Friday, October 24, 2014

Krauthammer: "Barack Obama, Bewildered Bystander"

Good essay from Krauthammer but I still believe that the "chaos" is intentional and sinister, not accidental.

He may not have managed anything in the past, but he is certainly competent at managing the complete deterioration of America. As I say, I'm inclined more and more to believe it is by design and not by 'incompetence'.

"The president is upset. Very upset. Frustrated and angry. Seething about the government’s handling of Ebola, said the front-page headline in the New York Times last Saturday."

"There’s only one problem with this pose, so obligingly transcribed for him by the Times. It’s his government. He’s president. Has been for six years. Yet Barack Obama reflexively insists on playing the shocked outsider when something goes wrong within his own administration."

Thus: 

"When it then turns out that vast, faceless bureaucracies tend to be incapable, inadequate, hopelessly inefficient and often corrupt, Obama resorts to expressions of angry surprise."

"He must. He’s not simply protecting his own political fortunes. He’s trying to protect faith in the entitlement state by portraying its repeated failures as shocking anomalies."

"Unfortunately, the pretense has the opposite effect. It produces not reassurance but anxiety. Obama’s determined detachment conveys the feeling that nobody’s home. No one leading. Not even from behind."