# Anatomy of a Failing Presidency



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Anatomy of a Failing Presidency

The following is an interesting article. You might ask how long Dr. Hunt can remain at NIH once the White House gets wind of this article.

Dr. Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist. He has had nearly 30 years experience in planning, conducting, and managing research in the field of youth studies, and drug and alcohol research. Currently Dr. Hunt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis and the Principal Investigator on three National Institutes of Health projects. He is also a writer for American Thinker.

An article from American Thinker by Geoffrey P. Hunt

Anatomy of a Failing Presidency

Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China 20.

But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.

But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?

No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative.  No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.

But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.

In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."

Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.

Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along..

Margaret Thatcher: "The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money."

"When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both." - James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union

"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own." - Unknown

"Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future only He can see."


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> intellectual dishonesty


We have debated on here with a few of the intellectually dishonest havn't we?



> His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential.


We were often told that the youth would put Obama in office. Well some parents have protected their children from reality, and others did not have the sense to recognise reality when they seen it. The result is we have youth with not enough real experience.



> It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of course. *It's that he's not one of us*.


Perhaps he would make a better connection in Kenya. 



> he's dissed just about every one of us


Yup, and I'm going to praise the Lord and hug my guns thank you.



> Margaret Thatcher: "The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money."





> "The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates."


If our youth remember nothing else they should remember those last two quotes. It will at least give America a chance to celebrate it's 300th year of existence.


----------



## hunter9494 (Jan 21, 2007)

we all knew he had zero experience, none, nada.......but yet many fell for the hope and change bs.......come on people, this should never happend again. and his associations with misfits was well know, yet many gave him a pass........POH!


----------



## TK33 (Aug 12, 2008)

Everybody gave him a free pass because they were tired of the same old garbage politics in Washington and the same old scare tactics from the right. The right keeps saying the voters were foolish for electing him, WRONG. The republicans were just that bad, and they got beat. I love all these articles criticizing Obama, all the really do is prove that an inexperienced and socialist invalid beat the candidate they nominated. The fact of the matter is that Obama cannot be a fool, he beat the Clintons and then the republicans. To think that he is a fool and is going to lay down like LBJ did would be foolish, I am sure that the republican leadership doesn't think that and are scheming their own ways to continue to divide the democrats. We could have three or four parties in DC soon, they may not have four different names but they will have different agendas.

The dems got the keys to a porsche and drove it right into a tree. Now we will see how the republicans take advantage of this. It will be interesting to see if they learned their lessons on economics and selling our country out for the sake of a buck, for a few.

David Axelrod is going to be on one of the shows tomorrow, why he still has a job is beyond me.


----------



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

that putz McCaine got slapped down with the recent CORRECT supreme court ruling regarding election financing hes a jerk of the highest order and the republicans proabably still dont realize that this is not a swing in favor of the them but just total disgust of the current socialist in charge.

I doubt they will get it


----------



## floortrader (Feb 5, 2009)

What is with this TK33 Guy. Damn I would be ashamed to have to admit I voted for the chosen one. And would be crazy not to ditch him now. I have some pride.


----------



## TK33 (Aug 12, 2008)

:rollin: :rollin: :rollin: :rollin: :rollin: :rollin: :rollin: :rollin:

No more ashamed than to say that I voted for Bush, twice. He is was at least as bad and dangerous as Obama. Your partisan blindness is amazing.


----------



## floortrader (Feb 5, 2009)

Bush is gone get over it, seems like no matter what the liberals and Dems do it can be excused by utering the magic words George Bush. Yeah say George Bush and you can ruin the country and consider you have a wonderful excuse.


----------



## TK33 (Aug 12, 2008)

I'm not a democrat. I am in the NRA, I am against abortion except for the rape, incest, mother's health, etc, I am in favor of shutting down our borders, I am in favor of a giant reduction of the federal government, I am not in favor of this healthcare, I am in favor of tort reform (not just healthcare), I am against selling out our country to corporations and overseas interests, and I am tired of all the handouts.

I just am not dumb enough to think that the republican party has all the answers.


----------

