February 12, 2010 12:46 PM
Obama's reality gap
The president's reality problem
By RICH LOWRY Posted: 12:34 AM, February 12, 2010It might have been the most revelatory moment of the Obama presidency. In an interview with Time magazine, a chastened President Obama talked of his sputtering Middle East peace initiative.
"This is just really hard," he explained. "This is as intractable a problem as you get."
As an observation, this is as banal as it gets. After all the wars and all the terror attacks against Israel and all the frustrated American diplomatic forays across the last two administrations, no one should be surprised at the intractability of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
But Obama sounded as if it were painful new information that had forced an unwelcome adjustment in his worldview.
This speaks either to an astonishing historical ignorance (did he not know?) or a stupendous self-regard (did he not care because he thought he was so special?), or both.
There is already a debate over what went wrong with the Obama presidency.
Is his team of advisers -- nearly universally considered the best and the brightest until the day before yesterday -- serving him poorly? Has he failed to communicate effectively, even though almost all his speeches have been critically acclaimed? Did he fail to "pivot to jobs" fast enough?
Actually, Obama has a more worrisome problem: a reality gap.
Read more at the New York Post.
Posted in Obama Nation | Permalink
Comments
I think Obama was largely elected because people projected onto him what they wanted to see. He was a celebrity candidate who believed his own press.
What worries me is how this could happen in the first place. How can a society come to the point where they will elect based on image rather than substance? And if we've already gone this far down this road, can it turn around?
Based on our soundbite generation, I'm not sure it can. We need people to vote in those who have proven themselves successful at tackling hard, "intractible" problems, even if they're not the most eloquent speakers, even if they're a little overweight, even if they're geeks. I pray that God will give us a really amazing geek sometime soon!
Posted by: Sheila Gregoire | February 12, 2010 6:16 PM
