President Obama is tired – anyone with a presidential schedule including global travel would be – coupled with the non-stop balderdash from the far right: “Impeach the President! Why? Uh… let me get back to you on that…” and currently the unwinnable situation in Syria: the world expects America to act, but reserves the right to criticize us if we do; same situation for any republican who will be running for office again. The President literally cannot win.
And so, after 5 years of being beaten up by republicans (and dealing with turmoil all around the globe) … does his appearance of resignation mean republicans won the battle against Obama? Has spewing never-ending nonsense elevated itself to an effective political tool to destroy the opposition, just like giant law firms flood small town lawyers with mountains of documents in corporate lawsuits? If you can’t win with good arguments, bury them. Has the Obama Administration lost? The way the President looked today, it would seem so.
Today in a town hall event on a SUNY campus designed to talk about affordable education… well… let’s just say the room and message lacked a certain rock-star quality that the Republican Party likes to use against him whenever possible. He looked tired, the students looked bored… I was bored. The general feeling from my desk is an ongoing resignation to the confines of the executive order. He looked like someone who has lost one too many times.
On this issue democrats can’t be angry with the President: he has faced the most aggressive congressional obstruction and more extreme right-wing hatred than any other elected official in American history. Everyone I know would have given up by now, which today is how Obama appeared. Resigned. Tired.
Does that mean the republicans have won? Did Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Washington Constipation Posse (WCP) finally achieve their goal? Does “one term president” mean total impotence in a second term? Might as well be if the republicans in Congress are running the country. It’s honestly hard to tell, because it’s far too complex, and I’m not the guy in the room. But today… today the energy, and look, and impression given by the President implied that republicans have won this battle. Obama might have won a second term, but the struggle to do so and survive the first term may very well have made him a one term president when measured by the ability to get anything accomplish, the ability to lead, and the ability to inspire.
Of course, there’s no indication that the president is giving up. It’s safe to assume president Obama wakes up every day wanting to do something good, and to be productive. But given the education event today it looks to me as though he’s given up the larger goals: the big ideas, and some of the hopes that got him elected in the first place. He’s resigned to the fact that Congress is a barrel of nitwit monkeys who will block everything he ever tries to do. All he can do is wait until republicans don’t control Congress anymore.
President Obama is tired. Can’t blame him. If I were in his place, I don’t think I would have lasted a year before walking out of Washington, and wanting to take a 3-year long shower to wash away the grime the right has thrown around the media and dark, paranoid corners of this country.
But does all that mean the republicans have won? Have republicans effective made President Obama a one-term president?
I would offer that the results of the 2014 election for control of Congress and the Senate will be the judge. I hate people who call mid-term elections a “referendum on the President”, but we’re talking about what mid-term elections really are: a referendum on Congress. If Mitch McConnell and the WCP have won, the Democratic Party will loose ground in the House and Senate. If, however, the country is as tired as the President… and can find the energy to vote in massive numbers against the RNC strategy of hate and isolation, then by proxy we’ll know that, while President Obama looks damn tired, the republicans didn’t win the important battle for the morality of the country.
What worries me, however, is if the voters are just as tired as Obama, but can’t find the energy to vote. If voters feel as beat up as the President appears, then there’s no possible way Reason will overcome the fervor of the far right.
President Obama looks tired… so I am. So are we all. We’re all just… so darn tired… of the crazy in Congress. The scary part is that “crazy” seems to have endless energy drawn from the well of hate…. so we know they’ll vote in 2014. Will we, or will be all be too tired?
How do you fight against all the hate and energy it creates? We don’t want to hate them in return, because that just makes it worse. The truth is that your President is tired… who is going to help him?
