The Washington Post notes in a lengthy Page One story the decline in Obama’s poll numbers. The team of reporters on this one first suggests that the problem is a failure to implement his “consensus” politics:
The slide has only quickened. Emerging from an angry August recess, Obama is weakened politically and faces growing concerns, particularly from within his own party, over his strength as a leader. Dozens of interviews this summer in six states — from Maine to California — have revealed a growing angst and disappointment over the administration’s present course.
Democratic officials and foot soldiers, who have experienced the volatile public mood firsthand, are asking Obama to take a more assertive approach this fall. His senior advisers say he will, beginning with his Wednesday address to Congress on health care.
His challenge, however, is more fundamental. Obama built his successful candidacy and presidency around a leadership style that seeks consensus. But he is entering a period when consensus may not be possible on the issues most important to his administration and party. Whatever approach he takes is likely to upset some of his most ardent supporters, many of whom are unwilling to compromise at a time when Democrats control the White House and Congress.
This neatly ignores the obvious: Obama talked consensus in the campaign but never governed that way. His has been a hyper-partisan style of attack, accusation, and ultra-liberalism. This was the president of “I won” who rejected every Republican suggestion on the stimulus, who tried to Limbaugh-ize the GOP from the press room, who figured he could take over the Census and rig reapportionment, and who embarked on the largest spending spree and debt accumulation bonanza in history. The Post is silent on all that.
Well then, it’s the economy. That was supposed to be the opportunity not to waste, according to Rahm Emanuel. Instead: “A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly, said that ‘there were so many things we had to do, and those are the things that feed into the skepticism that government is taking over everything or can’t get it right.’ ” It’s just an impression, you see, that Obama wanted to take over car companies, install executive-compensation rules, set up a new consumer “protection” watchdog, spent a trillion on a non-stimulus stimulus, take over 17 percent of the economy in the name of saving money on health care, and celebrate a mammoth tax and regulatory scheme styled as climate control. But don’t you see, “These were things we had no interest in doing,” pleads an unnamed official. We’re told that’s “irony.” Well, perhaps that’s a lie.
Obama declared early on he was going to rebuild the entire country on a new foundation, not simply rebuild the economy, but reinvent it. To a large degree, this was a giant bait and switch, with many of the largest endeavors utterly unrelated to the economic recovery. It hasn’t worked out as planned either economically or politically, so now we get a hodgepodge of lame excuses and half-truths. In a story as long as the Post‘s, it is no small feat to ignore substance altogether, but they pulled it off — in large part because they are parroting the administration’s narrative and turning away from a simple, straightforward examination of what went wrong.
It isn’t hard to fathom what actually occurred: Obama ran as a moderate, governed from the far Left, and thereby disappointed and scared the vast center of the electorate while energizing the Right. And yes, he overexposed himself and proved to be ill-suited to legislative dealmaking.
This is not to say that Obama can’t bounce back. But the first step would be an honest assessment of where he went astray. If the handmaidens at the Post are any guide, the administation hasn’t even begun that task.
