Obama Is Not Nearly As Interesting As You Think
At heart, Obama is not a Westerner, not an Atlanticist. ~Roger Cohen
For Cohen, this is merely an observation, but he has to know that this is one of the most damning insults one could say about Obama. What makes this even worse is that it is utter nonsense. Being a Westerner cannot be measured by the emotional attachment one has to important WWII and Cold War events. If Atlanticism has any value, it is rooted in shared security interests. “Misty-eyed visions” should have nothing to do with it.
Cohen’s remarks are not all that much better than the Ponnuru/Lowry complaint that Obama failed to defend America’s honor when Ortega denounced the Bay of Pigs. All of them are judging Obama on what they assume his emotions to be rather than on the substance of his views. Quite a few pundits seem to have Bush-like vision into the souls of other men, and they seem eager to draw sweeping conclusions from what they think they see. This is inherently unfair, and there is no way to respond to it rationally. Where some find Obama to be lacking in American exceptionalist cheerleading, others find this a sober-minded adjustment to the way the world is, but all of them invest far too much meaning into very slight differences.
Obama believes in American exceptionalism, endorses U.S. hegemony, believes in the inevitability and necessity of global interdependence, and accepts the reality of multipolarity, and for him all of these are interlocking and interconnected ideas. He is both as “post-Western” and as Western as the rest of the political class to which he belongs; he is both an Americanist and a globalist, because it has been the custom in our politics for several decades to be both. This is not hard to understand, but it seems to escape most observers when they try to make sense of Obama’s views. The truth is that Obama’s views are really rather boring and conventional, but then they would have to be for him to be elected President. There is a great desire to make Obama either extremely threatening or extremely interesting, but as far as his public, political persona is concerned he is neither of these things. This may be a relief to some and a letdown to others, but it is reality.
9 Responses to “Obama Is Not Nearly As Interesting As You Think”
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This may be a relief to some and a letdown to others, but it is reality.
Those who ought to be relieved have their hearts set on not being relieved, and those who ought to be let down will avoid feeling let down.
I don’t know if the irrational emotional attachment to party labels is unique to the US, or a product of consumer culture, or what. But whatever its causes, it sure does seem to be helping destroy rational thought and discussion of politics.
Quite a few pundits seem to have Bush-like vision into the souls of other men and even more wildly wrong than that was
Oh and the irrational emotional attachment thing is called tribalism, and it’s been with us forever. I see no hope of it going away any time soon.
Saying of Obama that “he’s probably the first U.S. president for whom the Allied landing is emotionally remote” is the sort of thing that merits a punch in the face. I was born in Iowa and have spent my entire life in the Midwest. Does Cohen think I’m “emotionally remote” from D-Day because I’m not some East Coast douchebag that uses words like Atlanticist?
Mike
@MBunge
Probably. You live in Flyover Country, dontcha know?
This emotional attachment business is ridiculous, but what makes it even more odd is that the two previous Presidents did not have any particular attachment, emotional or otherwise, to great Cold War events, much less WWII. Of course, we went through all of this in the ’90s with Clinton, but it’s not as if Bush was some devoted Cold Warrior during his youth. Boomer politicians were coming into their own at the tail end of the Cold War, and we didn’t have one as President until after it was over. Why should we expect them to have strong attachments to events that happened when they were kids? At best what Cohen is saying is that WWII and the Cold War are receding ever farther into the past and a modern President is not going to be as affected by the ghosts of these conflicts as his predecessors may have been.
MBunge, on March 10th, 2010 at 11:47 am Said:
“Saying of Obama that “he’s probably the first U.S. president for whom the Allied landing is emotionally remote” is the sort of thing that merits a punch in the face. I was born in Iowa and have spent my entire life in the Midwest. Does Cohen think I’m “emotionally remote” from D-Day because I’m not some East Coast douchebag that uses words like Atlanticist?”
Roger Co-wh*re, AKA ‘Roger Cohen’ made the famous saying about Scooter Libby that the press shouldn’t have looked into outing a CIA agent to cover for lying us into war because that’s normal politics, and the press shouldn’t look into dark corners of it.
Considering that that’s a prime job of the press, it’s akin to a priest or minister taking Satanic vows.
I won’t say that he’s the worst of the lot, because I don’t want to weigh and measure the sh*t at the bottom of that cesspool, but he does *try* to be near the bottom.
“Obama believes in American exceptionalism, endorses U.S. hegemony, believes in the inevitability and necessity of global interdependence, and accepts the reality of multipolarity, and for him all of these are interlocking and interconnected ideas. He is both as “post-Western” and as Western as the rest of the political class to which he belongs; he is both an Americanist and a globalist, because it has been the custom in our politics for several decades to be both. This is not hard to understand, but it seems to escape most observers when they try to make sense of Obama’s views.”
Very well put. The hardcore interventionists seem incapable of grasping the fact that Obama is an internationalist just like they are.
Once again Mr. Larison’s insight impresses me. Rather than a fire-breathing radical right or hysterical sniveling left, he defines President Obama’s real nature as a man trying desperately to find consensus in a middle ground as if doing so would make him all things to all people.
Well, nobody can or will achieve that end so therefore Mr. Obama may end up as one of our most boring presidents and one who accomplished little except lofty rhetoric.
Barack Obama didn’t force any person to max out their credit cards nor did he create the housing crisis that relied heavily on bankers and real estate greed that was responsible for over-appraised and overvalued homes which reached a crescendo around 2005. The refinanced home that so many Americans thought was the bloated piggybank that kept on giving finally ended in a spectacular crash.
Barack Obama didn’t create the “surge” in Iraq that tamped down the violence there but at the same time over 4 million Iraqi citizens, mostly Sunnis, fled from their homes to find refuge in countries like Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Four million fewer Sunnis means far fewer dissidents to cause trouble for the Shiite Al-Maliki regime.
Now, teabaggers and other disgruntled Americans, joined by the scandal-du-jour, spineless mainstream media, are screaming for jobs, jobs, jobs! Well, guess what? Those jobs all went to India, Indonesia, China and there is nothing Humpty Dumpty Obama can do about it to put it back together again unless you believe in fairy tales. They ain’t comin’ back.
Both Democrats and Republican politicians cannot wean themselves from corrupt corporate lobbyist contributions and both parties lag behind in understanding the anger and frustration so many Americans feel today. They seem dismayed that anyone would have the gall to deny them their just desserts as if they, like the aristocracies and monarchies of the past, are entitled and divinely ordained to be pampered and exalted forever.
Obama will no doubt be a one-term president if for no other reason than the hoi polloi who still have one of the few privileges remaining to express their discontent — throw all the bums out.
Without in the least attempting a little ad hominem (no, really) I can’t escape the feeling that the big problem with Douthat is that, like Tom Friedman, he is a little man in a big man’s job. Which is to say, he’s just not very smart. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except he’s forced (by a newspaper I so wish knew better) to masquerade as an intellectual, and he just doesn’t have the equipment necessary to pull it off.