Well, I don’t need him to be irrelevant. But you know what I mean.
This should be fascinating to watch: “In recent weeks, Democratic operatives have begun to voice concerns that the 2014 midterms made plain the limits of an approach that failed to reach beyond minority groups or those who are reflexively liberal. And yet what should come next is not yet totally clear.” Largely because it’s essentially futile. The Democrats will not have control over their message in 2016, because in our system a sitting President has tremendous power to define for the public what his political faction does or does not care about.
[Barack] Obama feels liberated, aides say, and sees the recent flurry of aggressive executive action and deal-making as a pivot for him to spend the last two years being more of the president he always wanted to be.
I don’t often feel sympathy for my opposite numbers – and, in fact, in this case I still don’t. But if I were to feel sympathy, it’d be in the way that they’re going to have to spend the next two years going Never mind Barack Obama without actually looking like they’re going Never mind Barack Obama. Because while Barack Obama’s popularity generally is in the toilet*, it’s noticeably better among Democratic primary voters. Which means that the Democrats can’t actually tell Barack Obama to sit down and shaddap.
In case you’re wondering: yes, normally second-term Presidents don’t need to be told this. Generally speaking the sitting President gets out of the way as gracefully as possible so that the eventual nominee from their party can get on with the remarkably difficult task of winning three elections in a row. Fortunately (for my side), nobody bothered to tell Barack Obama that. Or maybe he doesn’t care. Or – and this would be the best answer – the man still hasn’t come to terms with the limits to his competence, and Obama thinks that he can (chuckle, snort!) help…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: If Barack Obama thinks that what was going this session was ‘deal-making’ (instead of, say, ‘trying to work around an over-rated Harry Reid’), we will probably find next year to be quite amusing, in its way.
*I should note, by the way, that his reputation will recover, post-Presidency. That’s what typically happens. Don’t get bent out of shape over it, because doing so won’t affect the process and you’ll just be there in the dark chewing bitter bones, as the Elves might say.
I should note, by the way, that his reputation will recover, post-Presidency. That’s what typically happens.
Yes, that’s what typically happens, because former presidents typically have kept a low profile and avoided criticizing their successors or their nation. Even Richard Nixon was partially rehabilitated by staying out of domestic politics and offering low-key advice on international matters. Gerald Ford played a lot of golf and kept his mouth shut. Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George Walker Bush notably refrained from to criticizing their successors.
James Earl Carter, on the other hand, wouldn’t shut the frak up, running down the policies and acts of his successors and even meddling in international diplomacy as an uninvited buttinski. Sure enough, he is even less respected now than when he left office.
William Jefferson Clinton didn’t withhold critical commentary, but he was a special case — he has remained yoked to the lovely and talented* Hillary Rodham Clinton, who for well more than a decade has had her eye on the presidency.
I strongly suspect that Barack Hussein Obama will prove to be the worst ex-president since the Civil War. Once he’s out of office, I have no doubt that he will paint the United States as incorrigibly racist, will interfere in matters of international diplomacy, will aid and abet our enemies, and will criticize his successors incessantly. The sycophantic media will attempt to portray him as the Elder Statesman of the Democratic Party, speaking Truth to Power. But nobody with an IQ above that of a potted plant will fall for it. Alas, about forty million of his ardent supporters will fall for it.
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* “That’s sarcasm,” he said unnecessarily.
I tend to agree. What’s more I think he might be unable to keep from interjecting himself into the 2016 campaign.
It is to be hoped.
And even if he tries to (HAH!) the press will go running to him anyway to hear his thoughts on everything.