The New Yorker: Obama Like Gandhi

The New Yorker: Obama Like Gandhi

By Warner Todd Huston (Bio | Archive)
February 17, 2009 - 04:37 ET

We've seen the Obamacized media call President Obama Lincoln, we've heard him called FDR and Kennedy, we've been informed that he gives newsers a thrill up their leg. The media has even ridiculously called Barack Obama a "light worker." He is The One, their Obammessiah. Well, we can now add another undue adulation to the media's obsession of finding great figures to compare Obama to: Mahatma Gandhi. At least according to the New Yorker's Hendrick Hertzberg he is, anyway.

In a piece from February 23, headlined "Partisanship, by the bye," Hertzberg likened Obama's work on the so-called stimulus bill to a "Gandhian" effort because it is going so swimmingly for The One.

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This is all merely an effort by Hertzberg to absolve Obama for his failure to govern in the bi-partisan way he claimed he'd undertake and to gain any measurable Republican support for the biggest pork barrel spending bill ever brought before the people, a bill falsely described as an economic stimulus bill. It doesn't matter that this bill is not a bi-partisan bill, Hertzberg claims, because Obama did try to get GOP support.

Sadly, what Hertzberg ignores is that Obama really had little to do with this bill. All Obama did was have a few meetings early on with certain GOP leaders to give the appearance that he was interested in their views, then he went on TV and asked Congress for a bill, then flew off to Camp David and various other places in perpetual campaign mode leaving the bill to be wholly written by the Democrats on the Hill. And those Democrats excluded the Republicans, didn't offer a thing to them to get their support, even arrogantly blew them off altogether.

It's true there was no GOP support for Obama's generational theft bill, but it wasn't because either Obama or the Democrat Party tried to compromise with the GOP to enlist their support but failed to convince the GOP. It was because they didn't try at all to work with the other side and had the votes to steamroll over them.

In fact, Obama himself really had little to do with this bill after he called for it. He didn't work closely with those who wrote it, showed no leadership as it was being debated, and offered no guidance to its compromises.

So, how does Hertzberg sum up Obama's failure?

Fifty years ago, the civil-rights movement understood that nonviolence can be an effective weapon even if--or especially if--the other side refuses to follow suit. Obama has a similarly tough-minded understanding of the political uses of bipartisanship, which, even if it fails as a tactic for compromise, can succeed as a tonal strategy: once the other side makes itself appear intransigently, destructively partisan, the game is half won. Obama is learning to throw the ball harder. But it’s not Rovian hardball he’s playing. More like Gandhian hardball

So, Obama is "like" the Civil Rights movement, he tried really, really hard to get GOP support, but he is "like" Gandhi in his efforts even in failure?

Undue praise for an unworthy effort.

And I don't know about you, but were I a black American I'd be a tad upset that the effort to pass a simple spending bill in Congress was likened to the Civil Rights movement!

(Photo credit: pbs.org)

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How can Obama be Gandi?

February 17, 2009 - 05:57 ET by thebutlerdidit

I think that handle is already taken. Blago said he was the new Gandi weeks ago.

All a Democrat needs is the upper-story window of public attention and the chamber pot of rhetoric. How else to explain the rise of Joe Biden? P.J. O' Rourke

Oh, for crying out loud!!

February 17, 2009 - 06:20 ET by motherbelt

He's McDreamy! He's McSteamy! He's McGandhi!!

Warner, this is the part that got me running for the duct tape:

Still, the President found time for cordiality, inviting Republicans
from both Houses of Congress to join him for cocktails, a Super Bowl
party, and more cocktails. Nor was his “outreach” purely social. “This
was not a drive-by P.R. stunt, and I actually thought it might be,”
Zach Wamp, of Tennessee, told the Times after he and his
Republican House colleagues finished a long session with the President.
“It was a substantive, in-depth discussion with our conference.”

Was that the "discussion" where Obama told Republicans I won. So I will trump you on that ?

And it brought to mind GW Bush's attempts at "outreach" to Democrats. He even let Ted Kennedy pretty much have control over the whole education bill ( after inviting his family to the WH to watch a movie about JKF)..no "I won!" there.... and I don't remember the media gushing over his "bipartisanship."

No one who has seen this President unleash his inner cocky teenager and throwing zingers could possibly mistake him for Gandhi. That's some imagination Hertzberg has!

I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows. -Bart Simpson

Exactly

February 17, 2009 - 06:39 ET by Warner Todd Huston

This Hertzberg guy gives Obama all sorts of credit for "trying" to work with the GOP, but he never did. It is an outright lie to claim he did.

The media is now creating a

February 17, 2009 - 07:21 ET by motherbelt

The media is now creating a Presidential image to match the one they created for Obama during the campaign.

I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows. -Bart Simpson

Of course

February 17, 2009 - 07:22 ET by sdan

it's a lie but the msm will keep yelling that it's all the Republicans fault and Obama is great and wonderful. It doesn't matter what the facts are. It doesn't matter that we can back up those facts with evidence. All that matters is that Obama is the greatest thing since sliced bread and nothing we say will change that because after all he won.

What goes up must come down.

February 17, 2009 - 06:30 ET by Fairlight

What goes up must come down. It's only a matter of time till Obama experiences the worst crash of his lifetime. A lowest of low even worse than his crashes during his cocaine days.

Obama exhibits leadership

February 17, 2009 - 06:50 ET by HockeyKid

Obama exhibits leadership like Marie Antoinette exhibited regard for the commoners.

"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me

I am still living in a bubble.

February 17, 2009 - 07:16 ET by JWF

I coulda swore this was a panic just like every other panic in the history of mankind. There was too much leverage. Too much borrowing. Prices got too high. People that got overextended get bitten. Prices come down. Money starts flowing again.

We already threw a lot of money at this problem. We have not had time to see if it worked. There are signs that things are getting better. 7.5% unemployment does not constitute an emergency that requires an historically unprecedented piece of legislation that will inject more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars’ worth of adrenaline into America’s fluttering economic heart.

We are borrowing a lot of money from the future to pay for the sins of the past. Sins that may have already been paid for. That money will come out of the economy when it is starting to recover.

7.5% unemployment is now a fluttering economic heart? A banking system frighteningly close to collapse, the economy in its deepest crisis since the nineteen-thirties, and job losses, which approached three million last year, accelerating to more than a half million a month.

Oh do give me a break! The early 80's was worse than this. Only because someone finally stepped in to fix what was carrying over from the 70's. And let's throw out a big number again with no perspective. Three million! Completely negating that we have a population of over THREE HUNDRED MILLION.

And why are we losing so many jobs? Because companies are shrinking to meet a smaller demand. Except for companies with unions, they cannot shrink to meet a lower demand. They just have to continue to lose BILLIONS of dollars until demand picks up again. Look, I threw out my own big number.

Yes. I am the one in the bubble here. I lost some $4000 in shadow banking stocks. I did not freak out and BORROW $4000 more to make up for it. I just picked myself up and said "Oh, not gonna do that again"

And I thought the whole purpose of having 2 political parties was to have a check on each other. Just like the 3 branches of government. No one gets too strong and takes the country down a road from which it cannot recover.

Look at me, bubble boy. Hertzberg - right there on the straight and narrow. Not trying to feed us propaganda for Uncle Dummy. No. It's me.

Sincerely,

a Veteran of a 1000 psychic wars.

The hard way

February 17, 2009 - 08:33 ET by jdlybrand

newsisblues

These folks will learn as we did in my state; you don't start naming buildings and bridges for folks who are still alive. And you darn sure don't start comparing them to Ghandi while they're still in office. (For less than a month).

What an achievement!

February 17, 2009 - 09:25 ET by KC Mulville

In his short term in office, Obama hasn't written the stimulus package (House Democrats did), hasn't outlined a coherent program, and struggled to pass a bill when he had an undefeatable majority. The only real political question left was whether he could get it to be bipartisan, and he didn't.

Triumph! A presidency on steroids!

He's allowed the Commerce Secretary to become like the drummer in Spinal Tap, spontaneously combusting at awkward times. He got Hillary Clinton to take over foreign policy, then undermined her by sending gunslingers like Richard Holbrooke to handle specific territories.

Brilliant! Magnificent! Ghandi-like leadership!

Leopard, spots, etc.

February 17, 2009 - 13:49 ET by slickwillie2001

Obammy didn't write a single bill in the Illinois State Senate, he didn't write a single bill in the US Senate. Did anyone really expect him to do anything himself as President?

Obammy did not display a shred of 'bipartisanship' in the Illinois Senate, and not in the US Senate. Did anyone really expect him to change his personality once he became President?

Name one thing

February 17, 2009 - 10:08 ET by 10ksnooker

That you can recall where Obama actually took a leadership role in ... Huh, can't can you. No voting present doesn't count. And urging everybody to support Pelosi's porkulus doesn't qualify either.

I think those Obama-Oprah Shows are funny, watching ignoirant people on TV is always good for a laugh.

And now we find Obama needs a new high tech teleprompter so someone can type in real time what he needs to say. And we are told how dumb, moronic Bush was. When a real moron shows up, we call him ... Let's face it Obama is just a motor mouth with nothing to say.