Barack Obama always wanted the title of President, just not the job.
The ever-dependable Glenn thrush can always be counted on to throw Barack Obama a life preserver when needed. His article in Politico posted yesterday was revealing:
Barack Obama is antsy. His aides can see it when he alights from Air Force One from the all-too-occasional campaign trips he has taken this fall. There’s a sigh, an unhappy-camper body language when he finds himself back in the depressing slipstream of Ebola confabs and national-security-crisis-of-the-day meetings. The vibe, according to people in his orbit, is not so much of being checked out as of being fed up.
What would Obama rather be doing? Campaigning.
“[I] do like campaigning. … It’s fun,” Obama said on Thursday, speaking wistfully at a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Michaud in Maine.
Obama came to Washington professing to hate it, and still does:
More than anything, Obama’s loathing for Washington, an attitude that reads as ennui to outsiders, has hardened into a sullen resignation at being trapped in a broken system he failed to change, advisers told us.
A system he failed to change? In other words, Obama discovered we’re not a monarchy.
Thrush and Brown suggest that Obama has given up:
“I sense a certain fatalism there, and it’s disturbing,” says a former adviser on Obama’s campaign who, like many others we talked with for this story, requested anonymity. “There’s a sense that ‘I’ve tried everything, and look where it got me.’ People misread it as disengagement. It’s frustration. But who cares? It’s a bad mind-set.” Another Obama veteran adds, “the bully pulpit is gone, maybe forever.”
But it’s not his fault, you see:
But just as Republicans don’t trust him, neither Obama nor his top aides trust Republicans to work in good faith.
Really?
This is the guy whose first words in office, when offered advice, were “I won.”
Obama set the standard for a authoritarian rule. Let’s harken back to the first term language of 2010:
Obama: “They Bring a Knife…We Bring a Gun”
Obama to His Followers: “Get in Their Faces!”
Obama on ACORN Mobs: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”
Obama to His Mercenary Army: “Hit Back Twice As Hard”
Obama on the private sector: “We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick.“
Obama to voters: Republican victory would mean “hand to hand combat”
Obama to lib supporters: “It’s time to Fight for it.”
Obama to Latino supporters: “Punish your enemies.”
“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”
And of course he referred to Republicans as “hostage takers.” Obama laments the conditions he has created. Let’s go back to where we began:
There’s a sigh, an unhappy-camper body language when he finds himself back in the depressing slipstream of Ebola confabs and national-security-crisis-of-the-day meetings.
Problem is, that’s the job. That’s what being President is really all about. It is not just a thing- it is the most important thing. Now it bores Obama. He doesn’t care for the job. For Obama, the Wagyu beef is the priority. The speeches, in which he is the star, are paramount. The Presidency was only a vehicle to that end and a means of lowering his handicap. 400 fundraisers and 200 rounds of golf say so. Americans should be unsettled that the real job of being President bores the President. Obama barely was able to register on the “give a shit” meter following the beheading of James Foley and was on the golf course within ten minutes after issuing a tepid statement.
Obama is a community agitator by profession and has never been anything else. I cannot remember any President being more overtly and harshly partisan. He has fomented more hatred than anyone in memory and divided this country as few have ever done.
These were the seeds that Obama sowed and now disdain is his harvest.
Obama famously threatened “I’ve got a pen and a phone.”
And now we have a radioactive lame duck President who finds national security annoying and impairing his ability to campaign.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Excellent essay Dr Jon. And astute summary of our inciter in chief.
I am glad that this is the case.
Can you imagine how much more he could have accomplished if he had enjoyed being President enough to work at it?
This is a man who has never had to work at anything, so he never got into the habit.
Now he is present, but he’s not there.
Which, for a President like this and the constituents that he has, is probably the best that this nation can hope for.
If he didn’t like the job he shouldn’t have run for re-election. Obama acts like a spoiled, arrogant, snotty trust-fund privileged, ivy-league “prodigal son” thrust into a suit and given an executive position that he is too disinterested and incompetent to fill. His only successes are in his ability to charm fellow elite cronies and arse-kissers (along with groups of fawning low-information idiots) and in tyrannical edicts and throwing tantrums. Meanwhile arrogantly assuming powers that belong (Constitutionally) to others and which he was never ever granted in the first place. Were he the king he thinks he is, Obama would rate worse even than Charles I of England, who seems to be of a similar mold as Obama and whose own heady incompetence and arrogance lead to his eventual arrest, trial for treason and subsequent execution.
I have to agree with Michelle +Carter.
I think I said something of the sort once…Ofraud likes all the ‘perks’ of the Job, but not the job itself….and guess what? WE are ALL suffering for it!!
I shudder to think what pots the agitator will try to stir up when he is out of office…I am hoping he get slost (forever) on a golf course ‘somewhere’….anywhere but here…