I Miss Barack Obama

[_Analytics]

For your consideration, I share the following editorial from conservative columnist David Brooks, published yesterday in the New York Times:

As this primary season has gone along, a strange sensation has come over me: I miss Barack Obama. Now, obviously I disagree with a lot of Obama’s policy decisions. I’ve been disappointed by aspects of his presidency. I hope the next presidency is a philosophic departure.

But over the course of this campaign it feels as if there’s been a decline in behavioral standards across the board. Many of the traits of character and leadership that Obama possesses, and that maybe we have taken too much for granted, have suddenly gone missing or are in short supply.

The first and most important of these is basic integrity. The Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free. Think of the way Iran-contra or the Lewinsky scandals swallowed years from Reagan and Clinton.

We’ve had very little of that from Obama. He and his staff have generally behaved with basic rectitude. Hillary Clinton is constantly having to hold these defensive press conferences when she’s trying to explain away some vaguely shady shortcut she’s taken, or decision she has made, but Obama has not had to do that.

He and his wife have not only displayed superior integrity themselves, they have mostly attracted and hired people with high personal standards. There are all sorts of unsightly characters floating around politics, including in the Clinton camp and in Gov. Chris Christie’s administration. This sort has been blocked from team Obama.

Second, a sense of basic humanity. Donald Trump has spent much of this campaign vowing to block Muslim immigration. You can only say that if you treat Muslim Americans as an abstraction. President Obama, meanwhile, went to a mosque, looked into people’s eyes and gave a wonderful speech reasserting their place as Americans.

He’s exuded this basic care and respect for the dignity of others time and time again. Let’s put it this way: Imagine if Barack and Michelle Obama joined the board of a charity you’re involved in. You’d be happy to have such people in your community. Could you say that comfortably about Ted Cruz? The quality of a president’s humanity flows out in the unexpected but important moments.

Third, a soundness in his decision-making process. Over the years I have spoken to many members of this administration who were disappointed that the president didn’t take their advice. But those disappointed staffers almost always felt that their views had been considered in depth.

Obama’s basic approach is to promote his values as much as he can within the limits of the situation. Bernie Sanders, by contrast, has been so blinded by his values that the reality of the situation does not seem to penetrate his mind.

Take health care. Passing Obamacare was a mighty lift that led to two gigantic midterm election defeats. As Megan McArdle pointed out in her Bloomberg View column, Obamacare took coverage away from only a small minority of Americans. Sanderscare would take employer coverage away from tens of millions of satisfied customers, destroy the health insurance business and levy massive new tax hikes. This is epic social disruption.

To think you could pass Sanderscare through a polarized Washington and in a country deeply suspicious of government is to live in intellectual fairyland. President Obama may have been too cautious, especially in the Middle East, but at least he’s able to grasp the reality of the situation.

Fourth, grace under pressure. I happen to find it charming that Marco Rubio gets nervous on the big occasions — that he grabs for the bottle of water, breaks out in a sweat and went robotic in the last debate. It shows Rubio is a normal person. And I happen to think overconfidence is one of Obama’s great flaws. But a president has to maintain equipoise under enormous pressure. Obama has done that, especially amid the financial crisis. After Saturday night, this is now an open question about Rubio.

Fifth, a resilient sense of optimism. To hear Sanders or Trump, Cruz and Ben Carson campaign is to wallow in the pornography of pessimism, to conclude that this country is on the verge of complete collapse. That’s simply not true. We have problems, but they are less serious than those faced by just about any other nation on earth.

People are motivated to make wise choices more by hope and opportunity than by fear, cynicism, hatred and despair. Unlike many current candidates, Obama has not appealed to those passions.

No, Obama has not been temperamentally perfect. Too often he’s been disdainful, aloof, resentful and insular. But there is a tone of ugliness creeping across the world, as democracies retreat, as tribalism mounts, as suspiciousness and authoritarianism take center stage.

Obama radiates an ethos of integrity, humanity, good manners and elegance that I’m beginning to miss, and that I suspect we will all miss a bit, regardless of who replaces him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/opini ... p=cur&_r=0

[_Doctor Steuss]

Helluva money quote:

People are motivated to make wise choices more by hope and opportunity than by fear, cynicism, hatred and despair.

[_Some Schmo]

I reject the premise that Sanders is running on pessimism. That might be the most ludicrous thing I read all month. I never felt even close to this inspired, optimistic and hopeful during Obama's 2008 campaign.

I agree about Obama's demeanor, though.

[_The CCC]

I like my health care, but I don't like how much it costs.

[_Tobin]

Our country can't survive another Barack Obama. His presidency has been a disaster. We have a nuclear armed North Korea testing ICBMs and will have a fully nuclear armed Iran in a few years with ICBMs too. They aren't building those weapons to hit anyone but us. I fully expect to see one of these countries use these weapons and the deaths of millions of Americans in the cities they hit will be Barack Obama's fault.

[_The CCC]

Our country can't survive another Barack Obama. His presidency has been a disaster. We have a nuclear armed North Korea testing ICBMs and will have a fully nuclear armed Iran in a few years with ICBMs too. They aren't building those weapons to hit anyone but us. I fully expect to see one of these countries use these weapons and the deaths of millions of Americans in the cities they hit will be Barack Obama's fault.

North Korea hasn't tested Hydrogen Bombs. The best they can do is very small kilotonage atomic ones. There is miles of difference between the two.

Now what the heck is any US President to do about a crazy dictator half way around the world? North Korea's serious atomic weapons plans started in 1985 under Ronald Reagan.
SEE https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron

North Korea is in a much better position technologically to hit South Korea. Plus they are still in a state of war with each other with the US providing military cover for South Korea.

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and has complied with every item in the agreement they reached with the US, France, England, Germany, Russia, and China. Including the cementing in its reactor.

by the way Israel has never signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and is estimated to have 400 such bombs.
SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_w ... and_Israel

[_ajax18]

Our country can't survive another Barack Obama.

The scariest part of a Sanders presidency for me is the inability of the Republicans to hold the line and stop his agenda in Congress. It's hard to imagine a worse president than Barack Obama but Bernie Sanders might actually be able to pull it off. Yet I think from a historical perspective, we'll look back on the Obama presidency as the final nail in the coffin for freedom and the Sanders presidency as the beginning of the dark ages.

[_Doctor Steuss]

[...]Yet I think from a historical perspective, we'll look back on the Obama presidency as the final nail in the coffin for freedom and the Sanders presidency as the beginning of the dark ages.

I think that nail was called the Patriot Act. Anything past that is just decorative.

[_The CCC]

Our country can't survive another Barack Obama.

The scariest part of a Sanders presidency for me is the inability of the Republicans to hold the line and stop his agenda in Congress. It's hard to imagine a worse president than Barack Obama but Bernie Sanders might actually be able to pull it off. Yet I think from a historical perspective, we'll look back on the Obama presidency as the final nail in the coffin for freedom and the Sanders presidency as the beginning of the dark ages.

Exactly what freedoms have you lost under President Obama? You still have the right to claim fealty to a Southern Confederate slave owning TRAITOR Stonewall Jackson.

[_ajax18]

I think it's easy for me to underestimate how bad LBJ and FDR were for the country today since I wasn't around for it. A lot of the financial problems we've been born into are due to entitlement programs they developed and instituted. With Obama and Sanders we're going to see things continue to get worse for our children and grandchildren.