Tag: Obama Presidency

Ignorance of History Is No Excuse

Buck Banks

At nearly every speech I give, someone asks about President Obama’s failure to lead. Of course, that question has been driven largely by the media, perhaps most by Bob Woodward. When Woodward speaks, Washington listens, and he has pushed the idea that Obama has failed in his fundamental leadership task–not building relationships with key congressional leaders the way Bill Clinton did, and not ‘working his will’ the way LBJ or Ronald Reagan did. Now, after the failure to get the background-check bill through the Senate, other reporters and columnists have picked up on the same theme, and I have grown increasingly frustrated with how the mythology of leadership has been spread in recent weeks. I have yelled at the television set, ‘Didn’t any of you ever read Richard Neustadt’s classic Presidential Leadership? Haven’t any of you taken Politics 101 and read about the limits of presidential power in a separation-of-powers system?’ But the issue goes beyond that, to a willful ignorance of history.

— Norm Ornstein, writing in National Journal.

Obama’s Too Nice to People Who Want to Destroy Him

Buck Banks

All of these things we’ve said about what the president could do, should do, might have, could have, but the central thing to keep in mind is his opponents — you talk about taking them out to dinner, making nice with them — these people, politically, want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs.

— Dan Rather, in an interview on the Chris Matthews Show.

Why an Angry Obama Is a Good Thing

Buck Banks

During the chaotic week of the Boston bomb attacks, Barack Obama finally did something a lot of people had been waiting for: He got angry. In public. In the Rose Garden. It happened after the Senate had shamefully failed to pass a bill, favored by the overwhelming majority of Americans, requiring background checks for gun purchasers … To which I say, Bring it on, Mr. President. Obama’s anger served a larger purpose. It was directed at the plague affecting–no, paralyzing–our public life: the ability of well-funded extremist groups to thwart the will of the overwhelming majority. This is a problem that goes well beyond the gun issue.

— Joe Klein, writing in Time.

Obama: The Press are ‘Incorrigible’

Buck Banks

You know, Steve, I gotta tell you, the — you guys in the press are incorrigible. I was literally inaugurated four days ago. And you’re talking about elections four years from now.

— President Obama, in an interview with 60 Minutes, responding to a question about the “date of expiration” of his endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s job as secretary of state.