day, say to hell with this, and give America a piece of his mind, rather than just smiling and taking it all on the chin.
He might say things like this, now only the mocking words of Frank J, only for real (here‘s the link to the second page of Frank J’s piece where this is to be found):
These past four years have just proven there is no reasoning with you hillbillies. Obama has given speech after speech after speech explaining things to you, but you never get it. Obama is a fragile flower you oafs keep trampling beneath your feet. You just babble things at him like, “You cain’t make peepul buy health inshuranse! It’s unconstitooshunal!” And then you whine about the national debt, when it’s none of your concern anyway – that’s the government’s business. What is it with you people questioning and ruining everything Obama is trying to do?
For “Obama” read “I”. Also, that “fragile flower” bit would have be changed to something more self-admiring. But otherwise, just like that.
As for my two guesses, the media turning against Obama, and Obama turning against the voters, well, I do admit that the first is a whole lot more likely than the second.
And both are matters of degree rather than absolutes. Some members of the mainstream USA media may change their grovellingly pro-Obama tune a bit, even as others carry right on singing the same old songs like it was 2008. And Obama will probably let his annoyance with the damn voters show a bit, just now and again, but then he’ll rein himself in. There is, after all, a whole big global ruling class out there, and Obama is going to carry on functioning within it just fine and very lucratively, provided he behaves himself reasonably well in the meantime. So a total Obama melt-down is probably too much to hope for. But I would love to hear him say at least some things along Frank J’s lines.
As might quite a few of Obama’s long-suffering supporters, who have surely been saying exactly these kinds of things amongst themselves, and to friendly reporters whose discretion the Obama campaign has, so far, been able to rely on.
If he’s reelected his 2nd term will be no piece of cake for him. I can’t see anti-Obama Americans (like me) laying down quietly and conforming to his vision of what our lives ought to be like.
IOW, there will be plenty of opportunities for him to lose his temper if he has a second term. And I would by no means rule out a memorable meltdown.
Imagine, if you can, Obama delivering a concession speech. Imagine what he might do between now and November to avoid that possibility.
One of the better re-workings of Brecht that I’ve read.
Forgive me for making a copy editing comment, but the original form of your metaphor about Obama is “rein himself in.” As in pulling on the reins of a horse to prevent its running away. I’m not sure what “reign [someone] in” might mean.
There is, after all, a whole big global ruling class out there, and Obama is going to carry on functioning within it just fine and very lucratively…
First – did you know that Bill Clinton has collected about $100M in speaking fees since his retirement? (Maybe only $50M.)
Second – have you seen the reports on the $35M retirement palace the Obamas have picked out in Hawaii? Michelle’s mother has reportedly spoken of living there with her grandchildren starting in January.
Which could mean that Obama is already giving up on re-election, or that he plans to change his residence from Chicago regardless, for the second term. He has no real Chicago roots anyway.
Incidentally, he would be the third President to change state of residence while in office. The other two were Eisenhower and Nixon, both of whom changed home states before being re-elected.
Rich: what is the significance of changing home states?
WHS – yes, thankyou. I have corrected this. I remember actually thinking about it, but still I got it wrong. It was rather late.
As has often been said over recent years, that commenters can point to such errors and that they can then be swiftly corrected is one of the features of blogging.
The flaw in Brian’s reasoning is in imagining that there is any state of affairs, prior to election night, that would make Obama or his media luvvies, think that they were on to a no hoper. 10% down in the polls, he’d still think he had a good chance. Indeed even after the final votes were in, even if he were down 270-268 in the electoral college, he’d still think he had a fair chance of flipping an elector or two. (And seeing he’s from Chicago, I would tend to agree with him.)
This does all shine a light on Mrs Palin though, who revealed herself not to be a real politician at all, whatever you may think of her as a human. Imagine a real politician voluntarily giving up a position of political power, before absolutely having to. Just doesn’t compute.
If you read Edward Klein’s book ‘The Amateur’, you will see how large areas of the Democratic party are already turning against President Obama, some for years now, because of his poor and sometimes laughable mishandling of the most basic political processes. It makes clear that the White House is now more-or-less completely isolated from Congressional Democrats, and now functions as an echo-chamber where a fixed coterie of Obama supporters bolster his self-centered approach to leadership.
Just look at the body language when President Clinton embraced President Obama at the DNC last evening. President Clinton is the one who christened President Obama ‘the amateur’ that is the title of Klein’s book, and President Obama and everybody else knows it.
And when President Obama has lost Oprah Winfrey (even in her diminished public position vis-a-vis 2008) you know that he has lost a large proportion of the people who so breathlessly supported him then. He has (by his own act and deed) effectively p*ssed away the Democratic base. And the wall-to-wall coverage of the DNC (something the mainstream media may yet come to regret) has shown the public the core of President Obama’s support – a parade of Democratic ‘elder statesmen’ interspersed with union bosses (all of them overweight caricatures), and all of them repeating the same empty rhetoric and ignoring the problems staring us in the face. I’m amazed they didn’t exhume Ted Kennedy and prop him up on the stage to yell at the crowd about the Republicans’ War on Women.
When the next-best speaking slot to the night’s keynote speaker is given to a woman whose sole claims to fame consist of complaining that a) the government isn’t providing her with free contraceptives and b) the government didn’t step in when somebody called her nasty names on the radio, then you know that the Democrats are spiralling into insignificance. And this is the tone and direction that President Obama is setting – arguing about the number of free deck chairs set aside for women and African-Americans as the ship settles by the bow.
(puffs out chest) I actually predicted a lot of this, right on these very pages, almost 4 years ago.
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2008/11/yes_they_can.html
It took quite a bit longer than I projected at the time. Oh, well.
llater,
llamas
Think this was suggested here before:
We may likely see a revival of references to The Peter Principle.
What is likely is the commencement of reporting some information which heretofore has been obscured or conspicuosly omitted.
More “news” will become “Fit to Print.”
For public exposure, that will be damning enough to previous manipulations of perceptions.
llamas
This might give you a llaugh.
@ Brian Micklethwait – happy to oblige.
llater,
llamas
llamas;
“It’s too bad Ted Kennedy isn’t alive to be at the Convention as the only Congressman with a confirmed kill in the War on Women” – not sure where I saw that first.
What would happen if Mitt Romney released where a specimen of Aryan perfection said:
“I have Governor Romney’s back, and it’s up to us as White Americans to show that we have his back also.”
If the media aren’t going to pull Obama for that sort of thing, they’re not going to pull him for anything.
Smited 🙁
The bot seems very pro-active today…..
I haven’t read Andrew Sullivan much for the past four years, having becoming increasingly unimpressed by the way he has breathlessly reported on Obama, but it is going to afford me a sort of sadistic pleasure to read AS if or when Mr Obama is, as Clint Eastwood put it the other night, “let go”.
One of the essays well worth reading on the Obama phenomenon is an article on the subject of glamour in politics by Virginia Postrel. (Link)She absolutely nailed the initial reason why so many people were attracted to him, and hence explained the room for subsequent disenchantment.
All that said, let’s not forget that Obama won as big as he did in 2008 because he ran against a Republican Party that had – to all intents and purposes – presided over a huge rise in the budget deficit and debt, and which had failed to adequately explain its actions in the Middle East (leaving aside if you think they were right to start with). But also, despite the rise of new media, Obama benefited from a remarkably supine MSM. The discomfiture of the MSM if Obama loses will be beautiful to behold.
Meanwhile, no doubt Mitt Romney realises what he is in for. The Dems will constantly prattle on about Bain and his offshore banking between now and early November, and afterwards.
I am looking forward to watching Ryan debate Biden. That is going to be glorious.
FYI my post 2 up should read “if Romney released an ad….”
Samizdata really needs an edit function.
No, Jaded-
“Tis you, I and a few others who need an edit function!
If Romney-Ryan win there will be a massive economic collapse – and they have no plan to make the government spending cuts needed (contrary to the Keynesians a slump is when government spending cuts, real ones, are MOST needed).
And if Obama wins?
There will still be a massive economic collapse (both fiscal and monetary- it is baked in the cake now, by what has already been done) – indeed he is counting on it.
The Centre for American Progress (and others) have already drawn up the “Emergency” plans to make Congress nonrelevant.
There will be Hell on Earth.
“And will you come and fight with us Paul?”
Of course I will.
Most likely by making a visit to Canada (I have a Canadian cus) and then going over the border.
But it will take the Progressives about one micro second to kill me.
I am a fat, malcordinated, middle aged man, with no miltary experience or training.
If anyone is counting on me to achieve anything – think again.
As for the election – I will be as far away from it as I reasonably can be.
And then there was the strawberry incident…
The (538) website gives Obama a 77% chance of winning re-election.
The 538 website gives Obama a 77% chance of winning re-election.
I think folks greatly overestimate Romney’s (aka Lizard B) chances.
Indeed I would argue that there is no way such an unappealing jackanapes can win the election, but rather his only hope is that Obama (Lizard A) loses the election.
The end result may be the same but the dynamics involved are very different indeed.
Either way the USA is still fucked.
I find myself in agreement with Perry here. In a rational world Romney couldn’t win, but then in a rational world he wouldn’t be running against Obama at all (let alone as an incumbent). He still won’t win, but I think that (notwithstanding the assertions at the 538 website) Obama will lose. And we’ll still be fucked. But we’re taking the rest of you down with us!
Stop gloating, Laird:-/
Perry, I’m not sure I agree with you. I have a sneaking suspicion that Obama is going to carry fewer than a dozen states. (CA, NY, IL, the usual small ones — RI and such — and one Midwestern state such as PA. Not enough to win the Electoral College.)
It’s not going to be a McGovern-like loss (where the challenger won only one state), because there’s the race thing and the welfare state voters (non-factors back in 1984), but then again, there was no Tea Party sentiment back in 1984 either.
And Romney’s not the palooka you think.
An on rushing wall of darkness – with no hope at all.
Ah I love it so!
As for Romney – the Spectator (the magazine that British conservatives turn to when they work out just how vile the “free market” Economist magazine is) had a article describing him (as a matter of course) as a “tax dodger”.
And the same article called the Tea Party movement “angry and sometimes destructive”.
For all his faults Romney is not a “tax dodger” (if being one is a fault).
And it is the Occupy movement (not the Tear Party moverment) which is destructive.
By the way this article was supposed to be a FRIENDLY one (Romney is courting the Tea Party movement – because “they are more attractive than he is….”)
“Take you with us” Laird?
Actually countries like Britain have already gone.
Still (to burst the bubble of wonderful gloom) Romney may actually win.
Even the fact checker of the Washington Post is tired of Barak Obama’s endless blatent lies.
One can tell when Barack is lying – his lips move.
As Brian would argue – journalists may be on the left (they certainly are on the left), but for many journalists there are limits – lines that should not be crossed.
And Barack has crossed them.
The moderate leftists have had enough of him.
“But if Romney wins the economy will still collapse”.
Of course – and the left will blame him for it. And there will be riots and blood in the streets.
But the power of government will not be in the hands of the left – and Civil Society has a astonishing powers of self healing.
Without a President who actively WANTS to destroy Civil Society (a President who goes to bed each evening, and wakes up each morning thinking about what HARM they can do) – it is possible that civilisation may save itself.
Kim, I think he is not so much a palooka as an evil ill-intentioned mega statist fuck and the fact he may be a tiny bit less evil than the Obamination in no way offsets the fact I cannot see him trying to make any of the fundamental changes required to prevent the US, and therefore global, economy going off a cliff.
Perry – do not be unfair.
Romney may be a mega statist fuck.
But he is not “ill intentioned”.
As for me producing counter arguments – showing that Romney will do what needs to be done…..
Errr…..
I will get back to you on that one.
As for the “mainstream” media.
The only bit of the msm that endorsed Obama in 2008 that might endorse Romney this round is – the Economist magazine.
I think they will do it just to irritate me.