Politco: Gee, The President Is Doing Such An Awesome Job, It's A Stone-Cold Mystery Why He's Not Getting Credit For It

Link to article at Hot Air.

I like this, because I often get into fights with commenters about what independents actually want. It's good that I can now fight with the liberals at Politico, who seem to not get this themselves.

The passage of financial reform, just a couple months after the passage of comprehensive health care, should decisively end the narrative that President Obama represents a Jimmy Carter-style case of naïve hope crushed by the inability to master Washington.

Yet the mystery remains: Having moved swiftly toward achieving the very policy objectives he promised voters as a candidate, Obama is still widely perceived as flirting with a failed presidency.

Eric Alterman, in a column that drew wide notice, wrote in The Nation that most liberals think the president is a “big disappointment.” House Democrats are in near-insurrection after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stated the obvious — that the party has a chance of losing the House under Obama’s watch. And independent voters have turned decisively against the man they helped elect 21 months ago — a trend unlikely to be reversed before November.

This is an odd reversal of expectations. When he came into office, the assumption even among some Democrats was that he was a dazzling politician and communicator who might prove too unseasoned at governance to win substantive achievements.

The reality is the opposite. You can argue over whether Obama’s achievements are good or bad on the merits. But especially after Thursday’s vote you can’t argue that Obama is not getting things done. To the contrary, he has, as promised, covered the uninsured, tightened regulations, started to wind down the war in Iraq and shifted focus and resources to Afghanistan, injected more competition into the education system and edged closer to a big energy bill.

The problem is that he and his West Wing turn out to be not especially good at politics, or communications — in other words, largely ineffective at the very things on which their campaign reputation was built. And the promises he made in two years of campaigning turn out to be much less appealing as actual policies.

These are legislative victories -- they are not victories as far as the most important thing to independents, which is, 1, a good economy, and 2, everything else being handled competently.

Independents do not really care all that much about partisan ideological legislative victories. If they did, they would not be independents.

They don't care about this stuff. They don't care that Barney Frank's legislative aides and bank lobbyists drafted a "financial regulation reform act" which Barney Frank himself did not read, and the President also did not read, and then the President's allies in Congress dutifully passed it without reading it and then President dutifully signed it without reading it.

Independents do not know what this bill says, or if it's good or not, and that's hardly a knock on them, because Congress hasn't read it and neither has the President.

As Nancy Pelosi said, "Gee, I can't wait until this bill gets passed so we can find out what it says!"

Political partisans barely care about bills they haven't read, and at least we have an ideological opinion about bills in broad strokes. (That is, conservatives don't like regulation as a general matter, and liberals love it as a general matter, but fuck-all if we know what the hell the exact details of the legislation are, or if they'd be positive or negative -- if Congress and the President don't know, how could we?)

Independents care even less, because they tend not to even have a strong opinion about the broad outlines of a bill.

Again, if they did, they would be partisans.

So Independents are not judging Obama by his petty, easy, cheap legislative victories, nor crediting him with them, because he has 59 allies in the Senate and 259 in the House (IIRC) and pretty much if he were offering anything ballpark palatable to the whole of just the Democratic Party this should be a snap.

This shit is easy. It is only difficult for Obama because he continues to say "Fuck You Too" to the conservative side of the Democratic Party and thus must win every vote on liberal votes -- and purchased votes -- alone.

So Independents are not impressed, and, in fact, I strain to imagine why liberal reporters are impressed that Obama can pass legislation with 59 in the Senate and 259 in the House, either.

It's like scoring a touchdown when their are only six men on defense.

Um, it's easy, guys.

You know what's tough? Like, doing something about the deficit, which was like $159 billion -- chump change -- before the big meltdown, which Obama vowed was too irresponsible even at that pitiful level, too much of a burden for our children. Something tough would be Obama doing what he claimed would be so easy for him, balancing the budget and setting the nation's finances on a sound footing.

This easy shit? Who is impressed by this, apart from Chris Matthews, that Obama can (barely) ram unpopular legislation through a Congress controlled by his toadies and groupies?

So, what do Independents care about? They care about general competency in handling presidential affairs and they care about the economy.

Well, the economy is in shambles, despite Obama promising projecting that with his stimulus unemployment would reach no higher than 8.5% and then drop significantly. And the Jackass' response to the Gulf Oil Crisis is to try to get three under par on the back nine. And the idiot continues to agitate against a bill about immigration that has seventy fucking four percent approval in the country.

And yet the People of Stupid keep wondering, "Gee, why don't nonpartisan, practical-minded, results oriented independents get as delighted as we liberal reporters do about Obama's purely partisan easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey legislative lay ups?"

Well, I'm sure we'll all one day be happy he pushed through some shitty legislation on party-line (actually, worse than that-- liberal-caucus-only-line) votes and did absolutely nothing that counts as an objective "general good."

But first, as always:

You will blow me.

posted by Ace at 03:02 PM

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