The Question About Obama Is Not “Will He” But “Can He” Tack Right?

posted at 1:32 pm on January 23, 2010 by Howard Portnoy
[ Fiscal Stimulus ]   

Now that the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy is in the history books and the implications thereof are clear to any observer with a working brain, comparisons between 1994 and the political landscape now have begun to surface. It was in 1994 of course when Bill Clinton, along with other Americans, watched control of Congress shift from Democrat to Republican for the first time in forty years.

Clinton’s now-famous reaction was guided by pragmatism. Following the old adage about joining ‘em when you can’t beat ‘em, he abandoned his lofty liberal ambitions and tacked politically right — and won a second term two years later.

The similarities between then and now are inescapable. Clinton, like Obama, was trying to push a massive health-care reform through Congress and down the throats of the American people. Obama, like Clinton, has now failed. By any intelligent reckoning, ObamaCare is dead. What’s more, the future of Democrat control of one or both houses is in peril, owing to their leadership’s ham-handed and devious approach to get their agenda passed.

The question everyone now seems to be asking is “Will Obama tack right in an effort to salvage his party’s damaged reputation and possibly earn himself a second term?” That question is the wrong one to ask. The correct question is “Can Obama tack right?” The answer, I am convinced, is no. The facts as they are known suggest otherwise.

First, consider Obama’s political upbringing. He was raised in the Chicago political machine. His friends include a number of shady far-left characters whose names are so well-known that repeating them here would be an act of redundancy. Anyone that far left on the political spectrum has no clue where the center is. In Obama’s world, he probably fancies himself to be close to the center right now. And he’ll be damned if he’s going to become some blanking conservative.

Second, look at Obama’s personality. I understand that many Americans when polled profess to like him as a person, though I can’t for the life of me understand why. The constellation of personality traits he has revealed — haughtiness, think skin, readiness to heap blame on others (or at least “other”) for his shortcomings, unwillingness to accept responsibility for mistakes, ingenuousness, naivete, and rigidity — do not add up to a flattering picture. Perhaps I am discounting the power of his silver-tongued oratory, but I think it is more accurate to assume that people formed an image of him early on that they were eager to accept and that old habits die hard. In any case, the last of the character traits cited, rigidity — coupled with his massive ego — does not suggest a man who will change even when political expedience recommends that he do so.

Obama has already made it clear, most recently in his town hall yesterday in Elyria, Ohio, that he plans to dig in. Consider this statement he made:

Now, here’s the message I want you to take away — and we’re going to have a lot of time for questions, but I want to make this absolutely clear. I did not run for President to turn away from these challenges. I didn’t run to kick these challenges down the road. I ran for President to confront them — once and for all.

And what was one of the challenges he doesn’t intend to run away from? He gave utterance to it in his next comment: “to deal with the problem of runaway health insurance costs that are breaking family budgets and breaking business budgets and breaking our national budgets.”

Yessir, that’s what the American people want to hear their president talk about right now — runaway health insurance costs. If it were anybody besides this guy, you might actually feel sorry for him.

In an old Gahan Wilson cartoon in Playboy, two men standing at the stern of a boat stare at the water, out of which emerges the middle finger of their companion who moments earlier drowned. “Young Smithers,” one of the men says. “Bitter to the end.” Keep that image in mind this coming week, when Obama delivers his first State of the Union, during which that raised middle finger will be prominently displayed in his words and demeanor. Keep it in mind again in November of 2012, when Democrats stare down at the water and lament, Young Obama, bitter — and clueless — to the end.”

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