Is Barack Obama just too complex for voters to figure out? That was the premise behind the New York Times's Sunday Week in Review lead story by Richard Stevenson,“The Muddled Selling of the President.”
Stevenson denied Obama was a liberal (despite his push for government-supervised health care and $787 billion in “economic stimulus” spending), suggesting he was too “complex” for such a label. Further, he wondered if Obama's recent political struggles means it's no longer “possible to embrace complexity in a political and media culture that demands simple themes and promotes conflict?”
On this much, President Obama’s friends and foes could agree: He eludes simple labels.Yes, he’s a liberal, except when he’s not. He’s antiwar, except for the one he’s escalating. He’s for bailouts, but wants to rein in the banks. He’s concentrating ever-more power in the West Wing, except when he’s being overly deferential to Congress. He’s cool, except when he’s fighting-hot.
In a world that presents so many fast-moving and intractable problems, nuance, flexibility, pragmatism -- even a full range of human emotions -- are no doubt good things. But as Mr. Obama wrapped up his State of the Union address on Wednesday night with an appeal to transcend partisan gamesmanship, he was plaintively testing a broader proposition: Is it possible to embrace complexity in a political and media culture that demands simple themes and promotes conflict?
Story Continues Below Ad ↓The president, whose hallmark has been ideological eclecticism, would clearly like to think the answer is yes. But a year into his presidency, Mr. Obama has lost control of his political narrative, his ability to define the story of his presidency on his own terms. And the main reason is that his story is no longer so simple or easy to tell.
....
Rather than moving distinctly right or left or ratcheting up the fighting-mode response he tried out after his party’s stunning loss in the Massachusetts Senate race, his approach last week was to offer something to everyone. There was a promise to move ahead on a measure to allow gay men and women to serve openly in the military, reassurance that the war in Iraq is coming to an end, reassurance that he would fight on in Afghanistan, and proposals for tax cuts for small business, tax credits for families with children, a tax on banks and a freeze on a portion of domestic spending. To Republicans, there was a promise that he would listen to their ideas.
The big question is whether voters perceive him as post-ideological and pragmatic or inconsistent and pandering. He’s not likely to get much help from today’s political-media complex, where it is easy to be undercut by ideological crossfire and there are few platforms for nuance.
Stevenson singled out both Fox News and MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow as attacking Obama before again suggesting the president was a “pragmatist” (a term connoting political moderation) as so many of his journalistic compatriots at the Times have done.
—Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times. You can follow him on Twitter here
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OMO!
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 18:08 ET by BO STINKS"Is Barack Obama just too complex for voters to figure out?" Iow, Stinky wants us to believe his BS instead of thinking for ourselves.
"nuance, flexibility, pragmatism" You can count on this, when the SCM use these words they:
1) Hate the Constitutional Republic form of gov't. and
2) Want you to believe they have a friendlier form of the socialism/communism/fascism and it won't kill over 100 million people this time.
Liberal Hypocrites: Change the channel when the Super Bowl comes on. We don't want to offend your delicate sensibilities.
It's not bullcrap, it's
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 18:11 ET by mattmIt's not bullcrap, it's fertilizer.
Huh?
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 18:10 ET by CobraManThe NYT's needs to hire better writers. There's no way you could justify the inclusion the opposing terms "nuance" and "pragmatism" in the same descriptive sentence. Nor can you do the same for "ideological eclecticism." There's no such thing as "eclectic" ideology.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus.
The US Supreme Court
They call it complexity
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 18:15 ET by StarAZI call it rudderless confusion--or maybe just constant diverting...but to conceal what?
I don't get it.
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 18:23 ET by BKeyserI don't get it.
He's too complex -- so
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 22:07 ET by ThisnThatHe's too complex -- so we're all "perplexed".
__________
"If you can beat them [Dims] here [MA], .... you can beat them anywhere".- Chris Mathews sounding the alarm after Scott Brown's Senate win, 01-19-10
Present
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 18:27 ET by NorthCoasterObama answered "Present" for years to avoid taking a position on anything. He was hiding his true Socialist values so that like a Mancurian Candidate, he could spring them on the Country later. Why do you think he told the World during his Inaugural Speach, that we wouldn't understand how difficult things would get and we would just have to believe that everything would be good once he got done?
I get him
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 18:31 ET by ricklailHe is a lazy phony-an empty suit. Not too complex for me.
Semper superne nitens
Well there's your problem!
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 18:35 ET by CobraMan" Mr. Obama has lost control of his political narrative, his ability to define the story of his presidency on his own terms."
Well there's your problem! Presidents don't get to "define" the "story" of their own Presidency, that's up to to others to define. That's up to history to define. Trying to "define" yourself in this manor is know as propaganda.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus.
The US Supreme Court
He's an admitted progressive
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 20:00 ET by slickwillie2001He has said over and over again that he is a progressive. This is one thing that maybe we can believe him on.
Is there some kind of
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:01 ET by BuffNBoneIs there some kind of decoder ring that can help us sort through POTUS' Bravo Sierra? Or is a lobotomy required? I don't drink Kool-Aid so that isn't an option for me.
"Fighters are fun but bombers make policy"
It's simple....if his mouth
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 20:46 ET by ckc1227It's simple....if his mouth is moving, he's spewing BS. No decoder ring necessary. ;)
WOW, the same thing they said about
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:14 ET by 10ksnookerHugo Chavez and now look where Venezuela is today. Massive street riots daily.
I guess the commie paradise of Chavez's Venezuela isn't as advertised.
When the NYSlimes complains
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:31 ET by eaglewingz08When the NYSlimes complains that Obama has lost control of the narrative what it is really complaining about is that the socialist democrap media cannot control the media like they did when there were only a handful of channels on the tv and radio and they had a stranglehold on all of them.
Poor Obama, so fragile, so misunderstood. I mean it is just unfair that people quote back to him that he has always considered himself a progressive-a leftwing Fabian socialist at best, a marxist at worst. However what Obama said at the basketball game the other night was more telling, that he fakes from his right and goes to his left. That is his entire phony presidency in a nutshell.
"Yes, he’s a liberal,
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:22 ET by be_objective"Yes, he’s a liberal, except when he’s not. He’s antiwar, except
for the one he’s escalating. He’s for bailouts, but wants to rein in
the banks. He’s concentrating ever-more power in the West Wing, except
when he’s being overly deferential to Congress. He’s cool, except when
he’s fighting-hot."
Interesting, I do believe that if he was talking about a republican the word hypocrite would have followed that statement. But instead we are supposed to believe that the O is too complex to understand? Seems to me he just has no idea what to do and is trying to fool all the people all the time.
"In any compromise between good and evil, only evil can profit." Ayn Rand
Complex?
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:58 ET by iveseenitallWhen I see this "complex" manchild blaming President Bush, the Republicans and the Tea Parties, I'm reminded of a scene from The Untouchables where Al Capone blames, mocks and snickers at Elliot Ness in front of adoring reporters. That's Barry-- a vicious, pathetic, empty Chicago thug who thinks he's the center of the universe. There is nothing worth respecting in this person ---nothing. Sad.
NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"
obama is grasping for
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:57 ET by jkwtradingobama is grasping for straws...he does not have a slightest clue what will work, what won't work and has everyone all baffled.
To me he is a real dolt whom cannot, could not ever do something without botching it up except talk and write.
he looks good and is a prima donna.
I'd love to have him in a card game, as cleaning his clock would be easy.
There is nothing complex about communists or communism
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 20:22 ET by R D Helm-Dave
When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered. -Dorothy Thompson
All of us who are against Obama are just flat out stupid
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 21:16 ET by no tingly legs...too stupid to understand the true genius of his policies. We just don't understand the value or mirandizing the underwear bomber so he wouldn't reveal the names of future bombers he trained with. Who needs that knowledge when, as Nappy said, our security system "works"? Or the wisdom of mortgaging our children's and grandchildren's futures with astronomical deficits. Or the wisdom of 10% unemployment. Or appointing czars of this that or the other who think George Bush was behind 9/11, or advise a student in the school they're principal of to use protection when advised of homosexual advances against him by one of your teachers. Either we're as dumb as a box of wrenches or, more likely in the view of libs, white trash redneck racists. Kind of like the residents of southwest Virginia who are, in the opinion of NBC "reporter" Andrea Mitchell "real redneck, bordering on Appalachia country". I hope all you Virginia Tech engioneering professors now realize how truly worthless you are.
NO MORE HOAX & CHAINS
Good grief, no tingly legs
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 21:25 ET by BO STINKSPut a coupla paragraphs in there, would ya? Enjoy reading what you wrote, but you make it too difficult.
Liberal Hypocrites: Change the channel when the Super Bowl comes on. We don't want to offend your delicate sensibilities.
What?
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 23:39 ET by DaMamaObama isn't too complex to figure out. He's an inexperienced, uninformed, arrogant man. Anyone could figure that out by watching his performance this last year.
confused
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 02:59 ET by m1xramNYT, what is "too complex" about Obama being the worst president in my life time? We all get it, he's quite transparent to us.
He has already failed... his country.
♪
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 03:00 ET by TerryWestThe SOTU was a cut & pasted jumble of confusion & double talk, you can add the theme song to love story for your nuance and it's still what it was.
The only complex issue about this President is the depths of his inexperience.
Hey, so it's rain- not some
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 06:23 ET by ThoreauHey, so it's rain- not some commi spawn of islam pissing on my head! I can play this game.
Why is the Times Bleeding Money Again?
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 10:34 ET by TenebrousInsulting your readers is not a way to get people to read your paper, guys. But this is just more of the same "good dog/bad dog" that we're all familiar with by now. When a Democrat is a hypocrite, he's "nuanced", "complex", and basically beyond the ability of the unwashed, moronic, voting hicks to understand him. When a Republican is a hypocrite, then he's guilty of more sin than Judas (with the only rare exception if a Republican isn't conservative or if he's for murdering babies).
But I'm just an idiot. Gaia knows I couldn't possibly understand what my magnificent overlords at the Times are telling me. Maybe that whole article was about advanced mathematics and I just misread it.
Hurry up and go into chapter 11, guys; you won't be missed.
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