A very good editorial opinion on Obama...
Mr. President, where is the passion?
By Neal Gabler | December 20, 2009
WELL, THAT was fast. Though past presidential candidates were elected with a larger percentage of votes, it is fair to say that no modern president reached office with a greater outpouring of sentiment, enthusiasm, and passion than Barack Obama. Supporters felt this was a landmark election, not only because Obama was African-American but also because he promised a different kind of presidency. They actually believed he would make good on his campaign slogan. Finally, change that would matter.
It didn’t take long for the disillusion to set in, especially among those on the left who had been Obama’s most ardent admirers. Where they had expected a full-throttle presidency, undoing what George W. Bush had done, what they got instead is a timorous one. In 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis pronounced that the election was not about ideology but about competence. Now we have the presidency that Dukakis promised. It is cautious, deliberative, reasonable, experienced, not terribly ideological and entirely competent - very different from George W. Bush’s government of ideologues, cronies, and hacks.
But there is one big thing that the administration lacks: passion. It is hard to remember a presidency that was as passionless as this one is - a presidency that puts down no markers, draws no lines in the sand, makes no stand. That, even more than the compromises themselves, may be what really riles Obama’s old supporters. It is that he doesn’t seem ******** by the compromise. Simply put, Obama seems to be missing the passion gene.
Other presidents compromised without incurring wrath. Think of Kennedy. But Obama acts as if he were a Solomon who always chooses to cut the baby in half. He was adamant about a public option in any health care bill, but if there wasn’t one, no big deal. He was devoted to closing the prison at Guantanamo, but if there is a ruckus about it, no big deal in keeping it open a while longer. He was firm that America had to take a more realistic approach to the efficacy of its military power, but if General McChrystal wants more troops in Afghanistan, no big deal. It is no wonder that Obama’s old supporters don’t see this as change you can believe in. It is change you can believe will always be compromised.
It is not that President Obama, faced with his own political realities, failed to translate the passion of his election into a tidal wave that could carry his policies forward. It is that he never seemed to try because he never wanted to stir that passion. We knew he wasn’t a firebrand. He wasn’t going to be a Ted Kennedy, providing a voice for the voiceless or power for the powerless. He seemed uncomfortable in that role. But what few seemed to foresee is just how diffident he would be, how unmoved he seems to be, at least publicly, by the plight of the jobless, those who are struggling to afford health care, or the soldiers who must fight our battles. You wonder what, if anything, can really get his dander up, which is not a good thing to wonder.
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