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Obama: Too much style, too little substance?
April 8, 2009 - 8:43am.
By DOUG THOMPSON

It's still too early to make a final judgment but the administration of America's first black President may go down in history as a triumph of style over substance.

Barack Obama's charisma charms the hell out of most of the American public, the mainstream media and even hardened political pundits. He's a powerful speaker, an articulate politician and an adept manipulator who has built an image that has mesmerized a nation and most of the world.

But style alone cannot deal effectively with the many problems that face this nation. Articulate rhetoric is not enough to lead America. When you get past Obama the image and take a close, hard look at Obama the President, you come away wondering if America simply replaced a right-wing problem with one from the left.

In too many ways, Barack Oama is a left-wing George W. Bush.

Bush came into office promising to unite the country. So did Obama. Bush governed as a strident partisan. Obama's promises of bipartisanship have disappeared and his actual job performance is now as partisan on the left as Bush's was on the right.

Bush promised "the most ethical administration in history." He delivered one of the most corrupt. Obama promised an administration free of lobbyists and typical Washington politicians schooled in the old way of doing things. His administration is filled with old Washington hacks and -- yep -- even lobbyists.

Obama promised to rid this nation of the Constitutional abuses of the Bush administration but he has continued the legally-questionable rendition policies of his predecessor. Such policies violate international law and American constitutional experts like Jonathan Turley say the Obama administration continues to wade through "murky legal waters" when it comes to abuses of the Constitution.

Obama promised an "open administration" but reporters and watchdog groups are finding the new boss is the same as the old boss when it comes to access to documents that detail the inner workings of our government.

Some who defend Obama's retrenchments say things like "well, no candidate keeps their campaign promises" and "you can't expect the rhetoric of the campaign to translate into real policy when it comes to governing."

With most candidates, perhaps, but Barack Obama promised to be different from most candidates. He promised to fundamentally change the way Washington worked. Instead of being the new kid on the block with new ideas and new ways of doing things, he has become another good old boy in the Washington political system.

Centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans who intially thought Obama would govern from the center find, to their dismay, that he took a sharp left turn after taking the oath of office and now promotes a hard-core, leftist agenda.

The first cracks may be appearing in Obama's style-over-substance approach to government. A New York Times-CBS poll shows 58 percent of Americans think the President is mishandling the banking crisis but he continues to have record high marks in other areas.

Americans are a fickle bunch when it comes to support of our leaders. Obama wins now on style but if he doesn't show substance beneath all the hype, hoopla and rhetoric he may well be a one-term President who will go down in history as just another politician who promised a lot and delivered little.

DOUG THOMPSON

First let me admit that I am not an Obama supporter. I had a certain fatal curiosity about him after the election, but his politics before he took office told me what his politics would be after he took office, so his lurch to the left of left does not surprise me.

What HAS surprised me is how not ready for prime time he seems to be. His advisors have let him down multiple times in his young administration and he is in danger of losing whatever moral adantage he could claim. His nominees bother me the most, not because they aren't qualified but because their tax troubles should have been discovered before the nomination process. His lack of knowelege on official protocol, imagine a US President bowing to a foreign leader, is absurd. He is a guy who likes to look good but I am not sure he is willing to put forth the effort needed to be good. I am rooting for him to succeed for purely selfish reasons, but rooting for him none the less. I expected much better from him than what I have seen to date.

Tim

Get your facts straight, Mr. Thomspon!

source: NY Times/CBS Poll

source: msnbc

source: New York Times

Now, let's have a look at the data on those "centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans who are dismayed to find that the President has taken a sharp turn to the left", shall we?

You know, at this point I don't feel I have access to enough information, or the wisdom it would take to balance it all, to be certain whether Obama is doing a good job or a bad one. But I'd like to add a comment to one paragraph here, as something seems to me to be missing:
As I recall, it was the Republican Party Congresscritters, voting in 100% lockstep against Obama, who closed the door on bipartisanship. They made it very clear that they would not work with him, period - whether he attempted to work across the aisle (as he initially did) or not. Of course I could be wrong; it's happened many times before.

I am curious what this pronouncement is based upon:Frankly, I have seen no indications of this whatsoever.

I did get my facts straight. The same New York Times story you quoted from had this:


Steve, if you're going to accuse me of not having my facts straight, at least read the whole article.

My paragraph said:


That was a correct statement from the story about the poll. Please try to get your facts straight?

--Doug

I've been talking to centrist Democrats and Republicans and they're not happy.

The problem is tax problems?

Were they trying to defraud the IRS? If so they should have been charged by the IRS for such otherwise it was not a problem.

If you think they were then you should have a problem with the IRS for not charging them.

Ahh the Blue Dogs and "The Party of NO".
Welp, maybe the Dogs surprised me and they may be right about Obama's shift to the left (I've seen it too), but as far as bipartisanship?
ROFLMAO...that one gets hung squarely on the shoulders of the GOP, who started out whining, then turned to attempted filibustering, then turned to press attacks, then turned to marching in lockstep, then turned to Rush, their leader AS APPOINTED BY Rahm Emmanuel no less!

Now they're having "Tea Parties" and Michelle Bachmann worship.
What's next from the bipartisan Repubs?

Out of all of them I've only noticed Arlen Specter, who I still have a grudge against for his Warren Commission whitewash, but at least he is actually trying to work with the new administration.

Maybe there are others, I'll look to the really big brains (yourself included of course) to tell me who they are.

But you can't fault Obama's administration entirely for the lack of "bipartisanship".

Right now I think you hit the nail on the head with respect to the economy. Obama isn't just faltering, he's failing miserably.
His closest advisers are the ones who either engineered the crisis or stood by while it loomed on the horizon.

I also see a lot of lip service being paid to alternative energy and the auto business but no real work being done.

Out of all the issues of the day, energy and the economy are the two most likely to sink this nation the fastest.
He'd better get rid of the dead wood and start figuring out a way to lead on these two pieces of business or we're in real trouble.

So it does. I stand corrected. Sorry to pi$$ you off so mightily.