FINALLY.
A major left-leaning newspaper -- the New York Times -- publishes an op-ed piece that calls a wimp a wimp. "What Happened to Obama?", by Emory University professor of psychology, Drew Westen (three weeks ago -- sorry, Flannista is behind on her reading), skewered the President for "his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics -- in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time."
More devastatingly, Westen wrote that Obama, so fond of referring to "the arc of history" (paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous statement that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice), "has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation."
Unlike some of my Facebook friends, I no longer love it when I wake up in the morning and Obama is still President. Of course, I'm even more inclined to stay in bed (perhaps with a plastic bag taped airtight around my neck) when I think of the folks on the Republican presidential roster . . . but I digress.
Westen's article is quite long, but at the end, he offers possible explanations for Obama's wimpiness:
- "Centrist" voters like "centrist" politicians.
- Obama is not up to the task "by virtue of his lack of experience." (i.e., Obama accomplished very little before he ran for President, having never run a business or a state.
- Obama doesn't know what he believes and/or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election.
- Like many politicians, he has been consciously or unconsciously corrupted by "a system that tests the souls even of people of tremendous integrity, by forcing them to dial for dollars, for hundreds of millions of dollars."
- Obama ran for President on two contradictory platforms: "as a reformer, and as a unity candidate. He has pursued the one with which he is most comfortable given the constraints of his character. He and his political team have consistently chosen the message of bipartisanship over the message of confrontation."
Thanks A LOT, President Obama. Compromise is working so well, don't ya think?:
- 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans.
- The average middle-class family "has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically."
- The incomes of our parents and grandparents have been cut so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates.
- The opinions of the wealthy predict the votes of the Senate.
What happened to "Yes we can," President Obama? Why am I even asking because it's quite apparent that you can't.
I'm going back to bed.
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