How Obama Killed Hope

Expectations and the management of same matter a great deal in politics. Certainly every good political campaigner seeks to inspire his, or her voters at some point. But the recent Hope Poster controversy caused me to think back on the type of campaign the Obama people ran, comparing it to where we are now. Add to that the fact that Obama didn't exactly do anything overly much to try and temper down from it early on. He was actually quite happy to ride the media's inspirational message and their glowing admiration of him for just as long as he could.

Looking around just now, do you sense an America that feels a great deal of hope? Unfortunately, I don't.

From backing up on most all of his campaign promises, dithering while a war in Afghanistan continues on and the many gaffes, tax problems and missteps his administration experienced and continues to experience so early on, it's impossible to argue that Obama has been the least bit effective in keeping that campaign hope alive.

Then there's his newcomer status. If America was willing to take a gamble and allow him to gin up some hope, it's also fair to say they didn't do it with a great deal of trust. Day by day, headline after negative headline whatever trust might have been there seems to be quickly falling away.

While the 2010 elections are still a year off, it's already getting to the point where one has to wonder, how long before some of the more experienced and hopefully sensible old hands on the Hill schedule that walk into the Oval office during which they try to teach a new and inexperienced personality-in-chief a thing, or two about his first real job.

And given that it may be the first time in his life Obama is confronted with the fact that he's not all that and he doesn't have all the answers, one can only speculate on how such a talk might go.

Given that the vast majority of us still have to live in this country, we should hope it doesn't go for the worst. As Americans with an increasingly stumbling and ineffectual personality-in-chief who doesn't seem to take to responsibility very well, you might say it has fallen to us to keep hope alive.

Certainly Obama has proved he is incapable of doing it, so someone must. Thankfully, I've little doubt that we as Americans, unlike Obama, are up to our job.

Comments

[rrpjr]

The latent theme of your piece points to a true conundrum. How is an utterly inexperienced man to whom humility is a stranger told his shortcomings? How does a man who came to high power on the jetstream of conceit and illusion confront the reality of his limitations and the superfluousness of those conceits and illusions in a world of mean and hungry forces? I mean, the reasons he came into power in his own mind are in increasingly clashing with the objective judgments by the world on his basic fitness for power -- so how does all this reconcile?

Not well, in my opinion. That is, only with a lot of suffering by a lot of people.

[Diogenes]

"While the 2010 elections are still a year off, it's already getting to the point where one has to wonder, how long before some of the more experienced and hopefully sensible old hands on the Hill schedule that walk into the Oval office during which they try to teach a new and inexperienced personality-in-chief a thing, or two about his first real job."

Who would you nominate for the job? Most of the "old hand" Dem's seem absolutely giddy at having a rubberstamp-in-chief in the Oval Office. Certainly not Reid, Pelosi, Boxer, Frank, et al. Kennedy might have been up to the job - crazy as he was, he at least had a small dose of pragmatism. The rest of the Dem leadership - not so much...

[southdakotaboy]

Why should we hope that he pulls himself together? A public melt down and a few years of misery might just be the only thing that wakes the American people up to what evil people the Dems are.

Then after the Dems are so completely exposed as the scum that they are; then and only then do we move in to fix the problems. While we are at it we need to take a broom to all those institutions where the Dems have insinuated themselves and clean the filth out.

[gus]

No no no no, not God Bless America, God Damn America.

This is the nonsense that Obama listened to. He listened to Marxist professors, he listened to Frank Marshall Davis, he listened to Sol Alinksy, he listened to Bill Ayers, Name someone of ANY SUBSTANCE that Obama has a relationship with? He's a con man. Nothing more. He hides his past, because what he is hiding would ruin him and his entire dysfunctional life, he has been immune from consequences and criticism.
He has no abilities. Liberals don't believe the CEO needs ability. Ideology is what LIBTARDS follow, and Obama even lied about that to them.

[xerocky]

Ex co workers that SUPPORTED him said that he padded his resume. What does that tell you? The man had no experience and all of these people voted for him...what were they HOPING for?

And "no experience" is the BEST thing that you could say about him.

[Bob]

"While the 2010 elections are still a year off, it's already getting to the point where one has to wonder, how long before some of the more experienced and hopefully sensible old hands on the Hill schedule that walk into the Oval office during which they try to teach a new and inexperienced personality-in-chief a thing, or two about his first real job."

I don't know, Dan. This latest poll from ABC News seems to be saying that Americans have a hell of a lot more confidence in Obama than they do the Republicans. I'd say it's the Republicans who need a good talking to.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=8863442

"Only 20 percent of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans, the fewest in 26 years. Just 19 percent, similarly, trust the Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions for the country's future; even among Republicans themselves just four in 10 are confident in their own party. For comparison, 49 percent overall express this confidence in Obama, steady since August albeit well below its peak."

The funniest bit is how only 4 in 10 Republicans trust their own party. But of course it's all Obama's problem, right? LOL.

[xerocky]

"Only 20 percent of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans,"

Yes, but how many id themeselves as conservatives? Ok, so the Republican party is a mess, but that doesn't mean that Obama is doing great, or that people love him as much as they are being commanded to.