Everybody Turns On Obama

I don't expect much from Richard Cohen, but this drivel fails to live up even to my low expectations. Ditto this by Dana Milbank. Among the many nauseating things about this kind of faux-analysis is that it's post-facto whining about Obama's failure to change things that are not in his control. If we'd gotten any of this earlier that would at least mitigate its awfulness. Instead, Cohen, Milbank et. al. simply needed something panicky and critical to write after the downgrade/market slump, so they spewed out some nonsense about how Obama isn't crying enough (note: I am not making that up) and so forth.

Yes, I still support Obama. Yes, I think he's done a pretty damn good job with what he has to work with--a country run into the ditch by the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration, and a GOP hellbent on his destruction. No, I don't think he's done everything right. He's been too conservative and too conciliatory--and I say this as someone who values centrism and consensus. He hasn't focused enough on unemployment. Still, I think he's done well; I wouldn't have done half so well, I can guarantee you.

I do not think that Obama will be re-elected. I've never thought that the winner of the 2008 election would be a two-term president. Presidents are evaluated by the public largely on the basis of how well things are going while they are in office. Most voters have little idea how good or bad a president is--how smart his decisions are, how well he did with what he had to work with, and so forth. They have some idea whether things are going well or badly, and that's what they base their vote on. Obama has done a good job with the nearly-hopeless situation we inherited--but that won't matter much in November of 2012. I expect that the Tea Party downgrade will shake up the GOP enough to get somebody like Mittens nominated, but not shake people up enough to keep a Republican out of the White House. (Nate Silver puts Obama's chances of re-election at just over 52%--dismal odds for a personally-popular incumbent.) I'm already trying to mentally prepare myself for the ignorant, slobbering crowing of the Limbaughs, Coulters and Becks when the hated Barack Obama goes down in flames...  Get ready to listen to it for the rest of your lives. He's "the black Jimmy Carter," as one of my conservative friends likes to say, and you'll have to listen to that kind of crap for the rest of your natural lives.

I'm not advocating giving up, of course. And there is a zero percent chance of the GOP nominating someone even remotely as good as Obama. But the left wing of the Democratic party has been whining about Obama for years, and now the Village people--the Cohens and Milbanks--are starting in with their chicken little routines. Wingnuts are highly motivated by their hatred of any Dem who occupies the White House, which they see as their birthright. The GOP is using all their power to make sure things stay bad, and the economy is more than cooperating. On top of this, Obama's own mistakes--listening to Summers and Geitner, for example, and underestimating the severity of the unemployment problem--are not helping. The picture is bleak. Which, to me, means that we need to get out there and fight that much harder--I am, in fact, going to write a check to the Obama campaign today. Sadly, I rather doubt that most of the folks on my end of the spectrum will see it my way. Things have gone bad, and they are not likely to improve sufficiently to turn things around. It doesn't matter how smart and reasonable Obama is, and it doesn't matter how well he's done with what he has to work with. Things must be better in order for him to be reelected. And they have to be better well ahead of the election. Which means, at minimum, in about eight months. If things don't get better--and soon--we'd all better get ready for eight years of GOP leadership. Hey, on the bright side: it's unlikely to be one of the real kooks, so the odds of them being as bad as Bush/Cheney are very, very low. (Woo hoo! U-S-A! U-S-A!)

Of course, if things do start turning around, we'll get opposite pablum from the Cohens and Milbanks of the world. Even, I suppose, if a passing comet sprinkles gold, blueprints for fusion reactors, and ponies across the country, such people will be praising Obama for his wise leadership. Things are bad, it must the the president/things are good, it must be the president.

So keep your fingers crossed for that pony thing...