2009 was the year of the “bad” health care bill, or the year when Americans finally got, um, some health care justice, depending on your political persuasion. It was also the year Copenhagen became Nopenhagen. Not-so-great-news for Al Gore, various Third World kleptocrats and, come to think of it, various Washington-based kleptocrats. They did agree, to agree, to keep talking.
Press: It's not Obama's fault!
With no ringing, clear victories in his first year (even against domestic terrorists like Fox News), and Congress “checking the gate” on health care, ink is now flowing away from Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman and toward rating Obama’s 1st year in office. A narrative is well underway about our young President that it is lumbering Congress, wayward Senators, K Street insiders or even we, the unsophisticated, vision-less American people that are to blame for Barack Obama’s failings over the last year. The spin cycle is about to be set on turbo.
Mark Whitaker’s column in The Washington Post today is a great example of this budding narrative. On the economy, Mr. Whitaker writes:
[Obama] didn’t anticipate how Democrats would exploit his haste to prime the pump to stuff the bill with pet liberal projects, thus giving Republicans an opening to brand Obama as a big-government radical.
Greedy, lesser Democrats and opportunistic Republicans are harshing the mellow, not Mr. Obama. Hey, Mr. Whitaker, are you quite sure the “big-government radical” tag doesn’t fit? Mr. Obama is spending like a Hessian soldier on leave.
As for Afghanistan, Whitaker has more to say:
“the President believed he could conduct a thoughtful, confidential policy review to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam and Iraq. He didn’t bargain for the manipulative daily leaks, from generals and skeptical advisers alike, that limited his options and made his deliberation look like dithering.”
Whew. That was several excuses rolled into one. So when Barack Obama retired to his Fortress of Solitude to think over the validity of war itself, the petty Generals with troops’ lives at stake talked to the press. How dare they?
Obama himself plays the role of victim often, indeed setting up this narrative. How many times has the President referenced the turmoil of the “last eight years” or the “worst economy since the depression,” to absolve himself of one thing or another. The press has even allowed Mr. Obama to have a grading system all his own. The stimulus “saved” or created jobs number is an absolutely ridiculous measure of a government efficiency.
Whitaker sums it up best. The President, a finer, purer human, is up against “unruly forces of cynicism, egotism and self-interest that hold sway in Washington, on Wall Street and on the world stage.” Poor guy, up against the chaos of free markets, free speech and competing international interests. How is a good man to cope?
The President as victim meme was only tried once before in modern American politics, with Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan was the result. The question becomes simply, will “YES WE CAN: THE SEQUEL” play as well at the box office as the original did in 2008? Portraying Obama as the receiver, or innocent bystander, of outcomes, instead of the determiner of them is the opening act. The trailer for the 2012 election, if you will.
Do we have a critical mass of victim voters who will continue to want one of their own at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? I hope not. We shall see.
The President did give a good speech regarding the attempted Christmas Day air-terror attack today, albeit two days too late. If he morphs into a Commander-in-Chief on the terror issue, it will help his ratings with the American people. However, the President and his admirers can’t have it both ways. The American people won’t stand for it. Leader or victim? Obama and his team will need to choose.
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John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
