Thursday, October 14, 2010

Is Obama Arrogant?

First off I need to apologize to you all for not blogging as much these past few days. I've been caught up with work and just generally being lazy at home BUT I do plan on getting back into the swing of things. The elections are only a couple of weeks away after all!

So to get back into it, let me direct you to Jonah Goldberg's piece in the LA Times today about Obama and his "arrogance". I'm putting that in quotes because I think the jury is still out on that. Personally I can see where Goldberg is coming from and he makes several great points. But what is a measure of a president? When faced with adversity? I can agree with Goldberg when he writes that Obama's team is wrong in thinking that a bad recession makes this the toughest time to be president, but with the election coming I think we'll really have an easier time deciding if Obama is truly arrogant.

Up to this point, legislatively, Obama has had it easy. Very rarely in these modern times do presidents get such huge majorities in both chambers of congress and, frankly, passing laws should have been very easy. But if the pundits are correct and the republicans make huge gains in November, Obama will be looking at a huge wall of "No!" to any laws he proposes. If he is willing to moderate himself politically I think we will see a more humble president than we've been getting.

And to me that is a sure sign that he's not as arrogant as Golberg is making him out to be. Any president that is willing to eat crow, admit their defeat, and move on is one that believes more in the office than themselves.

6 comments:

  1. Hm.... not sure. Seems a bit harsh.

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  2. If anything, Obama is conciliatory to a fault. Referring to moderates and centrists as extreme leftists (even using labels like communist and fascist) with the apparent assumption that repeating the 'center is the new left' meme incessantly will make it so, now that is the height of arrogance.

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  3. I personally cringe every time I see Obama-hate, mainly because too many Americans have this false belief that the presidency comes with some sort of supreme power, 'what thou says, goes-th.'

    A random no-body put it very well recently; 'we'll see progress when the Democrates stop voting on anything and everything, and the Republicans stop refusing to not vote just for the sake of not voting.'

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  4. republicans always have a stick up their arse, sigh.

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