Jock Ewing Nailed It
March 18th, 20107 comments Posted in Politics
Dan says…
“Power isn’t something you’re given. It’s something you take.” – Jock Ewing, Ewing Oil
I’m worried that our president doesn’t know how to seize power. That he’s a sheep in Armani clothing.
During the campaign run-up to the 2008 presidential election, somewhere on the pages of WellReadHostess.com, I commented about the candidate Barack Obama and what I felt was one of his shortcomings.
I said it had seemed that in positions Obama held leading up to and including public office, he was always feeling like he needed that next job up in order to make a difference. In order to have the power needed to really affect change, he needed to be one rung higher on the ladder. And my worry was that his lack of ability to make things happen in his other positions would occur in this one as well, as president, and there were no further rungs to climb on this ladder in the hopes of being more powerful before he could actually DO something.
Jock Ewing nailed it. If you can’t get things done as President, you can’t get things done. Power isn’t something you get from your position (though it can help). Power is something you create, straight out of thin air, from force of will, intelligence and a keen understanding of the motivations, strengths and weaknesses of those around you.
I’m worried that the man I voted for isn’t a powerful man. Clearly he’s a really bright man, but so what. I’m bright too, and here I am, an organ grinder monkey on a freakin blog.
Obama is also a good orator. I’m good with my mouth too, but, well, nevermind. It’s been suggested that I keep my mouth in my pants. Or something. I don’t recall. I like whiskey, remember? But Christ, it felt good when Obama stood in front of that podium and said “Universal healthcare in 12 months” didn’t it? Now it’s looking like he was more talk than action. The Bill Lumbergh of the White House.
Where was I? Right. Obama. He’s also good with PR. Like the Beer Summit. Live televised selection of his NCAA bracket on ESPN. Opining on Kanye West and steroids in baseball. Seriously? Fuck all that shit, Mr. President. You gave mansions full of money to prevent financial institutions from folding during the mortgage crisis, but it’s now looking like you were just a sucker with his money: soon parted. The financials knew you couldn’t allow them to fold, so they drove themselves Thelma & Louise style right off the cliff, and you caught them. And now they’re not behaving much better than they did before their rear wheels cleared the rock ledge.
And President Obama let weedhead Barney Frank off the hook for all of it. Why? Politics as usual. I guess that “hopey, changey stuff” was too much to actually hope for.
And what about the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohaironmyback? As recently as a few days ago the President was hard down on a civilian trial, and trying to make it sound like it was the more badass of the two options when compared to a military trial. And now? Reports are getting out that he might turn 180 degrees and push for a military trial.
What about Afghanistan? Iraq?
Without question, President Obama has inherited a hornet’s nest. But when I cast that vote, I thought I was casting it for a kick ass hornet-wrangler. Not someone that stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Listen. I can’t shoot thunderbolts out my arse and I don’t stand 7 feet tall, but I do feel like I’ve got blue paint on my face and am addressing the Earl of Bruce when I say “Now tell me, what does that mean to be president? Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country, but men don’t follow titles, they follow courage. Now our people know you. Noble and common, they respect you. And if you would just lead them to financial freedom, justice and peace, they’d follow you. And so would I.”
The nickname for POTUS is NOT “Arbitrator of the Free World” or “The Most Powerful Go-Between in the World.” It’s leader. Of the free world.
So fucking lead, already.
…but Jane thinks…
Yes, he’s good with PR. But this isn’t exactly news, Dan. I would argue, though, that the beer summit didn’t really help him much. My biggest disappointment in Obama’s performance as POTUS so far is that he hasn’t made better use of those PR skills. He’s got an agile mind and he’s a fantastic orator. He’s been testing his voice again on the road lately to promote health care reform and I’m relieved. He won the hearts and minds of American voters because of his ability to connect and inspire, and he hasn’t been doing enough of that.
It is simply ignorant, how ironic given that “I” am nominally the ignoramus at the table, to say that he hasn’t come through and been able to get things done. The list of his accomplishments thus far is impressive. To say that he mishandled the financial crisis is laughable. Are we in a depression? No. Are housing starts up? Yes. Is unemployment, albeit slowly, on the decline? Yes. Are temp hires, an oft-cited indicator of economic recovery, on the upswing? Yes. The president, no matter who he is, cannot be charged with making corporations fall into line in terms of best practices. Commercial regulation is a legislative task.
And there’s the rub. It’s not that Obama isn’t making headway; he is. The appearance that not much is happening is a function of the smoke and mirrors in place at the other end of the mall in D.C. Congress sucks. As conservative commentator David Brooks said recently, “In a senseible country, Obama would be able to clearly define his modern brand of moderate progressivism without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect…a lot of liberals think Obama’s been very weak and he’s not forceful enough. I think he’s been amazingly tenacious on Afghanistan, on health care, on education. Pretty tough guy, I think. A lot of conservatives think he’s a socialist, trying ot turn us into Sweden. Give me a break! Is that what this health care is about? But people like that because they want all differences to be 190 degrees rather than 30 degrees. And so they get to pick that reality because it makes them feel good.” The current and tenacious partisan reality is “Block that Kick.”
And speaking of sports and David Brooks, the conservative pundit, on Meet the Press this week, he said this, “My favorite sport is home runs or singles. And they believe in home runs, or the long bomb (the people saying Obama isn’t living up to it). I, I’m more of a singles guy. I remember when the Mets had a guy named Dave Klingman who like 30 home runs a year and struck out like 500 times a year. I’m more – especially in a culture where people are so cynical about Washington, I think you hit a few singles, you go – you get that thing going so people’ll have some faith in government, and hten they can trust you a little more. I, I’ve just become very averse to this home run mentality.” My god. It’s David Brooks. It’s not even like I have to pull out Olbermann or Maddow or even Chris Matthews to get this perspective. And Dan, you can totally call me on not having my own arguments and using New York Times writers to make my case for me. I happily concede that David Brooks is way smarter than I am.
Look at what Obama inherited. Massive debt, two aimless and expensive wars, a disenfranchised and bewildered populace, a financial crisis unlike any seen in decades, a broken health care system, a rising tide of working poor and unemployed poor, and a Congress so dysfunctional they make the Botwins look like the Huxtables.
I think Jock Ewing had was a senile old fictional fart who’d inhaled too many petrochemical fumes. If you can lead with a quote uttered by a character from an 80’s television melodrama, I can certainly close with a quote from someone who actually exists and is attentive to the political process, all the while managing to look hot and make kick ass movies. On Charlie Rose the other night, when asked about his perception of Obama’s performance as president so far, Matt Damon said this: “Look, being American is not about leaving it up to your leaders, it’s just not. It’s about agitating at the bottom, because that’s when your leaders listen to you. Your leaders respond to you, not the other way around. And anybody who’s waiting for Barack Obama or George Bush or anybody to lead them to the promise land is going to be waiting a long time. You’ve got to be involved. And change comes from the bottom and not from the top.”
If you don’t think Obama is getting the job done, maybe you need to be doing more, not him.
Stuff Other People Said:
Now You Talk
But be forewarned: if you get nasty, we reserve the right to delete your comment. Unless what you said was really stupid. Then we may just leave it up so people can take target practice. Pa-ching!
I’ve gotta tell you guys something – Jane hates it when I bother to check her facts. She knows I’m busy and I think she secretly hopes I don’t have the time. But here’s the dilio:
Housing starts are DOWN, Jane. 5.9% from January. And dead even with February 2009. Check for yourself.I don’t know if you read my stuff Jane or just skipped to the part where you talk, but I wasn’t placing blame for new housing starts on Obama. I was placing blame for not forcing more accountability from those with Brinks trucks backing up to their offices to bail their asses out. The enormous bonuses. The lending practices.
Unemployment? Jane, the headlines in your own state are that it’s at a 25 year high. Nationally it’s starting to tail off a little, but that’s because it’s construction season. For those who have work, this is the time they go back, hence the drop. The administration and the sheep I like to call the media all tooted this stat last year around this time, too. But again, I’m not blaming Obama for unemployment. Just making sure the facts are spelled out here.
As for temp hires as an indicator of things turning around – read this.
And best practices? That has nothing to do with this conversation.
And I don’t think David Brooks should be allowed to say a motherloving word about toughness or sports analogies when he can’t even get the name of the baseball player he was talking about right. It’s Dave Kingman.
Yes, Obama inherited debt. Debt made worse by enormous giveaways with few strings attached. I don’t question the giveaways because frankly there’s too much shit in there for me to understand. My presumption is that he made the right call on whether or not to cut the check. But I do understand that few people are being held accountable for their poor behavior post-receipt.
Aimless wars? Hardly. Yes, he inherited them. Racheted one of them up recently, if I recall (does this make him an accomplice?). Ones where the finish line is damn-near impossible to define? Yup. And I don’t fault him for any of that. Again, too much effed-up Middle Eastern diplomacy, sabre-rattling and insider dealings for me to have a reasonable grasp of whether he’s doing a good job there. I’ll assume he’s making good decisions there. But AGAIN, he’s is not the “Decision-Maker of the Free World.” He’s the Leader. I feel very confident in his ability to reason out the complexities of a bill or a diplomatic emergency. I’m NOT confident in his ability to lead a group of politicians that are admittedly difficult to lead. But that’s the job he signed up for. Said he was ready for. Got my vote for.
And regarding Matt Damon, all I can say is your perspective on things is pretty skewed when you haven’t held a real job in your life, you get paid millions to be pretty and recite lines from a page, and the media fawns over the words formed with your every breath. His “agitate from the bottom” is a lot different than MY “agitate from the bottom.” Damon’s clearly never been in a situation where a leader needed to step up and lead a group of people somewhere. Manage a project. Improve service levels. Anything. Damon’s wrong – leading happens from the top. Not the bottom. Kennedy had it right when he said we should ask not what our country should do for us, but what we can do for our country. We’re here, President Obama. Asking what we should do. Tell us. Lead. Us.
Or in three years we’ll find someone who will.
I’m going to rip you up in a while, but I need to clarify something and defend my boyfriend David Brooks’s honor. That’s MY typo, not his mistake. If you look at those Brooks quotations you’ll see that I didn’t proofread a thing when I retyped them. My bad.
But I’m still right about the other stuff.
Jane´s last blog ..An Estimated 1 in 10 People Have an Ancillary Nipple – Why I Am The Way I Am, Part I
ding ding ding…round 2 is over. This is going to be a great fight folks. I can’t decide who is going to win. And as a judge, I’m only counting punches. But as a human being, I have to side with Jane because frankly I feel like we are getting shit done, even though it doesn’t feel like it. There is work getting done! Was there anything productive done when George Bushwacker was in office, other than the creation of a MASSIVE debt?
I can’t talk politics because I try to avoid conflict- just a side effect of being a daughter of an alcoholic. But I sure am going to pull up a beer and swig a chair while I watch you two pull out your best punches, and jabs, and fakes, and well…you get the metaphor.
The Hussy´s last blog ..Happy Poopsicle Day!!
warning shot across the bow:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/feb-leading-indicators-tick-up-slow-recovery-seen-2010-03-18-102200?reflink=MW_news_stmp
Jane´s last blog ..An Estimated 1 in 10 People Have an Ancillary Nipple – Why I Am The Way I Am, Part I
Also meaningful: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/01/president-obamas-vacation-days/
Jane´s last blog ..An Estimated 1 in 10 People Have an Ancillary Nipple – Why I Am The Way I Am, Part I
Shot across the bow? That the “index of leading economic indicators rose 0.1% in February?” WTF does that mean, exactly? Is that like “4 out of 5 dentists said ‘Meh. Can’t hurt’?”
And I’m not going to be one to toot Dubya’s horn, but wasn’t the framework and sales job of that massive economic stimulus plan in place before Obama took office? Oh yeah. It was. But again, that’s not where I’m laying blame or credit. It’s on the accountability. And when this got done, it didn’t put enough people on the hook.
Vacation days? Seriously? Who cares? Back when I wasn’t self-employed, the HR department of my employer would call me every November to remind me that I had already accumulated the max vacation time I could roll into the next year, and if I didn’t take some vacation time, right now, I was going to lose a bunch.
I never took vacations. I still never do. So what? That’s not special. You could argue I’m not getting shit done, either (see organ grinder monkey reference above), despite all these hours I’m putting in.
The proof is in the pudding, my dear. Mike Sherman put in ungodly hours trying to be the best Green Bay Packers football coach he could be. It didn’t change the fact that he was a terrible coach.
Also – the President watches enough college hoops to make an informed bracket for March Madness. That’s all I’m gonna say.
Now I’m not saying Obama is a miserable failure – he’s only got one year on the job so far. But I’m worried that he’s a smooth talker, not a doer. And so far, your arguments aren’t swaying me. And as we know, I am the more reasonable and open-minded of the two of us.
Of course he’s a smooth talker, unlike his predecessor. I think that’s why folks were wooed by him. Not that I am not supportive, I believe he could do great things. But I also believe he inherited one of the shittiest jobs on earth. It’s always been shitty but it’s even shittier since Dubya. Just sayin’.
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