Barack Obama is a decidedly small-bore president. This is by no means a revelation to anyone. I voted for the guy in 2008 because the notion of a McCain presidency (and a Palin vice-presidency) scared the bejesus out of me, and rightfully so. (I remain convinced that denying him the presidency saved us about 14 wars.) I voted for him again in 2012 to deny the Republicans the joy of having all three branches of government. But that’s about all I’ve gotten out of it. He’s a very cautious man, a very conventional man, and not at all inclined to take bold steps.
Sure, he’s Simon the Likeable. I think of it as the liberal equivalent of conservatives seeing W. Bush as someone they would like to have a beer with. Obama has an appealing persona to people like me, mostly because he’s the first president in my lifetime that shares our experience. Of course, those considerations are an empty category, politically speaking. It doesn’t matter at all whether or not I “like” this man I don’t know. What matters is how he handles driving the enormous killing machine that is the American Presidency.
And from what I’ve seen, he’s not much better than his immediate predecessors. It’s that incrementalism – the big speech followed by the tiny half-step. Like this week, as Egypt’s military crushed the Muslim Brotherhood protesters, Obama stepped up to the mic in Martha’s Vineyard and duly intoned his concern, then canceled joint military exercises with the Egyptian generals. Kind of a puny response. For one thing, the Egyptian military is getting plenty of exercise now … shooting and rounding up their own people … with arms provided by us. That last part is the problem. If you want to have an impact on the generals’ planning, pull back on the free guns. Don’t just call off bombing the desert for the thirty-seventh time.
The presidency has a life of its own, it seems – some stuff stays the same no matter who occupies the oval office. One such item is our enduring relationship with the military in nations – like Egypt – with weak (or non-existent) civilian governments. So… how do we shift that? Any ideas?
luv u,
jp
Though his spinmeisters have been working overtime to put a positive gloss on it, Mitt’s softball trip to friendly nations was an unmitigated (or un-Mitt-igated, perhaps) disaster, from the crypto-racist tone of the adviser referencing our shared “Anglo-Saxon heritage” with the British, to the Olympic gaffe, to name-checking MI6 (psst, Mitt: it’s supposed to be a secret), to blaming Palestinian poverty on their “culture” or lack of same. That last comment is something of a bookend to the Anglo-Saxon trope he started off with, making Romney seem strangely fixated on issues of ethnic identity. (He later doubled down on the Palestinian remark in 
Frankly, if he were to come back from the Vineyard with a Jobs / Recovery Act proposal that involves bold efforts to fund infrastructure projects, incentivize hiring, raise taxes on the rich, and so on, I would be the first to say that the man has earned his rest. But that is an extremely unlikely scenario. Obama, smart as he is, does not want to have to walk back every statement he has made about the debt since last year. That’s my best take on that. My worst is that he really believes that cutting spending, basic social safety net programs, and government investment in the short term will, as his Republican opponents believe, create jobs. If he doesn’t know they’re smoking crack on that one, we could be in for Japan in the 1990s.