Searching In Vain For The Obama Magic

[bonnie]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world

President Barack Obama's Tuesday speech left a bad taste in many mouths.

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool.

One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan -- and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war -- and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.

Just in Time for the Campaign

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.

The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the "world's great religions." He promised that responsibility for the country's security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai -- a government which he said was "corrupt." The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But "America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars," he added.

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

Obama's Magic No Longer Works

But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama's magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.

It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives -- their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.

Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners -- particularly those with a talent for oration -- are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called "Hope."

In his speech on America's new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.

The American president doesn't need any opponents at the moment. He's already got himself.

[Dr. Shane]

Obama is doing the best he can in a tough situation. He gets an A for effort in my book.

[bonnie]

Obama is doing the best he can in a tough situation. He gets an A for effort in my book.

Not in to many books. Even his own have a lot of problems with what he said in his speech.

[phkrause]

Not sure how you can say that Bonnie. From what I could tell everyone was pretty positive, even FoxNews, almost all that they interviewed were very positive at the speech. And almost all the soldiers they talked to said they thought it was great. Those in training at the 101st Airborne were definitely happy about the dissesion (sp) to sent more troops to get the job done. My only thing will be to allow the military to do what they need to do.

pk

[Dr. Shane]

Obama is taking a moderate approach. So he is making the radical conservatives and the fringe liberals mad. Such is the life of a moderate. I wish he was moderate in more areas.

[Woody]

I don't see anything that is moderate. I see him as trying to please both sides and so he can claim he is for both extremes. He is campaigning for a re-election.

[Woody]

I just have ONE big question. Where oh Where are the anti-war protesters. IF this was Bush doing this war increase ... they would be screaming. And the word "liar" and "murderer" would be thrown about.

[bonnie]

I don't see anything that is moderate. I see him as trying to please both sides and so he can claim he is for both extremes. He is campaigning for a re-election.

Did you miss it.

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

I don't see anything that is moderate. I see him as trying to please both sides and so he can claim he is for both extremes. He is campaigning for a re-election.

Did you miss it.

Nope. I listened to it. I just heard him being 'both' extremes. Just being a politician.

[bonnie]

Not sure how you can say that Bonnie. From what I could tell everyone was pretty positive, even FoxNews, almost all that they interviewed were very positive at the speech. And almost all the soldiers they talked to said they thought it was great. Those in training at the 101st Airborne were definitely happy about the dissesion (sp) to sent more troops to get the job done. My only thing will be to allow the military to do what they need to do.

pk

Actually more republicans have agreed,some tepidly. More democrats are not happy.

Whether we should be there or not I don't know.But if they are going to be expected to fight and die give them what they need and get out of the way.If not bring them home.Just don't tell the terrorists how long they have to wait till we will be gone.

Chris Matthews said West Point was enemy territory for Obama.

Maybe there is a reason for that. I know several that have been in Iraq and are now out and watching.To a man not one soldier has any respect for Obama

Wonder if they will be required to give the miranda warning to a terrorist captured in the mountains or ???

[phkrause]

Mr Michael Moore has already been on the war path saying not to send anymore troops Redwood.

pk

[Woody]

That's why Obama has to try to please that base by promising to send the troups back home before the job is done and setting early time frames before the mission even starts.

[Dr. Shane]

I see him as trying to please both sides and so he can claim he is for both extremes. He is campaigning for a re-election.

That sums up the Rush Limbaugh position pretty good.

[bonnie]

That's why Obama has to try to please that base by promising to send the troups back home before the job is done and setting early time frames before the mission even starts.

Everything he does seems to tie to re-election.Whether it is when the rest of the stimulus,health care cuts going into effect and withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

I see him as trying to please both sides and so he can claim he is for both extremes. He is campaigning for a re-election.

That sums up the Rush Limbaugh position pretty good.

Yes. Well then I am in good company.

What BO is doing is kinda like what politicians say:

WELL ... I was in favor of the bill before I voted against it.

And thus they expect credit from both sides ...

[bonnie]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574571993946679338.html

He better hope he has more republicans on his side

President Obama and President Pelosi Part Ways

Opposition to the Afghanistan troop surge is strong among the president's media allies and grassroots supporters.

By JOHN FUND

President Obama will finally have a bipartisan piece of legislation passed through Congress because opposition to the troop surge he proposes in Afghanistan is so strong within his own party. "The president is going to have to count on getting almost all Republicans to support this funding, because he's unlikely to get more than half the Democrats, especially in the House," notes George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.

Make no mistake about how badly the Afghan decision is playing among media allies and grassroots supporters of the president. Several highlighted the contradiction between Mr. Obama announcing the sending of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and also insisting he will begin to pull them out in 2011.

"Where's the hope? . . . It sounds more Rube Goldberg than 'Remember the Alamo,'" was the reaction of MSNBC host Chris Matthews last night. "If I were with the Taliban right now, I'd put a little Post-it up on that month in 2011, and say: 'This is when we do OUR surge.'"

Pat Caddell, a Democratic pollster who worked for both George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, says liberals in the party will consider the president's decision "a betrayal." He notes that Mr. Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008 in large part because he opposed intervention in Iraq while downplaying the support he'd given to the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan. Liberals were not prepared to have Mr. Obama become a war president in his own right, which is what last night's speech has made him.

"There was something strange in last night's speech to liberal ears," says Mr. Caddell. "I thought it was the best delivered George W. Bush speech he's ever given." Mr. Caddell doesn't believe liberals will abandon Mr. Obama, but says the White House should be worried about the "enthusiasm level" of its base. "It will show up in fundraising, candidate recruitment and turnout in the mid-term elections," he says.

Mr. Caddell recalls just how wearing on a president's approval rating a war can be. Harry Truman fell to 29% approval in the depths of the Korean War and was unable to run for another term. Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the 1968 presidential race because of Vietnam, and George W. Bush barely won re-election in 2004 because of the Iraq war. In Mr. Obama's case, his overall approval rating is still in the high 40's, but dissatisfaction is building, with approval of how he is handling Afghanistan falling to 35%, down from 56% in July.