From Wretchard:
Now the Republic’s enemies must be asking themselves: where is the bottom to these people’s incompetence? Can they do anything at all? How safe is it to rush ahead? Why don’t we try?
And if they do, what tools will President Obama have left? Diplomacy? Economic incentives or sanctions? Moral authority? Maybe the military. Yes that’s it. But his competence at war is predicted by his incompetence in peace. One would hope he’d have the sense to stay away from truly dangerous tools and that probably means he doesn’t know better.
What were they thinking, two years ago?
[Update late morning]
Gee, I’m pretty sure that some people pointed this out to Mark Kleiman at the time. Another quote du jour (this one for today):
What’s terrifying is the possibility that he hasn’t thought seriously about the problem: that’s the downside of electing a President without long experience in Washington, or any experience as a manager.
You mean there was a downside to that? But what about the hope? And the change?
What were they thinking, indeed. Of course the opponent was also bad, perhaps not this bad, but certainly bad in other ways. Lots of money and a fully compliant MSM created the perfect storm of now.
I have long thought that HRC would challenge The Anointed One in 2012, but I am actually starting to hope that current events will take both of them down. Lots of time remains between now and 2012, and there seems to be no lack of abundance today of the available money and MSM compliance that affected the 2008 elections. There better be a profoundly stronger opponent in 2012 or this will certainly continue.
What were they thinking, two years ago?
A visionless Republican can’t beat a smooth-talking huckster Democrat.
Heh, our President is Doctor Utopia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6H63CD7uQA
What were they thinking, two years ago?
Something along the lines of “Look how cool I am for voting for a black man to be president!”
He was elected by, to use the Left’s phrase*, “low information voters.”
(*Again, if you want to understand them, just listen to their accusations.)
To expand on my point above, Exhibit B.
Head’s up.
You know, this is about the only time I’ve ever agreed with Tom Tomorrow. I’m not interested in compromise. Life’s too short to allow these parasites to regroup and plague my children. If they can’t be exterminated or sterilized, at least they need to be rendered anathema, their slogans and symbols made as taboo as Arbeit Macht Frei and the swastika.
There is a chilling comment over at the original post:
egoist Says:
December 1st, 2010 at 6:10 am
As Glenn has said, “and these people control nukes”. It’s scary to think of how g/d dumb they are – everything they touch turns to shit, and they touch everything.
that’s the downside of electing a President without long experience in Washington
I vehemently disagree with this sentiment.
Obama’s been a politician all his professional life, regardless of whether he’s been in Washington. I doesn’t follow that everything would be hunky dory now, as long as he had John McCain’s lifetime of Washington ‘experience’.
George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson… I think most people would consider them pretty decent U.S. Presidents, certainly better than our recent crop. Did they have lots of ‘Washington experience’?
I suppose by this metric we should have made the late Ted Kennedy or late Robert Byrd president. They had oodles of Washington experience. But even with them gone, we can go to Frank, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Biden et all… They’ve got lots of time in Washington. Lots of experience – funneling our hard created wealth into their own pockets and those of their pals, expanding the scope and cost of our government, stomping on our individual rights and sticking their nose in our business. Thats the experience that argument is asking for.
This ‘Obama failed because he was inexperienced in Washington’ argument is going to bite people in the ass. It has nothing to do with his experience in Washington, everything to do with his tyrannical ideas. By this experience argument a new candidate with great ideas has a fundamental and unfixable flaw, and if you vote for him/her after using this argument against Obama you’re a hypocrite. If you want well functioning government, ideas trump seniority.
I’d take a no-name first-run wet-behind-the-ears that stands up for individual rights for President over any lifetime member of our ruling class that parrots the same.
With our current class of legislators and bureaucrats and what they have wrougt, anyone running on a platform of Washington experience should be held in the utmost contempt. Ditto for those that make that argument for them.
Well, Ryan does have a point. Obama will have a lot of Washington experience by 2012.
It’s principles that matter. You know, the thing the media never investigates (because the truth just wouldn’t work out well for them.)
Instead they invent requirements like “fire in the belly.”
First, lets dispose of the specious comparison of the founders to the current crew in DC. Washington, for example, had experience leading an army and acting as a diplomat ex-officio. The others (even Jefferson, the first limousine liberal) had significant experience as legislators true, but also in various executive capacities…you know…RUNNING things, actually doing things… Obama (and in fact most of the various democrats you mentioned) have no experience other than politics, and in Obama’s case, dman little of that.
Turning to a (somewhat) less silly objection, what about the various miscreants in DC? Is “Washington experience” truly essential? I would argue that somje sort of executive experience is HIGHLY beneficial, and perhaps even essential, but it hardly has to come from time in DC. Some of our best presidents have been governors, for instance (sadly, some of our worst ones as well…Carter comes immediately to mind), and the background of men like Lincoln, while deficient in DC tenure, was rich in both political infighting and the actual running of day to day business in the real world. One of the biggest problems with our last election was that we had a choice between two Senators, arguably the worst preparation for the presidency that I can think of offhand.
Let me suggest that (informally of course) we should eliminate long-term DC insiders from consideration as a general SOP (some exceptions may apply, but that is the whole point of this being ‘informal’), and focus on people with real-world executive experience (best option) or at least some time at the gubernatorial level. Perhaps this expresses the appropriate sentiment as well as any:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQe28wNe6SU
This ‘Obama failed because he was inexperienced in Washington’ argument is going to bite people in the ass. It has nothing to do with his experience in Washington, everything to do with his tyrannical ideas.
Obama has very little experience at anything. Before being elected, what had he actually accomplished in his entire lifetime? BTW: I hardly count writing (if he did) two autobiographies as much of an accomplishment.