The Sad Failure of Barack Obama

I'm currently reading a book about the 1970s when Americans elected Jimmy Carter with high hopes that this would get them out of the moral and political quagmire that Nixon had created. Sure Gerald Ford helped turn the page on Nixon, but he affronted America's sense of justice by pardoning Nixon without any trial that would uncover the sordid details of that presidency.

Carter disappointed people because he got bogged down in details, he ended up being more of centrist than people expected, and his moralisms were ineffective against a cruel world. The taking of American hostages in Iran and his completely inadequate response to this ended his presidency and gave Reagan a chance to reshape America.

Sadly, Obama is a reincarnation of Jimmy Carter. A nice guy who during his run for the presidency promised real change and a bright hope for the future, but once in office proved to be a bumbler who never seemed to come to grips with any of the problems surrounding him.

Here is Paul Krugman's take on Obama:

What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?

I realize that with hostile Republicans controlling the House, there’s not much Mr. Obama can get done in the way of concrete policy. Arguably, all he has left is the bully pulpit. But he isn’t even using that — or, rather, he’s using it to reinforce his enemies’ narrative.

His remarks after last week’s budget deal were a case in point.

Maybe that terrible deal, in which Republicans ended up getting more than their opening bid, was the best he could achieve — although it looks from here as if the president’s idea of how to bargain is to start by negotiating with himself, making pre-emptive concessions, then pursue a second round of negotiation with the G.O.P., leading to further concessions.

And bear in mind that this was just the first of several chances for Republicans to hold the budget hostage and threaten a government shutdown; by caving in so completely on the first round, Mr. Obama set a baseline for even bigger concessions over the next few months.

But let’s give the president the benefit of the doubt, and suppose that $38 billion in spending cuts — and a much larger cut relative to his own budget proposals — was the best deal available. Even so, did Mr. Obama have to celebrate his defeat? Did he have to praise Congress for enacting “the largest annual spending cut in our history,” as if shortsighted budget cuts in the face of high unemployment — cuts that will slow growth and increase unemployment — are actually a good idea?

Among other things, the latest budget deal more than wipes out any positive economic effects of the big prize Mr. Obama supposedly won from last December’s deal, a temporary extension of his 2009 tax cuts for working Americans. And the price of that deal, let’s remember, was a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts, at an immediate cost of $363 billion, and a potential cost that’s much larger — because it’s now looking increasingly likely that those irresponsible tax cuts will be made permanent.

More broadly, Mr. Obama is conspicuously failing to mount any kind of challenge to the philosophy now dominating Washington discussion — a philosophy that says the poor must accept big cuts in Medicaid and food stamps; the middle class must accept big cuts in Medicare (actually a dismantling of the whole program); and corporations and the rich must accept big cuts in the taxes they have to pay. Shared sacrifice!

There is more. Go read the whole post where he goes on to look at the Ryan "plan". Krugman gives the details that never show up in mainstream media, the details that show this "plan" to be a hoax, a cover for the continued political assault by the Republicans on the bottom 90% of Americans in favour of more tax cuts for the ultra-rich.

I fully agree with Krugman that the fatal flaw in Obama, like in Carter, is that he is not a "leader". He is unable to create a vision and lead the fight for it.

But if you ask me, I’d say that the nation wants — and more important, the nation needs — a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that’s not what we’re seeing.

Just as the 1970s ended in a complete mess and a tattered economy, then handed power to an ideologue who sold "morning in America" but gave the American people a political system that gutted the country to make the rich fabulously richer. Today's Obama is setting things up for a worse time to come post 2012. Tragic.