Google the phrase "another rube self identifies" and you'll get a collection of blog posts and articles about, or by, admirers of Barack Obama who've realized to their dismay that, well... he's not the guy they thought he was. I think the phrase originated with Glenn Reynolds. He uses it when he links to progressive bloggers and pundits when they write about how bad they feel about being taken in.
Of course, ardent Obama fans never see themselves as rubes. They know that the real rubes are the ones who just aren't bright enough or perceptive enough to comprehend the true brilliance of Barack Obama. The bitter ones clinging to their bibles and guns, those are the real rubes.
But every so often something happens, as when Obama signed the extension of the current income tax rates, still known as "the Bush tax cuts." It's then that irate progressives can't contain their disappointment and disgust. Their bewilderment and disorientation comes through as in this piece by Robert Reich who seems still to be in denial.
Barack Obama is one of the most eloquent and intelligent people ever to grace the White House, which makes his failure to tell the story of our era all the more disappointing and puzzling. Many who were drawn to him in 2008 (including me) were dazzled by the power of his words and insights -- his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, his autobiography and subsequent policy book, his talks about race and other divisive issues during the campaign.
We were excited by the prospect of a leader who could educate -- an "educator in chief" who would use the bully pulpit to explain what has happened to the United States in recent decades, where we must go, and why.
But the man who has occupied the Oval Office since January, 2009 is someone entirely different -- a man seemingly without a compass, a tactician who veers rightward one day and leftward the next, an inside-the Beltway dealmaker who doesn't explain his compromises in light of larger goals.
You might think that Obama's 130 "present" votes while serving in the Illinois legislature would have been a tip-off for a lot of these folks that Obama just doesn't stick to a position. But no. For Obama's most ardent admirers this was just another sign of his inconventional brilliance. A 2008 NPR article explained.
January 23, 2008
In Monday night's debate between Democratic presidential candidates, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards attacked Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's voting record from his days as an Illinois lawmaker.
"In the Illinois State Senate, Senator Obama voted 130 times 'present,'" Clinton said. "That's not 'yes.' That's not 'no.' That's 'maybe.'"
The actual number of Obama's "present" votes was 129 during his eight years in the Illinois Senate. Obama's campaign says anyone criticizing his "present" votes doesn't understand how this type of vote is used in the rough-and-tumble give-and-take of the Illinois legislature.
To register a vote in the Illinois General Assembly, lawmakers have a choice of three buttons on their desk. The "yes" button is green. The "no" button is red, and the "present" button is yellow, says Rich Miller, who writes and publishes The Capitol Fax, a daily newsletter and blog on Illinois politics.
"There's a saying in Springfield that there's a reason why the present button is yellow," Miller says.
But Miller says that not all "present" votes are cowardly, including those cast by then-state Sen. Obama.
"After having put some thought into it, I don't think that Barack Obama was necessarily a coward for voting present on those bills. In fact, I think he believed that he was doing the right thing, because something, in his mind, might have been unconstitutional," Miller says.
Miller points out that, at times, Obama was the only lawmaker voting "present" on bills winning near unanimous support, even on issues he supported and on one he sponsored.
Chris Mooney is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, Springfield.
"A person as cerebral as Sen. Obama might be prone to such a thing, thinking things through a little too carefully," Mooney says.
Yeah, that's it. He's too cerebral. He thinks things through too carefully. Besides, it was only 129 "present" votes. But that was 2008, and this is now.
Now in the face of a looming economic crisis Barack Obama has had to make a deal to get the debt ceiling raised. And worse -- the deal didn't include tax hikes on the "rich." Now we have a new crop of rubes coming out of the woodwork.
At a New York political event last week, Republican and Democratic office-holders were all bemoaning President Obama’s handling of the debt-ceiling crisis when someone said, “Hillary would have been a better president.”
“Every single person nodded, including the Republicans,” reported one observer.
At a luncheon in the members’ dining room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, a 64-year-old African-American from the Bronx was complaining about Obama’s ineffectiveness in dealing with the implacable hostility of congressional Republicans when an 80-year-old lawyer chimed in about the president’s unwillingness to stand up to his opponents. “I want to see blood on the floor,” she said grimly.
A 61-year-old white woman at the table nodded. “He never understood about the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy,’” she said.
Looking as if she were about to cry, an 83-year-old Obama supporter shook her head. “I’m so disappointed in him,” she said. “It’s true: Hillary is tougher.”
Yeah, right. The vast right wing conspiracy. That would be that conspiracy to eventually balance the budget, which as it turns out is a very new objective that has suddenly popped onto the Obama radar screen. Quite the turnaround.
It's a turnaround from the obvious Obama grand plan to ramp up spending, buying constituencies along the way in hopes of solidifying the Democratic party's grip on power. Consider the GM and Chrylser rescues which have kept the UAW dues flowing into Democratic campaign coffers. In that regard the financial crisis of 2008 clearly did not go to waste. And then this the massive spending to stave off the financial crisis led us right into the debt ceiling crisis, but from the Obama perspective, the debt ceiling crisis hasn't been so productive.
He didn't get the clean bill that just raised the debt ceiling. He didn't get the "balanced" deficit reduction package that raised taxes while promising to cut spending. He got what he could get in the midst of a tanking economy and sinking approval ratings. The debt ceiling was raised to the extent that there is to be an equal amount in spending cuts. No tax hikes. His admirers are disenchanted.
And those who are not so admiring are wondering aloud if maybe Barack Obama isn't so smart, after all.
Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.
I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright.
But don't tell the nouveau rubes. Not that they'd ever believe it. But if they did it would be more than they could stand.
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