I think by now it’s safe to say one thing about President Obama: He doesn’t like confrontation. But he also said he wanted to be a transformational president, in the mold of Reagan and Roosevelt (perhaps tellingly, he only cited Reagan. But Reagan was the Bizarro Roosevelt, so…). The problem is, if history’s any guide, transformational presidents not only have to be confrontational, they have to LOVE being confrontational. Take, for example, this video that’s been making the rounds of the Internet all day:
Transformational presidents, in times of crisis, have one thing in common: they use the bully pulpit to call out the people or institutions who caused the crisis, and don’t shy away from portraying them not as good-natured people who simply disagree on how to make America a better place, but as enemies of the people. Reagan said government was the problem and went after it with a meat cleaver… and ushered in thirty years of deregulation. Roosevelt said Wall Street plutocrats and war profiteers were the enemies, and he prosecuted them… and ushered in forty years of progressive economics and the creation of the social safety net.
Lincoln… Lincoln was the Toyota Prius of transformational presidents. Half transformational, half caretaker. He identified anti-federalism as the enemy, and turned a country in which people once considered themselves primarily Virginians, or New Yorkers, or Georgians; into one in which people considered themselves to be Americans. But on the other hand, he failed to identify racists as the enemy (he was, after all, a product of his era) and while slavery ended, we still suffered 100 more years of Jim Crow laws.
When a president is reluctant to identify an enemy in times of crisis – or worse yet, when he identifies the enemy but then fails to go after that enemy with all the powers at his disposal – he creates an enemy-vacuum. And voter anger abhors a vacuum. In the absence of an enemy, in the eyes of the voters, he becomes the enemy. Ford. Carter. Bush I. Perhaps, Obama. I’m sure both Obama’s supporters and his detractors wish he’d show some of Roosevelt’s, or Reagan’s, backbone. Americans respect strong presidents, even when they disagree with them.
On the other hand, there’s one crucial difference between 1936 and 2011: Nobody would ever have portrayed Roosevelt’s cheerful, caustic, dismissive attacks on Republicans as evidence he’s an uppity, angry black man.
To paraphrase Politico, in a few days, the President’s going to give a speech proposing either bold jobs programs the Republican House will block, or timid, ineffectual programs the Republican House will block. Meanwhile, in the alternate universe where Democrats still have testosterone, President Obama will be giving a speech that goes something like this:
Today, President Obama finally released his long-form birth certificate to prove he’s an American. In other words, the country finally released long-form certification that we continue to be a nation plagued by racist assholes. Millions of Americans (45% of Republicans, according to a recent poll) just can’t accept that a black man is a true American.
No amount of proof is enough to squash a conspiracy theory, because conspiracy theories aren’t about facts; they’re about people refusing to accept that history’s moved on and left them or their worldview in the dust. The facts are always, always incidental. The people who clung to their Obama-is-an-Other fantasy (also known as “Fox News Viewers”) will now simply refuse to believe their own eyes. For example…
(culled from the reader responses to the release of the certificate…)
“It’s a Certificate of birth… Not a Birth Certificate which has the seal, mothers finger print and baby’s feet prints… Certificate of birth, easily forged… Birth Certificate, cannot be forged…I hope they do a chemical analysis on the paper and ink.”
-heydad614
“To the best of my knowledge, that green “crossthatch” paper didn’t exist in 1961. Had a white sheet of paper been place on the copier screen, then copied using that green paper, you’d see a white sheet of paper copied onto that larger green crossthatch paper. If someone has information to the contrary, as in, when exactly that style of paper came into being and when it became a standard for State’s to use it for birth certificate, vehicle titles…as well as banks to use it (for checks), I’m all ears. And eyes.”
-Rod Vanger
“His mother’s mother, his grandmother stated that she went to Kenya for his birth. Remember, you don’t have to be born in the USA to be an Illinois State Senator. Just so happens she didn’t live long enough to see the election and explain why she could possibily be mistaken as to where her grandson was born. Yup, people forge documents all the time and money and power get really good documents. This isn’t over. Where did he say he was born on the college forms that he filed. That is where the investigation should go. If he falsified the forms to get Federal Grant or Scholarahip monies then he would be guilty of Fraud. Trump must go after those forms next. “A person who has nothing to hide hides nothing”.”
-sunkgleska
“He should show it he has had three years to have one made up!!!!!!!!!!!!”
-dissmayed
“So, now the question remains, why did Obama pay over $2 Million, in legal fees, to prevent his birth certificate from seeing the light of day, only to now release it (over two years after the election), or did he? Is this a real birth certificate? What about the university and health records?”
-Wolfman Jones
“Why would they refer to him as African as his race …. and his mother as cauc. ? Something isn’t right here… African is not a Race!! Also his mother was 17 when she became pregnant with Obama… many of us were led to believe she met Obama Senior while in college…. hummm…. like I said something just isn’t right….”
-goway
“It only took 2+ years for him to produce one at all. Now EITHER this is the real one and it took Trump hasseling him about it for him to finally produce it OR it is NOT a real one but it took 2+ years for his people to figure out a way to get him a Long Form. Now in this case, as my Grandfather used to say ” If it walks like a Duck, looks like a Duck, and sounds like a Duck…its a Duck” Now if you look at the Certificate it may look like a real one next to a real one. But if you look at the situation, at the context of it, the timing of the release and how long it took you could say its a fake one. The FACT is, it should have never been an issue. Every other President before him both Democrat and Republican PROVIDED it up front*, as well as their educational records, and tax records. This President has gotten away with concealing SO MUCH FOR SO LONG. If there wasn’t a problem why would he conceal it? Its a simple question.”
-tazer357 (*Darrin’s note: no, they didn’t, because nobody ever thought to ask a caucasian president to prove he was an American)
“And one is to believe that a person would spend a few mill on lawyers to dodge the issue of simply whipping this mint copy of “live birth”, not a birth certificate, out of their sock drawer? Perhaps the anti tea party Buttbama loving groupies need to further their education. It’s all bogus.”
-kevinbecham
“it’s a fake!!!!
i’ve seen obamas family picture (in an email) and they do not give BC’s to monkeys!!!!”
-rwalden
There are two slightly less bat-shit insane groups of conspiracy theorists: the kind who accept the facts, but then concoct a NEW conspiracy theory to explain why they were duped into believing the original conspiracy theory… and the kind who simply try to change the subject and hope you forget they ever mentioned it in the first place. Sometimes you get people who do both:
“So basically, just like I already knew, this was hidden for no other purpose than to deliberately cause controversy so Obama could use it to demean & dismiss those that oppose him. He could have done this when McCain was made to show his in 2008, instead he used it in typical Saul Alinsky style. The question is not WHERE he was born but WHY has he hidden all of his personal information?
He is a liar, a rac ist, a Mar xist, Social ist, Commun ist, pick one. He just attended “Easter” services at a church where the B L A C K “pastor” is another Jerimiah Wright, lots of coverage of that huh?
-paintinc56
(sigh)
This is the kind of sad chapter in our history that the “racism is all behind us” crowd will be working overtime to forget. Which is why I propose turning it into a national holiday. Henceforth, Americans will celebrate April 27 as “Black-President-Had-to-Prove-He-Was-an-American-Day.” Some of us will hang our heads in lingering resentment, racists will gleefully and ironically barbecue, and all of us will eventually use it as just another excuse to take off work for a day. And Hallmark will clean up.
I don’t know what Olbermann’s upset about, I think the 2 or 3 conservative Democratic Senators (and President Obama) have come up with a pretty good plan of their own: They’ve screwed up the “reform” bill so badly that I’ve decided I’ll just never get sick.
Nevada Senator John Ensign (R), “a leading conservative mentioned as a presidential candidate,” told reporters today that he is shocked and disappointed to learn he had an extramarital affair with an ex campaign staffer. He went on to demand his own resignation.
“This wouldn’t be making the national news if it was an ordinary affair,” Ensign said. “But I’m the guy who went on national TV and suggested that my fellow Republican Senator Larry Craig resign because he admitted to lewd conduct.”
Indeed, this is not the first time Senator Ensign has taken to the airwaves to demand accountability from another senator. In 2007, when Republican Senator Larry Craig was caught and convicted of trolling for sex in an airport men’s room, Ensign was unforgiving, saying “This wouldn’t be making the national news if it was an ordinary misdemeanor. He pled guilty to something that, you know lewd behavior, that’s not the behavior a United States senator should be engaged in.”
When he was informed that Nevada Senator John Ensign has praised Senator Ensign’s decision to call for Senator Ensign’s resignation, Senator Ensign explained that conservatives like him consider adultery to be lewd conduct, no matter with whom it’s committed. “If I held myself to a different standard than that to which I held Larry Craig, I would be admitting two things: First, I’d be admitting I’m a homophobe because I think Craig’s failed attempt at a homosexual tryst was worse than my successful – and very sweaty – heterosexual boot knocking. Second, I’d be admitting I’m a hypocrite. And I’m no hypocrite.”
So far, Ensign has received no reply from Ensign.
As reported in today’s Boston Globe, eight year-old Republican Senator Chuck Grassley went straight to Twitter to vent his outrage at President Obama’s request that Congress deliver on the stalled healthcare reform legislation.
Grassley’s first tweet: “Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us ‘time to deliver’ on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.”
A short time later: “Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delivr on healthcare’ When you are a ‘hammer’ u think evrything is NAIL I’m no NAIL.”
I’ve scanned through the Senator’s old twits looking for similar condemnations he must have issued every time President Bush said “I want that legislation on my desk” while vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, TX. I couldn’t find a single one. Call me crazy, but I suspect Twitter not having existed back then is only part of the reason.
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Nevada Senator John Ensign (R), “a leading conservative mentioned as a presidential candidate,” told reporters today that he is shocked and disappointed to learn