Obama the Coward or How Obama Shrewdly Attacks his Opponents While Keeping his Hands Clean

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Well, it's that time of year again where an Obama friend and ally makes an attack only to get rebuffed mildly by Obama and pretended as if they never had a role in his life.


First we saw it in Chicago when Obama's opponent for a Senate seat had his sealed divorce records unsealed so embarrassing personal details could be leaked. Obama said he opposed it but he still benefited from the drop in support for Ryan.

Then we saw the pastor for a church Obama attended for decades get called to the carpet for his rhetoric only for Obama to act surprised that Jeremiah Wright was a vocal critic of America.

Almost at the same instant we saw Obama discover that his support from Bill Ayers, the former head of the most well known left-wing terror group in America, would receive criticism. So Ayers joined what would soon become a growing group of people thrown under the bus.

Shortly after getting elected president, Obama then throws Van Jones under the bus. After all, how was he supposed to know that a guy who openly espouses angry racial rhetoric and Marxist pleas for a strong government would actually believe in that stuff.

But the fun didn't end there. You see, Obama appointed Eric Holder as his attorney general and tasked him with ensuring the Department of Justice did it's job. It's job apparently being to ensure that Mexican drug dealers get all the guns they want and making sure that the violence in Mexico gets pinned on legitimate gun dealers and owners in America. So there's really little wonder why before Operation Fast and the Furious became public the DOJ was talking about how we needed to crack down on gun crimes by banning guns.

Of course, Eric Holder played a crucial part in all of this. As a hatcheman he could get out in front of the issue and make things happen while Obama sits back and pretends as if his condemning it or disowning Holder's actions is as good as firing him. After all, Obama supports gun rights... it's his subordinates that unfairly and arguably illegally attacked them. Hardly Obama's fault, right?



And that leads us to this week. Near the start of this year the DNC started firing off their election year rhetoric. This year the big talking point is that Republicans hate women. That Republicans were waging a WAR ON WOMEN. Suddenly routine spending bills that had provisions that didn't include contraception were now attacks directly on contraception. A provision that exempted employers from having to pay for contraception (while still mandating hormonal treatment) became akin to denying women birth control.

Hilary Rosen, a long time DNC operative, moved to the forefront of the talking point this week in an attempt to act the hatchet man (hatchet woman?) by ridiculing Romney for his statement saying he looks to his wife for women's issues. Normally this would be an easy attack but Rosen fumbled it.=. Rosen clumsily insulted a mother of five who is dealing with MS and breast cancer as not knowing what it's like to "work". This fumble gave the Republicans an opening with which to shift the focus on the attack. And seize it they did.

But that leads us back to the main issue.

Obama came out condemning the attack (naturally) and stated that "women are not an interest group". True... to a degree. He's pushing for those votes still and treating them like an interest group. Really it's typical bad cop/good cop. Obama gets his cronies to make the attack so he can come in and condemn the attack while still benefiting from the advances in debate his side has made. Normally it's sly enough that the meme get's built while not becoming obvious it's a forced meme but he really bungled it this time.

As it's been made clear, Obama's primary tactic is not to fight himself. He knows he can disassociate himself enough from his allies while still benefiting from their attacks and denying his opponents the sound bites they want. However, it comes off as cowardly. He doesn't engage in an argument seeking only to let his followers "fight and die" for him.

It raises the question. Is Obama a coward, or just a shrewd tactician?

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

My bet is on a skillful strategist. Romney, beware!

[paft.livejournal.com]

This is about on par with the claim that Obama is plotting to seize everyone's guns and is implementing this plan by MAKING NO MOVE TO CONFISCATE ANY GUNS.

Seriously -- you think the Anne Romney kerfuffle and things like the recent attacks on choice are all part of Obama's cunning plan? He's, what, using his orbital mind control lasers on the Republican party to make them act like idiots?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

So I'll put you in the camp that thinks Obama is a buffoon who surrounds himself with people who he has no control over and no clue what they think.

Considering you've carried your share of the water in the completely artificial "war on women" meme, I figured you'd be one to deny it.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

What are you really angry about? Less than 24 hours after the soccer refs were all over you for personal name-calling, here you are asking if President Obama is a coward. It seems unhealthy to me to be carrying around that much hostility.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I've been kicking this post around for a while and the recent kerfuffle surrounding the DNC's hackneyed attempt on Ann Romney pushed it to the forefront.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

I don't think "coward" is the right word. You don't live the kind of life Obama's lived if you're a "coward."

But I do think it's fair to say that he isn't much of a leader. I agree that he's handling certain elements of the Democratic party at arm's-length so as to be able to seem like the "reasonable" "moderate" who can govern. That's why I think it's a bit of a misnomer, for example, to refer to PPACA as "Obamacare" - he didn't really show a ton of leadership through its development and was more or less content to let Congress screw itself up in knots trying to pass it.

I think he might be trying to be a "tactician," but whether he's showing any competence in this is open to question. The Republicans are largely doing most of his work for him - Oh, here's a big-number budget bill that we'll pass and then fill in with the details, but it's not like Pelosi's gotta-pass-it-to-see-what's-in-it gaffe, no, this is totally different - just to cite a recent example - or citing a wealthy stay-at-home mother as an authority on what's good for American mothers. Typical tone-deaf stuff like that - Obama's not, as far as I can tell, teasing it out, or cleverly forcing it out. It just kind of happens. Maybe that's all the tactics you need when your opponents rely on a base consisting of in-the-know wealthy sophisticates together with a legion of blithering know-nothings. "We need to balance the budget!" they wail, making ludicrous credit-card analogies, and BLARGH!, they vomit out a tax-cut bonanza that is guaranteed to make working for a living much harder while bending the economy's curve back toward Europe-debt-crisis territory - well, wait and see what we'll have to pay to lend money after that goes through, I say!

Anyway, rant aside, I don't see anything particularly special about Obama's approach here. I am sure the Romney campaign is working 24/7 to find ways of doing exactly the same thing - We've got to make our candidate more relatable, and pronto! - and there will be scapegoats, gaffes that Romney will speedily distance himself from, etc., etc. Bottom line, these games we play with our politicians, these little morality plays that we set up for ourselves, like Obama's just another Snooki whose actions we can evaluate morally and find lacking or up-to-par, is just not interesting, or particularly useful, except for marking obvious precisely those people who find such side entertainments interesting or relevant - so as better to judge their perspicacity, etc.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'I don't think "coward" is the right word. You don't live the kind of life Obama's lived if you're a "coward."'

What do you mean "kind of life"?

I've never seen him do anything courageous. In either token or in actual danger, he seems fit to be an empty suit with a lot of charisma.

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

Rosen clumsily insulted a mother of five who is dealing with MS and breast cancer as not knowing what it's like to "work".

Seriously?

...

Wow.

[paft.livejournal.com]

A mother of five who's married to a multmillionaire, has a staff of servants to help her with things like laundry and cooking, and has the luxury of not only choosing not to work, but to choose which luxurious residence she can be a stay at home mom in.

I think it's great that Anne Romney has all these options, but let's not kid ourselves about how familiar she is with the realities most mothers -- especially mothers with MS and five children -- have to face.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Obama can't be a coward. A coward wouldn't be waging so many wars at one time: the war against gun owners, the war against family values, the war against rich people, the war against the free market... the list goes on, and on, and on. My God, he must be the most fearless warrior since Achilles to take up arms against so many! It's amazing he has been such a failure in his unholy quest to destroy America.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

+3

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Well, your hilarious laundry list doesn't involve anything concerning executive action or other things he did while as President, so once again the only crime he committed in office is President While Black™.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Bingo! By the way, have you heard: Arizona's High Sheriff Arpaio has joined forces with Orly Taitz, the Birther Queen.

Failbird is fail

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

It raises the question. Is Obama a coward, or just a shrewd tactician?

Neither. He is a historian and a politician. As a point of historical reference, see: Lee Atwater, Max Cleland, et al.

Your side does it. Actually they mastered it.

Quid quo pro, bro.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

...

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

If we had a candidate who could successfully unify working women and stay at home mothers, that's who I'd vote for.

Now, back to topic:

Obama sounds shrewd to me.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

I think more would consider him a coward if he didn't address what she said.

You're right that this probably earns him more points than it costs him, but it had the potential to go the other way - seems kind of risky to do it intentionally.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

A coward? I thought Romney was the one who evaded the draft.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

OH SNAP!

[dwer.livejournal.com]

why is it that conservatives think that liberals walk in lockstep, or can control what individuals say and do?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

So that's a second vote for Obama is a buffoon who is reckless in who he associates with.

[caerfrli.livejournal.com]

Obama's a politician, so, yes, he caves in to whatever forces appear to be able to get and keep him in power. This chapter of the mommy wars, however, started by Romney suggesting he sent his wife out to be ambassador to womanland and report back what women want.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

why is it that conservatives think that liberals walk in lockstep, or can control what individuals say and do?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Is there really a difference? The shrewd tacticians aren't the ones that go out and die in carload lots, the shrewd ones win without fighting. There is a word for what you seem to think good tacticians are, well actually it's a phrase: target practice.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what any of this is about.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

^This.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

It raises the question. Is Obama a coward, or just a shrewd tactician?

He's a politician. There is nothing new under the sun in in this behavior and it's certainly not sequestered solely in his person, let alone his party. Letting your associates do the dirty work while playing the role of statesman has been a time honored way of American politics since time out of mind.

If your point was to highlight the general behavior as a historical trend, tracing it through the years, that's one thing. Not a particularly interesting thing to my mind, but at least an issue of sorts. To highlight it as if this was new or somehow specific to Obama comes off as particularly and selectively blind to the larger issue for the sake of silly partisanship, which makes it even less than uninteresting, but also and somewhat particularly annoying.

/critique

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

My greater point was that Obama does this yet he's treated as if he doesn't. As if he's a unifying force who tries to bring people together.

Obama is as scummy as many of the worst politicians when it comes to p[laying the game but his believers refuse to see it.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

why does this have a "scandal" tag?
where's the scandal?

oh wait. this post is malicious gossip. gotcha.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Suddenly routine spending bills that had provisions that didn't include contraception were now attacks directly on contraception. A provision that exempted employers from having to pay for contraception (while still mandating hormonal treatment) became akin to denying women birth control.

Never mind that short list there is factually wrong.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Can I vote for neither? Sure, Obama's a "tactician" in the same way all successful politicians are but I wouldn't say he's "shrewd"er than anybody else.

I've seen no evidence that Rosen is being sent out as a surrogate for Obama. She was a Clinton supporter during the last election and I haven't heard anything about her being brought onto the campaign or the DNC or any other legitimate Democratic organization. It seems to me she's just another lobbyist who happens to lean Democratic but doesn't speak for the Party itself.

I honestly don't see how Obama benefits from having Rosen say these things. Everyone already knows that Romney is a rich a-hole and that his kids grew up spoiled. Everyone knows that he and his wife are out of touch with the lives of ordinary Americans, they don't seem to want to hide those facts. Rosen's comments gave Romney's campaign a chance to pretend that they were attacking all stay at home moms, instead of just those who claim to speak for all women while living an extremely opulent life that's unavailable to most women. It also gave them an opportunity to claim that Obama was totally waging the real War on Women and that Republicans really love women.

I also can't figure out if you and your compatriots honestly think Obama originates these things, in which case you all obviously suffered a mass case of amnesia around Obama's inauguration, or if you're just saying these things to score political points and know they're lies.

Either way, rest assured that having surrogates do your dirty work (if that's even what Obama's doing which I don't think it is) is an old tactic in elections that both parties use. Did McCain get up in front of his Republican crowds and personally question Obama's citizenship, of course not, he had the proto-tea party do it. Does the Republican Party file lawsuits against Obama's birth certificate, of course not they'd look like idiots, they have stooges like Orly Taitz and Jerome Corsi do it for them so they can maintain plausible deniability while putting the idea out there so uneducated people will believe it.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Here comes the boogieman!

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

I know you're trolling but...

1. Maybe he had nothing to do with the unsealing. Can you prove he had anything to do with it? Nope, all you have is "he benefited from it, so he must be behind it".
2. Maybe he never saw the sermons in question. Do you see him in the audience in any of the tapes?
3. He went to his house, Ayers was a neighbor as well as a former professor in Chicago. You seem to think they were making bombs together.
4. I agree to a certain extent about Van Jones: he shouldn't have fired him. But sadly Obama tries too hard to appease people who will NEVER support him.
5. That DEA operation was ill-advised but to make it some part of a vast conspiracy in an attempt to revoke the 2nd amendment is batshit.
6. Republicans are wanting to put more limits on abortions (which at this time is a constitutional right) by making women take probes and ultrasounds and whatever else. Then they started going after their contraception. It's setting the clock back decades so yeah I can see women getting angry about it. Was Rosen a member of Obama's staff? Was she associated in any way shape or form with him? No, she was not. You're just mad because you wanted him to praise her and confirm your deranged view of him, and instead he condemned what she said (and rightfully so).

I know you want to believe he's this Muslim Kenyan Marxist Socialist far left liberal that wants to take away your guns and enslave all white people all while giving out handouts to minorities and single moms, but you need to come back to reality. Obama is a moderate. Your search for something to hate him over is sounding increasingly desperate.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'I know you want to believe he's this Muslim Kenyan Marxist Socialist far left liberal that wants to take away your guns and enslave all white people all while giving out handouts to minorities and single moms,'

That's not what I claimed.

I think you're not seeing the forest and only seeing trees. Especially since with each incident, no matter how tied in he is with someone, his supporters will deflect the association and assert that he's not connected followed by ridicule and mockery of the belief that they're connected.

Why is "enhanced interrogation" Bush's albatross but arming Mexican gangs completely separate from Obama?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I think what we're seeing here is, well, disappointment. Santorum recently dropped out the race, and I'd put money on most Tea Party people voting for him. Now, they're stuck with Romney, and Romney's health care reform in Mass represents the biggest affront to their sensibilities since Obamacare. Now they're left with a candidate that doesn't really serve their interests, even if every now and then he tries. Romney is the biggest blow to the Tea Party, and because of the Republican primary season, TP interest has petered off compared to earlier in the year.

This is disappointment not over Obama, but the fact that they don't really have a horse in this race. Vitriol is all they have left.

[fornikate.livejournal.com]

'operative'

dude.