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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Raising The Bar

But what policies exactly? Mr Obama’s voting record in the Senate is one of the most left-wing of any Democrat. Even if he never voted for the Iraq war, his policy for dealing with that country now seems to amount to little more than pulling out quickly, convening a peace conference, inviting the Iranians and […]

But what policies exactly? Mr Obama’s voting record in the Senate is one of the most left-wing of any Democrat. Even if he never voted for the Iraq war, his policy for dealing with that country now seems to amount to little more than pulling out quickly, convening a peace conference, inviting the Iranians and the Syrians along and hoping for the best. On the economy, his plans are more thought out, but he often tells people only that they deserve more money and more opportunities [bold mine-DL]. If one lesson from the wasted Bush years is that needless division is bad, another is that incompetence is perhaps even worse. A man who has never run any public body of any note is a risk, even if his campaign has been a model of discipline.

And the Obama phenomenon would not always be helpful, because it would raise expectations to undue heights [bold mine-DL]. Budgets do not magically cut themselves, even if both parties are in awe of the president; the Middle East will not heal, just because a president’s second name is Hussein. Choices will have to be made—and foes created even when there is no intention to do so. Indeed, something like that has already happened in his campaign. The post-racial candidate has ended up relying heavily on black votes (and in some places even highlighting the divide between Latinos and blacks).

None of this is to take away from Mr Obama’s achievement—or to imply that he could not rise to the challenges of the job in hand. But there is a sense in which he has hitherto had to jump over a lower bar than his main rivals have. For America’s sake (and the world’s), that bar should now be raised—or all kinds of brutal disappointment could follow. ~The Economist

This leader sums up a couple of important points that I was trying to make earlier: however many detailed plans he has, he typically refers to his proposals in the vaguest terms when he addresses crowds.  This last point about raising the bar is related to something implicit in the earlier post: for whatever reason, Obama has received something like a free pass for a long time from the media, and it is actually a disservice to his supporters if he is not tested and scrutinised a bit more intensively than he has been.  Whether or not Obama has a “glass jaw” as such, the only people who can take solace in the kid-glove treatment Obama has received are Republicans.

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