Quite often I feel like I am one of the few people in the country for whom the President of the United States is not an inscrutable personality. I never feel like I don’t know where he stands. He almost never surprises me. I almost always feel like I know what he is up to. Maybe it is because I share some common history with him, but I always find it strange when I see people say that they think the president is some kind of cipher.
The paranoia is easy to dismiss when it comes from the right, but it is often baffling to me when it comes from the left. Why do people underestimate this man? Did any prominent pundits predict that he would defeat Hillary Clinton and win the nomination? When Scott Brown won Teddy Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts, who thought that health care reform would still pass? The day he died, does anyone think Usama bin-Laden had even the slightest premonition that he was about to die? How was it that Team Romney convinced themselves that they were anything other than doomed?
Obama crushes his opponents and, in my experience, his opponents rarely even see their defeat coming. Whether it is Somali pirates or Gaddafi or some stupid warlord making trouble in Mali, or the inebriated Speaker of the House, there never seems to be any profit in pissing off the president.
Even whistleblowers and do-gooders are unlikely to confront the man without finding themselves on the wrong side of a sledgehammer. I’m not saying that it’s all good. I just don’t find it to be a mystery.
Lincoln had his habeas corpus, Teddy had his imperialism, Wilson had his Birth of a Nation, FDR had his internment camps, Ike had his coups, LBJ had his Vietnam, Nixon had his Watergate, Carter had his total failure, Reagan had Iran-Contra, Poppy had his economy, Clinton had his affair, Dubya had his epic failure on every level. You can find plenty to pin on our current president, but you cross him at your peril.
And that is mostly a good thing.
I’m not sure you realize you pretty much described the president as a cypher yourself. Not in the context that you mean in your post, but when your opponents constantly underestimate you, and never see their defeat coming, it sort of means you are a cypher.
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Not to me. I generally see it coming.
I guess this term we will find out if he now sees the banksters as opponents, and appoints a team that will crush the bastards. Or if he will continue to follow the advice of advisers like Geithner.
He doesn’t need their money any more ( and they largely funded Romney last year anyway).
Obama’s only weakness is that he is best as a counter-puncher. He is at his razorsharp best when someone attacks him, and he has an almost supernatural ability to turn attacks to his advantage and to turn seeming defeats into victories.
He is not as good I think when he is initiating action, but I certainly would not bet against him even then.
I’m not sure I see it this way. You would have to assume that he has rarely planned things out. Yet Booman has shown over the years how the president has planned things out, and been correct. So at least some times his opponents have been set up.
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Just to elaborate on this, boxers who makes a strategic decision to fight as a counterpuncher aren’t doing it because they’re weak, but because they calculate that it’s a more effective strategy for winning the fight—in part by taking advantage of the weaknesses exposed by the punches their opponents choose to throw.
Similarly in politics, once House Republicans had thoroughly exposed themselves in the first six months of the last session of Congress (after the July 2011 debt-ceiling showdown, which they won big), Obama’s consistent strategy since then has been to “punch” at the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of that stance taken by his opponents.
Rope a dope!
Did any prominent pundits predict that he would defeat Hillary Clinton and win the nomination?
I did!! I remember the exact day too. It was the day David Geffen, yes the music guy, supported Obama instead of Clinton. It was right around the time the primaries. How did I know? Because Geffen doesn’t support losers. And if Geffen was willing to publicly state his opinion like he did at the time, he knew something. So that told me that Obama was going to somehow pull it off.
Should be: right around the time the primaries started.
This is very nice. I think Mr. Pierce sometimes overwrites, but maybe one point you’re both making is that it’s so striking to see a really smart, effective person in that job. To a significant degree, the people realize this, and peoples’ support has allowed a good measure of his success. They took apart the corrupt and top-heavy Clinton campaign, which didn’t exactly require acts/analysis of genius, just smart and significantly good faith efforts, and people agreed; ditto for Romney.
But this image of a trim, dapper opponent-crusher, you’ve got to admit it’s a bit strange, kind of hard to find analogies . . .
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Obama is human and makes mistakes.
“… some stupid warlord making trouble in Mali”
Obama called French president Hollande to refrain him from putting boots on the ground in Mali. The trouble in Northern Mali was instigated by Gaddafi’s mercenaries and heavy arms lost after the conflict. Obama wanted to wait for African troops from ECOWAS nations to take the lead. That would have meant a delay of months and Mali’s south and its capital would have been overrun by rebels. The Tuareg Malian soldiers trained by US Special Forces had defected to the rebel cause last year.
Hollande disagreed and made the decision to halt the push south by the rebels and has been succesful. The Malian people are grateful to the French as the African nations are only beginning to send their troops into Mali. These soldiers are poorly trained and ill-quipped to cope in a desert terrain.
Obama has nothing to do with the French effort in Mali! Obama’s hands are tight by Congress as he is prohibited to act in Mali. Only after three weeks the Pentagon is supplying planes to refuel French Mirage fighter planes traveling extreme long distances from their African bases to a country twice the size of Afghanistan or France.
Were that it were only “some stupid warlord in Mali”. Here’s the complexity.
A long-running battle by Tuareg nationalists for at least autonomy.
Typically corrupt central government.
Schism between Tuareg nationalist movements as to whether to include the Songhai as allies.
Songhai nationalist eliminationist militia
Fulani nationalist eliminationist militia
Tuareg mercenaries returning home after the fall of Gadhafi, bringing the weapons they could carry.
Al Quaeda in Maghreb, a primarily Algerian group of jihadis linked to Islamist opposition to the dictatorial rule of Bouteflika. Likely infiltrated with some Western operatives.
General Ham, commander US Africom, looking to continue and build resources to enhance his promotability.
Hollande of France, wanting to stem Muslim immigration for domestic reasons, involved in controversial legislation prohibiting headscarves, counterpoising himself against French bigots and the ever-present Marine Le Pen’s National Front. Seeing the former French colonies as a particular responsibility of France for a variety of complex economic, political, and cultural reasons.
Ban Ki-moon, activist Secretary General of the UN, wanting to pursue a policy of the “responsibility to protect” and “protection of sovereignty” in, among other places, Francophone Africa.
American neo-cons and their allies in the defense and intelligence communities, concerned that China is supplying aid to African countries, looking at the resourcse of African countries, and seeing this as a way to create the trouble to maintain a large military force in the US in perpetuity.
President Obama, pursuing a “no boots on the ground” policy of American projection of power through alliances, diplomacy, sanctions, and restraint from using US military force.
Last but not least, the inhabitants of the Sahara-Sahel area of Africa, whose lives are being upended by the early symptoms of global warming, a factor completely lost on most analysts.
No doubt there are more players in decisions regarding Mali.
Outstanding summary, and a good explanation as to why no sustainable solution is likely in the near term. Keeping boots off that ground except for very specific time limited objectives seems a prudent strategy.
Timbuktu has been a center of Islamic scholars for many centuries. Only thugs and Islamic extremists wit hno roots in Mali are able to destroy the most sacred shrines and culture of the local people. The Ansar El-Dine has released a statement they have split and the Tuareg people want to rid itself of the extremist who have imposed rigid Shari’a law. Some factions want to support the French and fight on their side. This is most common as is seen in Syria, the fighters want to join the militia groups with the best weapons and supplies. Allegiance is to the group with most power. Unfortunately, those groups are the Salafists (Al-Nusra) who get tens of millions from Saudi charities and the Qatar monarchy.
I don’t see any mistakes made whatsoever. He kept the US out of it while France went in to help its former colony. Now, Obama is helping out to show support and good faith. So far, this is exactly right. The US cannot be the supplier of troops for every problem. Other wealthy, well-armed western nations have to do their part. Good luck to the French in Mali — at least they speak the language.
I’ve been a fan of the President since the beginning because he’s smart and he’s idealistic. In this second term he knows more about his opponents and how they work, and he’s still not going to have free rein to do whatever he thinks is best for the country, but he will continue to push the agenda that will work.
I’m watching the entire series of The West Wing again, and thirteen years after it aired, it’s eerily similar to the events of the day. It’s honorable, idealistic Jed Bartlett fighting a Republican majority in the House, with issues about gun control, immigration, and abortion. At the end of the first season, Bartlett’s been held back, constrained by old school politics, unable to break gridlock and lobbyist control. It’s a reminder that no matter how pure we’d like our government to be, there’s too much keeping it from being that way.
Our President has the brains and the confidence to be one of the best in our country’s history. Knowing the constraints against him and the Democratic party, I still would like to “let Obama be Obama” because for whatever reason, he does surprise his opponents. He does see the long game and can wait it out.
It’s one of my favorite photos: Obama pointing at us, saying, “Chill out; I’ve got this”
Because we do not know how far he’s willing to go to “save entitlements” to get his check mark in the box, move on to other issues, and convince the MSM that he’s dealt with them so tell the GOP to back off and move on to something else. You yourself have lent support in raising the Medicare age if that’s what it takes. If you lent support, that means Obama is perfectly willing to do it (despite saying he was only offering because he knew the GOP would say no); after all, here you are saying he never surprises you. That is why we don’t understand him, or know where he stands. We should never be willing to raise the Medicare age, ever, barring some truly revolutionary change in the system.
I feel like I’m watching a myth being born. Let’s cast the President as some stealth avenger, excise obvious instances to the contrary, attribute a victory to him that isn’t his (see Oui’s comment), and mush together both admirable and deplorable actions all to say that when Obama goes after someone, he’s toast.
Let’s compare that to Frontline’s depiction of what happened to Wall Street executives (Inside Obama’s Presidency):
Banks receive billions of dollars of tax-payer money with no strings attached. Bailed-out executives give themselves huge bonuses. The public is livid. Obama is livid, according to Jared Bernstein. Axelrod, Gibbs, and Summers want scalps. Geithner urges caution. Obama calls in the thirteen executives and in a private meeting, when as he said he was right between them and the pitchforks, at the moment of greatest leverage, he decides to wait on reforming Wall Street and asks for nothing in return. Eight months later, health insurance reform is stalled. Obama goes to Wall St to deliver an address to persuade the bankers to join a push for reform. Not a single banker that he had let off the hook shows up to his speech. Their dismissiveness is palpable. He leaves Wall Street reform to Congress.
I mostly chalked that up to inexperience, a misguided strategy, and distance from the consequences of his decisions. But if your premise is true, then we should all finally agree that when we progressives have overestimated him, it’s because we’ve mistaken who his real opponents are.
I mostly chalked it up to him being a stealth Max Baucus.
I agree. I see a large measure of this in his policies toward wall street and entitlements, and deference to Geithner, Rubin and Summers over Romer.
For what it’s worth, I disagree.
First, the best historical analogy I’ve come across for understanding the power of Wall Street in today’s politics, economy and culture is Jack Beatty’s “Age of Betrayal” in which he points out that in the late 19th century every single member of the Supreme Court had, at one time in his career, been a corporate attorney in the railroad industry. The power of Wall Street today is equally pervasive and distorting.
Second, and this may be part of Booman’s perspective, President Obama’s approach to politics is utterly familiar to anyone who’s spent much time in the world of community organizing over the last 30 years. Identifying and developing a talented team of leaders, living in the tension between “the world as it is” and
the world as it should be”, strategic thinking about issues and campaigns, distinguishing between the “public” and “private” arenas, careful framing of issues so as expand your pool of potential allies (and limit the pool of potential allies available to your opponent), a certain disdain for “liberals” and “purists”—all these are hallmarks of the approach to organizing taken by Gamaliel when a young Barack Obama worked there for a few years in the 1980s, or of ACORN with whom Obama worked on GOTV drives in the 1990s.
This all sounds correct to me.
The thing that I think confuses pundits in this country is that the President is a centrist who gets things done. By their own definitions that should make him wonderful.
Only the current Beltway establishment seems constitutionally unable to think positive things about a Democrat advancing a slightly left of center agenda. So they short circuit and start spouting gibberish.
I see a large measure of this in his policies toward wall street and entitlements
You mean the first re-regulation of Wall Street in decades and the massive expansion of entitlements under the ACA?
Because those are his most significant policies towards Wall Street and entitlements.
What was the post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley bill other than re-regulation. The Dodd-Frank bill was not the first re-regulation of Wall Street in decades. And Wall Street was only finally deregulated in 1999.
And the most significant part of Dood-Frank, the Consumer Finance Protection Board, has all of its regulations under a cloud right now because of the Appeals Court decision regarding recess appointments.
Wall Street then has neither been effectively regulated nor punished for the massive fraud that underlay the financial crisis. Nor has Wall Street significantly changed the way it operates. The too big to fail banks are still too big to fail and also now too big to jail. To be fair, the failures of Dodd-Frank are those of the principal architects of the bill and especially Senator “MPAA” Chris Dodd, who immediately took the golden revolving door out of Congress.
As for the Affordable Care Act, the jury is out until the implementation of exchanges in 2014. What I know from my own experience is that my ability to get health care is much less, and I am on Medicare. But that is because the ACA did not go far enough in dealing with the issue that the deductibles and co-pays for Medicare are not affordable to people whose sole income is Social Security. And that is Max Baucus’s failing not President Obama’s.
A lot has been done to rein in the banksters. It doesn’t get lot of press, though.
http://www.stopfraud.gov/news-index.html
More needs to be done, certainly. Much more. But it’s not like nothing has changed.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
What was the post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley bill other than re-regulation.
It was re-regulation, but not particularly of Wall Street. Dodd-Frank was specific towards the financial industry.
And Wall Street was only finally deregulated in 1999.
…as part of a trend of increasing deregulation going back at least to the 80s.
And the most significant part of Dood-Frank, the Consumer Finance Protection Board, has all of its regulations under a cloud right now because of the Appeals Court decision regarding recess appointments.
Which doesn’t really have anything to do with the topic of “Obama’s policies.” Yes, there are those opposed to Obama’s policies.
Wall Street then has neither been effectively regulated nor punished for the massive fraud that underlay the financial crisis.
Isn’t it nice that we’re now talking about whether the President’s policies go far enough in the right direction? What a pleasant change from the Bush, and even Clinton, years!
What I know from my own experience is that my ability to get health care is much less, and I am on Medicare.
While what you know from your reading about politics is that the ACA included a huge expansion of the Medicaid, one of the three big entitlement programs.
The variously leaked info that DOJ was directed not to go after wall street bigwigs, his persistent interest in a “grand bargain” that includes real cuts to entitlements as opposed to alternate paths to fiscal stability.
Understand, I love the guy. I can imagine no one else doing the job he has at this moment in history nearly as well. But he does have a certain history of thinking VSPs are actually right about things.
his persistent interest in a “grand bargain” that includes real cuts to entitlements as opposed to alternate paths to fiscal stability.
So persistent that, four years into his presidency, nothing whatsoever has been done in this area.
So persistent that the bargain cut in August 2011 specifically excluded Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits from the cuts.
“Why that sneaky so-and-so – specifically NOT throwing the olds under the bus after we specifically said that he would! How DARE he mess up our narrative!”
I’m curious as to how many MORE times people are going to fall for that – it’s like they’re not paying attention or something…
I really can’t be too hard on these people, because Obama is deliberately pursuing a head-fake strategy, and he’s very good at it.
The outrage is integral to validating the fake. The paradox is that more outrage helps the President’s strategy.
yes, I just get so tired of the outrage, but you’re right
This site aims to tell you when the outrage is strategic. I like to bait the Republicans, but I don’t engage in fake outrage. I leave that to others. The only thing I don’t like is the “Obama is selling us out” element that almost inevitably seeps in. It’s natural for people to feel that way when they are being primed for no compromise, but opinion leaders need to guard against creating that feeling in the base. I believe a lot of progressive opinion leaders really fucked up toeing that line in 2010 cycle.
According to one line of ultra-leftism, Obama cannot but be a sell-out, as by definition, no one can succeed in a corrupt system without being corrupt themselves…
You’re quite right.
This makes me wonder how much of the outrage itself is fake.
There are some DKos front-pagers, for instance, who might or might not be faking it, to get readers wound up.
There are all sorts of motivations for why they might do this. Attention and page hits is the most cynical explanation. Helping out Obama’s strategery, less so. A belief that a vigorous defense of SS and Medicare is a positive development for our politics, even less so.
Sometimes the Obama administration gets lucky … after 4 months the FBI wasn’t making headway in the Benghazi investigation, however:
Terrorists of Benghazi Raid Killed in Algerian Hostage Massacre
This illustrates how fu**ed up the aftermath of the Libya “liberation” was. From link: Mokhtar Belmokhtar, leader in Islamic Maghreb,
acknowledged that his “Al-Qaeda franchise” had acquired weaponry from Gaddafi’s arsenal.
Analysis of Events by Militants in Hostage Raid at In Amenas gas facility (Algeria)
I mostly chalked that up to inexperience, a misguided strategy, and distance from the consequences of his decisions.
Chalk what up?
The successful passage of health care after a century of failure, the first re-regulation of Wall Street in 70 years, reversing a long standing trend of deregulation, and, oh yeah, the taxpayers making a profit on the loans to the banks?
Yeah, that Obama, what a screw-up.
Always amazing to me that ppl can’t see what’s right in front of them. maybe it helps Obama, who knows.
I mostly put Obama’s success down to his relative lack of ego and coolness under pressure. Most mistakes made by powerful people are down to ego, vanity, panic and over-reaction. Obama checks out the strategic and tactical landscape. His weapons and theirs. His defenses and theirs. Often he waits for his opponent to make a false move. If he moves first, it may be a feint to check out the reaction and the disposition of his opponents forces.
But when he DOES make his move, he tries to make sure it is a decisive one. Quite often you only get one chance to get it right. In athletics- say 1500M, you stalk the pacemaker and wait for your chance to move. Go to early and you could be overhauled by the tape. Go to late – and somebody else has the rush on you.
Often this is little more than good staff work by his advisers. But has Obama even looked as if he has been caught off-balance? It is about carrying an iron fist in a velvet glove. No great public bluff and bluster.
I wonder did Netanyahu realize how big a mistake he was making by backing Romney? Did Obama back Netanyahu’s opponents, or merely let the Israeli public know ever so gently that if they are looking for favours from the US, Natanyahu mightn’t be the best person to convey their requests or represent their interests?
And yet Obama wasted nothing by not getting directly involved in the Israeli election. Why risk political capital when the risk return ratio is so low? Why burn boats when he might still need them? His distain for Netanyahu is well known, but there will be no public display of peek. He will let Netanyahu twist in the wind rather than condemn him publically. He is quite happy to work with Boehner whilst Boehner is weak, even if he quite possibly detests him.
It’s not personal. Just business. And if you want to go after Obama, you better have more than bluff and bluster on your side.
a little tease in the days before the election. Netanyahu tried late gimmicks, the electorate doesn’t trust Bibi either and made the last minute choice to vote for left-centrist Yair Lapid.
My diary – Obama’s Bullying of Israel.
this is about him being BLACK.
it’s not hard for me to understand.
they can’t get past that this BLACK MAN has beaten their asses.
they underestimate him, which always was crazy to me.
He’s a BLACK MAN that got ELECTED President of the United States…
by that fact alone, it would be obvious to me that he’s smarter than you, me, and 99 out of 100 folks in a room.
He graduated MAGNA CUM LAUDE from HARVARD LAW SCHOOL..
and they pretend that he got his degree in crayon from the Black entrance.
truly, it’s because he’s BLACK.
99.9999 out of 100.
Perfect summation.
It will sink in among the masses long after we’re dead, but still…
And yet it’s not about raw intelligence, spmething many commentators just don’t get. It’s also abut humility and the ability to surround yourself with a lot of people who do have a lot of expertise and skills in specific areas.
Did any prominent pundits predict that he would defeat Hillary Clinton and win the nomination?
I did, January 3, 2008.
The night he won the Iowa Caucus….and, he made a whole lotta Black folks believe.
My prediction that he might win came when Bill Clinton unsuccessfully made a racist attack on him in trying to win the South Carolina primary for Hillary. From there on out it was a matter of watching Mark Penn’s magic stylings. (I see from the Google that Penn’s gone on to do “special projects” for Microsoft.)
As I recall, the polls started shifting heavily to O in SC around the time of the solid victory in the IA caucii, as Hillary finished 3d and looked not just vulnerable but on the ropes.
The turning point really though was that late Oct debate, the one where the NBC moderator and most other dem debaters began turning on her for equivocation and lack of principled clear leadership, as she seemed to fumble slightly in answering about DLs for illegal immigrants.
The MSM, previously rather praiseworthy of her as they touted her front runner status (which idiot Penn took too much to heart), suddenly could see only the negative. All while giving O a rather blatant clear pass.
My 2c.
It took a little longer for me. It was after he lost NH and the speech he gave there, then him winning SC. That’s when I finally thought he could compete and win.
It really was the combination of those 2 events, the speech and the win in SC.
Agree that Iowa demonstrated that team Obama was working on all cylinders. However, that wasn’t the moment that African-Americans were convinced. They didn’t begin to abandon Clinton until a few days later when team Clinton pulled out the race card in NH. That’s when I penned Is It Over? Not just the primary but the general election as well.
Alas, neither you nor I are prominent pundits. Nor do we meet the principle qualification to be one which is getting it wrong most of the time.
Damn, you’re right; those were my exact thoughts, too.
I remember the exact moment I swapped to Obama as well; it was January 21st, MLK, Jr. Day, when Obama gave a speech at Ebeneezer Baptist Church:
Obama Addresses Homophobia, Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia Among Black Americans
So technically after Nevada, though it was more or less after NH for me.
To be fair, most presidential elections aren’t that difficult to project. The general mood/temperature of the general electorate begins to harden a good two years in advance. The candidate and his/her political party that can best exploit that “mood” wins. It’s a combination of a candidate’s ability to exude confidence, implying competence, and the party’s cohesion in tandem with articulating that “mood” in optimistic terms.
I agree, and I will just add that the people who talk about him playing 11th dimensional chess don’t appear to know much about chess. It is a good metaphor for the way he operates, actually, but regular old three dimensional chess will do.
I prefer to use poker analogies because that’s the game that Barack Obama plays recreationally. In poker, the cards you draw affect the game but don’t control it. And there are more than two strategies being played.
I agree that I always a have a feeling where the President stands on issues and strategy. So now that Wall Street crossed him in 2012 election by throwing their donations to Romney, we should expect him to go after them hard?
One of my issues is that he punts criticism of his Justice Department, by saying that those decisions are made by them, but then he favors Justice Department suing over Arizona’s Immigration Law and Election Voter IDs in other states. His flipping on Marijuana enforcement and Online Gambling still appears hypocritical.
He crossed Wall Street first.
They went for Obama big time in 2008, and he came into office and pushed Dodd-Frank and the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights.
They’ve never forgiven him for those bills.
It just proves he’s really a Republican, doesn’t it?
LOL.
What’s so hard to understand? Obama is unfailingly pragmatic . Most people find pragmatism inexplicable.
He is unfailingly pragmatic. As someone who is often described as that as well I get him.
Given that matter attracts anti-matter, I expect North Korea to go off during Obama’s final term. I expect he will handle it better than anyone else could, and that we’ll survive what might well be a bizarre attack of some kind.
And then wingnut heads will truly esplode, as they are forced to side with a man they loathe who will have protected them, and an even nuttier version of themselves.
I’m relieved a bit by Netanyahu’s losses to think that we might actually escape a Syrian/Iranian/Israeli nightmare. I’d have no hopes on that one if Romney had been elected.
For the first time in my life, the smart, patient guy who can hold his fire but do what has to be done — that guy is my guy. I’m not used to it, but I’ve stopped second-guessing him and fretting.