Topic: Decline of the West
A post on the Weekly Standard website by Daniel Halper drew my attention to this article in the Washington Free Beacon. Matthew Continetti writes:
Since he lacks a significant and popular domestic achievement, the president seems to have concluded that the way to a second term is through the mobilization of key constituencies rather than a broad-based appeal to middle America. He combines these appeals with cheap gimmicks to generate publicity and deflect attention from the Republican primary. Now that his job is in trouble, the man who enthralled millions during the campaign of 2008 has been reduced to just another transactional political panderer. The gloss is off. Even the liberal Washington Post writer Dana Milbank says White House hiring practices make “a joke of the spirit of reform he promised.”
The President has good reason to be worried. As Continetti points out, Obama’s job approval rating has been under 50% for almost a year now and his approval rating in key swing states like Ohio is lower than the national average. The economy is still moribund, with no discernable improvement in the unemployment picture. Gas prices are rising. Inflation has reared its ugly, wealth-destroying head. But what probably hurts Obama’s reelection prospects the most is the disappointment of many who voted for him in 2008. Gone is the stirring if airy rhetoric—
“Yes, we can!”
“Change we can believe in!”
—and so on and so forth. In 2012, the President has morphed into America’s most prominent cheap-shot artist. From the White House comes an endless barrage of gripes, wines and low-down attacks. The President and his surrogates routinely charge that anyone who opposes his policies is guilty of “playing politics,” they demonize oil companies, banks and the Catholic Church, and they’ve debased themselves by accepting a $1 million campaign contribution from the swinish Bill Maher.
All in all, this is hardly the profile of a happy, confident candidate, secure in the knowledge that he's loved and admired by millions. On the contrary: Barack Obama is running scared. And in his fear he’s allowed the mask to slip, revealing the visage of a singularly unappealing political hack.
