a child wearing a man’s clothes

#rsrh Alex Castellanos asks why Obama’s campaigning so badly…

…in this election season (H/T: Hot Air) And I ask: when did Obama campaign well?

No, seriously. Every successful campaign that Obama has participated in before 2008 was under the aegis of the Illinois Democratic political machine. He merely had to show up, hit his marks, speak a few times, vote as he was told, and let the targeted leaking of damaging information about his opponents do the rest. That doesn’t require political skill: that requires both the ability to conceal boredom, and excellent bladder control. Then, during the 2008 primary, Obama handed off the details of the primaries to the geeks* and vaguely went off to let them work on building his profile for a VP bid. The geeks then managed to hack the Democratic primary and munchkin the living hell out of it; they found every exploit that existed in the political source code, and used them all**. Again, Obama didn’t have to do a darn thing except show up. And as for the 2008 general election… well. McCain didn’t like to fight, the economy melted down, and Obama showed up.

Continue reading #rsrh Alex Castellanos asks why Obama’s campaigning so badly…

#rsrh White House loses embarrassingly unemployed engineer’s resume?

Hey, remember that woman who complained to the President that her engineer husband couldn’t find a job? Yeah, her: well, Obama apparently told her to have her husband send in a resume to the White House. But guess what happened?

Yup. It turns out that the White House doesn’t have a clue about what the status is on that resume! Continue reading #rsrh White House loses embarrassingly unemployed engineer’s resume?

#rsrh Barack Obama has lost Tina Brown.

This transcript/video from Newsbusters is fascinating, in its way. Seeing Tina Brown say:

I think that Obama doesn’t like his job, actually. I think that he is genuinely of a professioral disposition in the sense that I think that he’s interested in chewing over the pros and cons, and he doesn’t like, he doesn’t like power and he doesn’t know how to exercise power. And I think knowing how to exercise power is absolutely crucial. He doesn’t understand how to underpin his ideas with the political gritty, granular business of getting it done. And that kind of gap has just widened and widened and widened. And so that every time there is a moment, a window where he can jump in, like something like a Simpson-Bowles as well, he just doesn’t do it. He hangs back at crucial moments when you have to dive through that window.

…was fascinating, mostly because it represents a not-insignificant portion of the liberal establishment quietly washing their hands of the President. Mind you, it’s also nonsensical in one particular area: of course Barack Obama likes power. You don’t run for the job for two years unless you like power. What’s happened here is that Barack Obama is simply a complete incompetent when it comes to exercising power, mostly because he had absolutely no experience in it prior to 2009. No experience, no particular work ethic, and no external forces willing to give him negative feedback: is it a real surprise, then, that Barack Obama is a miserable failure as President?

Hint: the correct answer is ‘no.’

(Via AoSHQ & Instapundit)

Moe Lane

PS: Ahem. “I told you so.”

Boston Herald shut out of press pool.

Let us set the scenario.

On March 8, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed for the Boston Herald. Title: “Obama Misery Index hits a record high:” it’s about jobs, unemployment, and how this is lousy at encouraging the former and good at encouraging the latter.
The Boston Herald decides to put said op-ed on the front page. Again: former governor. The Boston Herald doesn’t hate Republicans: after all, it endorsed McCain in 2008 (primary, too, so it’s not like they’re in the tank for Romney).
As it happens, the President visited Boston at about that time for a fundraiser for the DCCC (note that this was before his official announcement that he was running for re-election.
The White House was not happy about how the Boston Herald covered that particular event. Which is to say, the President’s appearance at a fairly generic DCCC meet-and-greet did not get front-page coverage, apparently.
You know where this is going, don’t you?

Continue reading Boston Herald shut out of press pool.

Mort Zuckerman dismisses Obama.

Ouch.

Obama clearly wishes to do good and means well.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, that’s pretty much the worst thing that you can say about a person in English. It’s what you fall back on when you can’t credibly claim competence or experience for somebody.

Via Riehl World View. Read the whole thing, although with a title like “World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur” you almost don’t have to. It is… instructive… to consider that it’s hard to come up with an ally whom we haven’t insulted in the last two years. Canada’s upset over our trade shenanigans. Great Britain feels like it’s being repeatedly kicked because of the President’s daddy issues. India is wondering why the heck the White House isn’t interested in building on Bush’s outreach. Israel’s visibly deciding that the American government is more likely to condemn Holocaust II than it is to prevent it. Western Europe’s getting exasperated with our fiscal policy, Eastern Europe’s getting nervous at our willingness to let the Russians repossess them, and we even managed to tick off Japan over the Okinawa air base thing. And don’t get me started on South America. About the only ally that I can come up with as being still more or less unscathed by our foreign policy is maybe Australia.

Now watch: the President will get caught on tape sneering at [ yellow tail ], or something.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.