He’s got no one with him now. The Republicans don’t like him, for reasons both usual and particular: They have had no good experiences with him. The Democrats don’t like him, for their own reasons plus the election loss.... No one at [his post-election lunch with congressional leaders] looked at him with colder, beadier eyes than outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who clearly doesn’t like him at all. The press doesn’t especially like the president; in conversation they evince no residual warmth. This week at the Beijing summit there was no sign the leaders of the world had any particular regard for him....
The last time we saw a president so alone it was Richard Nixon, at the end of his presidency, when the Democrats had turned on him, the press hated him, and the Republicans were fleeing.... But Nixon had one advantage Obama does not: the high regard of the world’s leaders, who found his downfall tragic (such ruin over such a trifling matter) and befuddling (he didn’t keep political prisoners chained up in dungeons, as they did. Why such a fuss?).
November 14, 2014
"I have never seen a president in exactly the position Mr. Obama is, which is essentially alone."
Writes Peggy Noonan in "The Loneliest President Since Nixon/Facing adversity, Obama has no idea how to respond."
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Lonlier than W? I think not.
Unlike Obama, President Bush had a wonderful family to draw strength from. Plus of course a soul.
John Lynch said...
Lonlier than W? I think not.
My impression was that W was in less of a bubble. He was willing to listen to other viewpoints and made up his mind. His handlers didn't shut dissenting viewpoints out the way valerie does.
Down and out, no friends, but can still wreak havoc.
President Walker, President Lurker, President Roamer, take your pick.
Just don't use zombie
For the next two years, we will have the most dangerous president of my lifetime. I don't think he feels constrained by anything - he'll do what he wants, and dare anyone to stop him.
"The press doesn’t especially like the president"
Maybe not especially like, but still like, maybe even like like.
No one looks at anyone with colder, beadier eyes then outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
With W in the news again, and talking about his father, the likeability differential is enormous. Admittedly I'm a conservative and more inclined to like them because of ideology, but really on a personal level it's hard for me to imagine liberals feeling warmth toward (or from) Obama. I hope that in private he has warm connections with his family and inner circle of friends, but beyond that I really don't see it at all. Kind of ironic when you recall him telling Hillary that she is likeable enough.
This week at the Beijing summit there was no sign the leaders of the world had any particular regard for him....
Worse. They relegated him to the wives club.
Agree with CStanley. Obama has never struck me as a 'likeable' person--his entire persona seems built around showing everyone how cool he is. Such people are false and annoying.
Oh, and there's the arrogance. Likeable people are almost always humble and self-deprecating while still maintaining their self-respect. That comes from an inner sense of well-being and self-acceptance that allows one to look outward and see/focus on others' good qualities. Obama comes across as prickly and insecure, especially in contrast to Bush's confident charm.
Perhaps the best tag would be "Obama is like Obama." He's really one of a kind, at least for someone who has been elected President in the media era.
There is the old adage about Washington that if you want a friend, get a dog. Friends are a true rarity for a high level American politician, especially one like Obama who has never spent a long time deeply involved in any one institution. (Congress, a business, the state legislature, a university, even a law firm). These are all highly competitive places, with shifting alliances and wolf pack justice in extreme cases. But even within the world of alliances not friendships, relationships with warmth and affection develop. That is why they are such vicious places. The competitive imperative can overwhelm even warm personal feelings.
Another way to look at it is to ask who he turns to if he really needs advice on something tough. Jarrett? Probably not Michelle. Is there anyone else? Perhaps there is and we just don't know it, but he does not seem to have anyone he trusts enough to listen to carefully and be influenced by. That is a different form of isolation, and a very consequential one.
He can always console himself with these fine words:
When you're down and out, and there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe there's no way we can fall
Well...well...well [sing it, Cyndi]
Let's realize that a change can only come
When we stand together as one!
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
Noonan is looking at Americans and our allies for signs of favor to Obama, and of course there is none since he has finally thrown every last one of them under the bus.
But there is long list of people Obama has favors due back from. That would be Valerie Jarrett and her Iranian friends, and all of the rest of world's anti-semite Jew murderers, the Russian and Chinese Military, and many worldwide UN Climate Con wealth appropriators happily tripling utility bills for personal gain.
I would say he's burned his bridges, but there's no evidence he ever built any bridges to legislators or anyone else.
Bush had Cheney. A dark soul and not really a friend, but Bush could count on Cheney to articulate a viewpoint and be firm about it. It seems that Biden does this too, but Biden is such a flapdoodle that he's probably harder to take seriously. It's not clear whether Obama respects him.
Obama seems to generate true warmth with his immediate family, especially his kids. I hope that impression is a correct one. The distant family, the half brothers etc, are nothing to him though. They are distant because he makes them so. A whole bunch of Billy Carters and Donald Nixons.
garage still loves him. I think. Does dailykos still love him?
I would have a beer with W, I would be in a bar fight with O (if he was on the other side).
Noonan - Another rube who fell for O's act and voted for him.
There's no fool like an old fool.
garage still loves him. I think. Does dailykos still love him?
Country music for progressives: Pick Me Up on Your Way Down
Unknown: Good one!
But what does the man who considers himself the smartest person in any room, a better campaigner than his campaign staff, a better economist than all the world's economists, the Lightbringer and Lowerer of Oceans, who does he need besides himself?
Suddenly, the rest of the world sees what millions of us saw in 2008 and that is Obama is an empty suit and con man with little to recommend him for a junior executive position, let alone Chief Executive of the United States. Perhaps the self-proclaimed "elite" will learn to look beyond pithy words (written by someone else) read from a Teleprompter and the crease of someone's pants.
Oh, look! There's Hillary! She has a vagina! She's obviously qualified to be the next president because SHUT UP!
Unknown: Good one!
Obama thinks he knows more than everybody else. Funny, how it is slapping him in the face now. He was and is a Narcissistic, Sociopath, and the mask has fallen off.
How do Peggy Noonan and Gail Collins manage to get paid to write for major opinion outlets?
If either of them were on their own as bloggers, nobody would read them.
As it is, they are harder to ignore than a fart in church.
"Vladimir Putin delivered the unkindest cut, patting Mr. Obama’s shoulder reassuringly. Normally that’s Mr. Obama’s move, putting his hand on your back or shoulder as if to bestow gracious encouragement, needy little shrimp that you are. It’s a dominance move. He’s been doing it six years. This time it was Mr. Putin doing it to him. The president didn’t like it."
I saw that Putin move and remarked at the time that Putin was using an Obama move on Obama. Ha.
Obama always seemed an introvert--you never really hear of him having close friendships the way other presidents have. He generally had supporters, who only needed him when he was useful to them. He's never given Republicans a reason to like him, and hasn't been much good for other Democrats either. In 2009 they had big majorities in both houses of Congress, and lost both of them in his tenure. He's done nothing that might have helped the party prepare a successor, like the VP or cabinet officers, or supportive allies in Congress or state houses. Instead, he let Hillary dominate, giving the GOP a great opportunity if they don't waste it.
NSFW: Team America "I'm So Ronery".
If only Obama had had the good sense to dump Biden from the ticket in 2012, and offer the VP spot to Mary Burke!
Because they'd be near-perfect in creating and maintaining a shared reality in which both could perceive themselves as truly high achievers.
Noonan is pretty good and has been around a long time. I like this passage about Obama's obfuscating way of avoiding questions:
You can say, “I love you,” or you can say, “You know, feelings will develop, that happens among humans and it’s good it happens, and I have always said, and I said it again just last week, that you are a good friend, I care about you, and it’s fair to say in terms of emotional responses that mine has escalated or increased somewhat, and ‘love’ would not be a wholly inappropriate word to use to describe where I’m coming from.”
The legislation that has come from his party follows the same pattern.
Getting the dagger eyes from Harry Reid should be regarded as a badge of honor.
The solution is a Constitutional convention to rethink our system. Two hundred plus years is a long time to go with out a tune-up or an upgrade.
It might have been okay to have a lonely sad sack failure in the White House in 1837 and for two more years after that, today he's just an invitation to nuclear war.
I have no sympathy. He brought this on himself.
Comparing Obama to W is complicated by differences in party. Compare him to Clinton. Clinton wasn't lonely
Cstanley, I hadn't thought about that. Bush is out promoting a book about a real relationship with a real father. All Obama has is a book about a fake relationship with a fake father. That alone is pretty sad as a comparison.
It's really up to the Democrats. The people who convinced Nixon to resign for the good of the country were Republican leaders -- Barry Goldwater led a Congressional delegation that included the House Minority Leader and they told him that it was over.
But Democrats always put party above country, so that won't happen.
Peter said...
If only Obama had had the good sense to dump Biden from the ticket in 2012, and offer the VP spot to Mary Burke!
Because they'd be near-perfect in creating and maintaining a shared reality in which both could perceive themselves as truly high achievers.
Biden fills that role, and I suspect quite a few staffers and appointees do as well. For example, Jen Psaki and Marie Harf act as if they are pinnacle of diplomatic achievement.
"The Loneliest President Since Nixon/Facing adversity, Obama has no idea how to respond."
Facing other people's adversity, Obama schmoozes the slum lords for his own sweet heart deals.
Seeing people dislike Obama for a reason other than RACISM!!! is a nice change of pace.
This is why the President has no friends:
"“Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else."
Really, Mr. President? Aren't the Canadians our friends?
No leader is ever alone. Let us remember the lame duck dictator of Germany, who in 1944 launched a counter-attack against the Allies in the West, prompting George Patton's brilliant wheel around, with a young corporal, my father, along, to relieve the 101st Airborne at Bastogne. My father was lucky to survive, running, at one point, for 24 hours from constant German artillery barrages. Thousands lost their lives in this last German offensive and millions more would die in the coming months.
That lame duck dictator had friends and hangers on.
As long as office holders can reward friends and punish enemies they will have friends.
Peggy Noonan, who gushed over middle-name-Hussein in 2008 and likely would have gushed over Adolf in 1933,looks to the wrong leaders for a comparison.
In these last two years of our current tyrant we need to be steadfast in our opposition of anything he tries to do. He should be shunned, shut up, shushed, and shuttered.
"Has it ever been any different the last two years of a president's term?"
I'm thinking back over the presidents prior to the ones you listed that are in my memory and am seeing the same (except for JFK, who of course was an exception). But I wonder if this applied to Eisenhower. I was a kid during his presidency, which surely colors the view I had, but to me he seemed like a dull but competent grandfather figure -- someone who went about his job stirring neither adulation nor aversion. I still think that's the best default role for a president.
He may not recover this time around because the "stupid" people who didn't understand what he was planning to do with "Cadillac plans" were the owners of "Cadillac plans" and that would be members of our own beloved teachers union. They ALL had Cadillac plans and how does it feel/ oh how does it feel to be on your own/ With no direction home/Like a complete unknown when you find out that President-the-Lightbringer was working to tax YOUR plan and take away YOUR privileged access to medical care. You thought it was Scott Walker and the evil Republicans. "Oh how does it feel" to find out that every bad thing you thought or said about Walker taking away your Cadillac plans applies to President Obama. And you're a racist if you object to the President fooling you into supporting him. While the "stupid" red-neck-cracker republicans turn out TO BE RIGHT and SMARTER THAN YOU.
What is dumber than a dumb Republican? A smart teachers union member. HAHAHAHA
Obama has trashed Amerika, probably permanently, and he is looking forward to a retirement like Bill Clinton's, only with less tail and more golf. He couldn't care less that the rubes are finally realizing what was done to them, if he is even aware of it. Who's playing Denver tonight?
Very early on in the 2008 primary season, when I was still somewhat of a hardcore Democrat (though I hadn't voted for Kerry) I was discussing Obama vs Hillary with a very well-connected journalist I knew. He told me that he knew someone on Obama's campaign plane, and this person (whose name is very well-known) said that Obama was the most arrogant politiician he'd ever met, that it was impossible to have a normal, friendly conversation with him.
This bothered me, because of the source, and then when Obama's long friendship with Bill Ayers came out I knew I couldn't go there -- I was surprised that this, plus the association with Reerent Wright, didn't seem to turn more people off.
George W. Bush was as president someone who sought out advice and listened to others even when what they told him was disagreeable. The surge wasn't his idea, for instance, but when Iraq wasn't going well he sought out new opinions even such opinions were critical of his position up to that point. He was easy to talk to, whereas from all existing accounts this just is not true of our current president -- who does not like to be or want to be contradicted.
I think Obama is lonely a lot like Clinton. like Clinton, he has a wife who looks like a ball buster and no friends. Clinton had interns but no friends. Clinton, at least, had people he would listen to, like Rubin who kept him from terrible mistakes.
Obama has nobody.
Nonsense! He still has his courtiers at Vox and Salon to carry water for him...
Approval ratings notwithstanding (they're about tied for this point in their respective terms, anyway), W is a famous people person.
It's basically his life story. When he was younger, he was sort of a lazy goof off and skated by on his people skills. When he battened down the hatches and took his career seriously, he advanced really quickly because he is seriously good at working a room.
Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Kennedy -- famous people persons. Bush the Elder, somewhat less so -- supposedly he made huge investments in interpersonal relationships, but I don't think he's famously warm.
Obama, Carter, Nixon -- very self focused. A certain amount of people skills, obviously, but not what you would call gregarious or friendly.
Valerie Jarrett is still there to be his Dr Panglossia ... he's good.
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