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Ed Morrissey gives us the good news from Wisconsin.
… For the second time, unions had an opportunity to bring their organizational and funding advantages into a special election environment, and for the second time, Wisconsin voters largely rejected them. The union tried to unseat Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser in April, blanketing the state for challenger Joann Kloppenburg in an election that should have had a small, easily manipulated turnout. Instead, they came up empty as Wisconsin voters turned out heavily.
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza calls this “an undeniable defeat for labor and progressive activists”: …
David Harsanyi celebrates the fall of the cult of Obama.
… The sight of a crumbling Cult of Obama — and with it the end of the progressive presidency — has many on the left so frustrated that they simply dismiss the very idea of ideological debate. To challenge the morality and rationality of Obamanomics only means you’re bought, too stupid to know any better or, most likely, both. A slack-jawed hostage-taking saboteur.
Armed with this unearned intellectual and ethical superiority, it is not surprising to hear someone like John Kerry reprimand the media for even covering conservative viewpoints. It is predictable that the Senate would “investigate” a private entity like Standard & Poor’s for giving an opinion on American debt that conflicted with its own. (Remember when not listening to the Dixie Chicks was a “chilling of free speech”?)
Obama himself blamed the volatile stock market on the “prolonged debate over the debt ceiling … where the threat of default was used as a bargaining chip.” So it’s not the job-killing policy or another $4 trillion of debt in two years that’s problematic; it‘s the insistence of elected officials to represent their constituents that’s really killing America.
Following the lead of the Environmental Protection Agency, Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently used this imagined “dysfunction” as an excuse to try to unilaterally implement comprehensive education “reform” by bypassing law and using a waiver system. Why? “Right now,” Duncan explained, “Congress is pretty dysfunctional. They’re not getting stuff done.”
Hate to break the news to you, Arne; for many Americans, stopping this administration from “getting stuff done” is getting stuff done. …
Bret Stephens gets it.
The aircraft was large, modern and considered among the world’s safest. But that night it was flying straight into a huge thunderstorm. Turbulence was extreme, and airspeed indicators may not have been functioning properly. Worse, the pilots were incompetent. As the plane threatened to stall they panicked by pointing the nose up, losing speed when they ought to have done the opposite. It was all over in minutes.
Was this the fate of Flight 447, the Air France jet that plunged mysteriously into the Atlantic a couple of years ago? Could be. What I’m talking about here is the Obama presidency.
When it comes to piloting, Barack Obama seems to think he’s the political equivalent of Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Yeager and—in a “Fly Me to the Moon” sort of way—Nat King Cole rolled into one. “I think I’m a better speech writer than my speech writers,” he reportedly told an aide in 2008. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m . . . a better political director than my political director.”
On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that “I’m LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game.” …
… But it takes actual smarts to understand that glibness and self-belief are not sufficient proof of genuine intelligence. Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does.
Jennifer Rubin says it is about time the left figured out what we have know for years.
Poor Evan Thomas will never live down his ludicrous comment that President Obama was “sort of God.” What seemed like slobbering now seems outright dumb, given the president’s performance. And don’t take my word for it.
Left-wing pundits have discovered he’s sort of like Jimmy Carter. Others now comprehend he’s remote and cold. Still others recognize he is weak and ineffectual (“strangely powerless, and irresolute, as larger forces bring down the country and his presidency”).
It’s not strange at all. Conservatives have been saying the same thing for several years (ever since the 2008 campaign got underway). We noticed his contempt for his fellow citizens who “cling to guns and religion.” We noticed when his response to the Fort Hood massacre was oddly disengaged. Even the death of his political patron didn’t evoke any real emotion. …
The Daily Beast writes on the Dems who are disheartened by the president.
… During the last few days, the whispers have swelled to an angry chorus of frustration about Obama’s perceived weaknesses. Many Democrats are furious and heartbroken at how ineffectual he seemed in dealing with Republican opponents over the debt ceiling, and liberals are particularly incensed by what they see as his capitulation to conservatives on fundamental liberal principles.
In Connecticut, a businessman who raised money for Obama in 2008 said, “I’m beyond disgusted.” In New Jersey, a teacher reported that even her friends in the Obama administration are grievously disillusioned with his lack of leadership—and many have begun to whisper about a Democratic challenge for the 2012 presidential nomination. “I think people are furtively hoping that Hillary runs,” she said.
The son of a longtime Democratic congressman from Texas, a 73-year-old lawyer, is so enraged with Obama that he’s threatening not to vote for the 2012 Democratic ticket—the first time in his entire life that he’s contemplated such apostasy.
Among many of the 18 million Americans who supported Hillary Clinton in 2008, the reaction is simple and bitter: “We told you so.” …
Powerline has the story of what happened to the president’s passion as asked by a NY Times Op-Ed.
That is the question that is posed by psychology professor Drew Westen in a long essay in today’s New York Times. Westen is a stereotypical liberal who thinks Obama’s problem is that he isn’t tough enough or far-left enough. His ignorance of history is so glaring that the essay isn’t worth responding to in detail. Along the way, however, Westen does hint at the truth:
“A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted “present” (instead of “yea” or “nay”) 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.” …
Dana Milbank roughs up the administration.
A familiar air of indecision preceded President Obama’s pep talk to the nation.
The first draft of his schedule for Monday contained no plans to comment on the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s. Then the White House announced that he would speak at 1 p.m. A second update changed that to 1:30. At 1:52, Obama walked into the State Dining Room to read his statement. Judging from the market reaction, he should have stuck with his original instinct.
“No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a AAA country,” Obama said, as if comforting a child who had been teased by the class bully.
When he began his speech (and as cable news channels displayed for viewers), the Dow Jones industrials stood at 11,035. As he talked, the average fell below 11,000 for the first time in nine months, en route to a 635-point drop for the day, the worst since the 2008 crash.
It’s not exactly fair to blame Obama for the rout: Almost certainly, the markets ignored him. And that’s the problem: The most powerful man in the world seems strangely powerless, and irresolute, as larger forces bring down the country and his presidency. …
Andrew Malcolm noticed the market drop too.
Seeking to show leadership and calm anxiety on the first trading day after the unprecedented credit downgrade for the federal government, a beleaguered President Obama made an 11-minute financial statement this afternoon that proved prophetic.
“Markets will rise and fall,” the Democrat said, “but this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a AAA country.”
The results: On the worst day since the 2008 financial crisis, all three major U.S. stock indexes dropped between 5% and 7% with the Dow plunging 633 points to close beneath 11,000 for the first time in nine months. …
Andrew Malcolm also has late night humor.
Leno: President Obama turned 50 Thursday. A year ago he was in his forties and his approval was in the fifties. This year it’s the other way around.
Leno: President Obama is making a three-day bus tour across the Midwest later this month focused on jobs, mainly him keeping his.
Conan: Did you read about that man who jumped the White House fence? There was a brief chase, but the Secret Service was able to convince President Obama to return and continue his term.