Harry Reid: Don't Blame Me, Obama Just Sucks

As William Kristol said in 2002, now comes the best part of any election: the recriminations.

The meeting in the Oval Office in late June was called to give President Obama and the four top members of Congress a chance to discuss the unraveling situation in Iraq.

But Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, wanted to press another point.

With Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, sitting a few feet away, Mr. Reid complained that Senate Republicans were spitefully blocking the confirmation of dozens of Mr. Obama’s nominees to serve as ambassadors. He expected that the president would back him up and urge Mr. McConnell to relent.

Mr. Obama quickly dismissed the matter.

“You and Mitch work it out,” Mr. Obama said coolly, cutting off any discussion.

Mr. Reid seethed quietly for the rest of the meeting, according to four separate accounts provided by people who spoke with him about it. After his return to the Capitol that afternoon, Mr. Reid told other senators and his staff members that he was astonished by how disengaged the president seemed. After all, these were Mr. Obama’s own ambassadors who were being blocked by Mr. McConnell, and Secretary of State John Kerry had been arguing for months that getting them installed was an urgent necessity for the administration.

But the impression the president left with Mr. Reid was clear: Capitol Hill is not my problem.

To Democrats in Congress who have worked with Mr. Obama, the indifference conveyed to Mr. Reid, one of the president’s most indispensable supporters, was frustratingly familiar....

The New York Times then zeroes in on liberals' favorite complaint about Obama.

It's their favorite complaint, because it's so minor.

Whenever they need to complain about this failure, they will only do so on two grounds.

The first ground, which we saw in that Politico piece the other day, the big one about Obama's "detachment" and "depression," is that Obama, nobly, despises the "Theatrical" aspects of his job.

That is, he won't play the Actor, oozing false sentiment.

This is as complimentary a "criticism" as one could hope to bestow -- he's too honest to be a great leader!!!

The second ground -- which the New York Times spends the entire rest of the article fleshing out -- is that Obama doesn't care to "schmooze" with his allies in Congress.

Again, this "criticism" is pretty much a compliment. Again, the criticism directed at Obama is that he is too honest and can't abide the bullshit.

The actual truth is that Obama simply doesn't do his job, because he is lazy, and he refuses to do the non-glamorous, non-"fun" parts of his job such as compromising, horsetrading, or working out the details, because he is a committed die-hard ideologue who also suffers from an intense Messianic complex in which he can only be the conquering hero.

And also, he seems to be lethargic because he is psychologically a depressive, whose mood is only elevated by hero worship -- something he hasn't gotten in a while, because he's a miserable failure.

These are the real truths of the matter, but of course the New York Times and Politico can only bring themselves to criticize Obama for disdaining phony theatrics or phony "schmoozing" with the horrible phonies that make up the Democratic congressional caucus.

posted by Ace at 11:41 AM

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