Author Topic: President Obama the scold  (Read 912 times)

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Offline Confederate Kahanist

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President Obama the scold
« on: February 09, 2010, 09:13:58 PM »
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32661_Page2.html


For a president who ran on uplifting themes like change and hope, Barack Obama spends an awful lot of time scolding Americans about how he hopes they’ll change.

He has advised parents to “replace that video game with a book and make sure that homework gets done.” He has urged members of Congress not to read blogs or watch 24-hour cable news. And he’s challenged lobbyists, lawmakers, bankers, journalists, insurance companies and other heads of state to do a better job.

He’s prodded people to get off the couch, eat healthier and exercise more. He’s even suggested Americans buy stocks, U.S.-made cars and energy-efficient light bulbs, while cautioning them not to max out their credit cards.

At times, having Obama in the Oval Office is like having a really powerful Dr. Phil around.

But lately, Obama’s tsk-tsking has gotten him into some trouble. At the very moment he’s trying to recover his declining popularity and revive his party heading into the November elections, even some Democrats worry that he risks coming off not as the inspirational figure who galvanized the electorate in 2008 but as the embodiment of a dour Democrat that turns off some voters.

Dee Dee Myers, a former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, pointed out that, while Obama has long promised to tell people the truth even when it hurts, he needs to strike a balance.

“Part of what people liked about him during the campaign is that he talks to the American people like they’re grown-ups — you don’t have to pretend that you can eat ice cream and lose weight in order to be president,” Myers said. “He did that during the campaign by appealing to hope. ... I think little of that has been lost.”

Added Democratic strategist Paul Begala, another Clinton veteran, “You got to be careful about that stuff, or you become a scold.”

Obama drew criticism for his unusual finger-wagging at Supreme Court justices as they sat in the House chamber during his State of the Union address. He also used the speech to once again press Congress to go public with its earmarks. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Obama’s fellow Democrat, recently told him to “lay off Las Vegas” when Obama urged fiscal restraint by explaining, “You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

The White House says Obama’s admonitions, whether to the Supreme Court about campaign finance law or to Congress about pork-barrel spending, are simply part of his drive to change the ways of the capital.

“A central part of the president’s vision for bringing change to Washington is fulfilling one of his earliest campaign promises: telling people not just want they want to hear but what they need to hear,” said Josh Earnest, White House deputy press secretary.

“That may ruffle the feathers of some entrenched Washington, D.C., insiders, but it’s critical to the president’s pursuit of the priorities of the American people that have been ignored inside the Beltway for too long,” Earnest said.

Still, Democrats have begun to suggest Obama curb the public lectures about his agenda and focus more on private wrangling, with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) recently insisting the president “needs to press harder” if he wants to get health care done.

And Republicans predictably roll their eyes at the steady flow of advice coming from the top of the country’s organizational chart.

“Nobody wants a national nanny,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “It’s really annoying, and people don’t want to hear it.”



Rep. Tom Price, a Georgia Republican, thinks Obama has just taken a Democratic trait to a new level. “They want to tell you exactly how to eat, where to live, what light bulbs to purchase, what car to purchase, what house to purchase — down to the minute detail,” Price said.

But to some extent, it’s an approach that comes naturally to the former University of Chicago law professor, even if it might not always be effective. “The fatherly scold doesn’t work well, at least in part because he’s one of our youngest presidents,” said presidential scholar Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.

Age hasn’t stopped the president, who, at 48, is at ease urging the Obama way — on a range of issues — onto those a lot more experienced than he is. He is at once Americans’ president and their additional dad, teacher, preacher, nutritionist, life coach and financial adviser.

“What you’re now seeing is profit-and-earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it,” Obama told a CNBC interviewer last March.

“If you are considering buying a car, I hope it will be an American car,” Obama said last May.

Americans expect some of this from Obama. During the campaign he talked of the need to make sacrifices for the environment, including turning down the thermostat, and promised to “lead by example.”

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times,” he said at one point.

Obama’s comments often include a heavy dose of “we” and a side of empathy. In a Father’s Day essay in Parade Magazine last year, Obama wrote, “We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids and listening to them and understanding what’s going on in their lives.”

Later, at a White House event, he used his relationship with his daughters to explain that sometimes dads have to give up things they enjoy, like sitting around watching ESPN.

“I like watching the highlights,” Obama said. “But sometimes instead of watching the third, fourth, fifth time, ‘SportsCenter,’ I just watch it once so that I can then spend time with the girls.”

When it comes to the ways of Washington, Obama is full of scolding. He shames members of Congress for partisanship. He maligns lobbyists for their influence. He shuns politics even as he advises Democrats how to keep their jobs.

“I think if everybody here — excuse all the members of the press who are here — if everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, your — just turn off the TV — MSNBC, blogs — and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics,” Obama told Senate Democrats last week.

One of Obama’s favorite roles is playing the nation’s public editor. His criticism of cable news “chatter” is now routine. But, recently, he widened his media critique to include “our friends with the pads and the pencils.”

As his chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, recently told The New Yorker, Obama is on a mission “not just to change politics in Washington but to change the culture of Washington, and the media is part of it.”

Still, Obama’s technique has an impact.

After Obama told Senate Democrats to turn off the computer and the TV, Reid said he took the president’s advice.

“Mr. President, you’ve told me, suggested: Don’t pay any attention to the blogs, don’t listen to talk radio, don’t watch cable TV,” said Reid. “And I follow that advice pretty good.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32661_Page2.html#ixzz0f6J651UX
Chad M ~ Your rebel against white guilt

Offline arksis

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Re: President Obama the scold
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2010, 10:25:55 PM »
This is what the Progressive Movement is all about........ >:(  They don't learn from yesterday, they only want to change tomorrow, no matter what, and the government running every single part of our lives.
---Never, ever deal with terrorists. Hunt them down and, more important, mercilessly punish those states and groups that fund, arm, support, or simply allow their territories to be used by the terrorists with impunity.
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Offline Ari Ben-Canaan

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Re: President Obama the scold
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2010, 12:47:08 AM »
Quote
“They want to tell you exactly how to eat,

I would never ever, ever never stop laughing if Obamerica had to have a controlled diet, and exercise each day, by law, punishable by incarceration.  Socialists reap what the sow. - I imagine most Obamericans would pray for Obama to go back to old, functioning, health care.  It makes me sick that people think doctor visits should be free while they personally ignore their health.

I eat a healthy diet, I love to exercise, and never ever get sick.  I'd love it if the gym became free as part of health care [at least I'd get something out of paying for all this crap].
"You must keep the arab under your boot or he will be at your throat" -Unknown

"When we tell the Arab, ‘Come, I want to help you and see to your needs,’ he doesn’t look at us like gentlemen. He sees weakness and then the wolf shows what he can do.” - Maimonides

 “I am all peace, but when I speak, they are for war.” -Psalms 120:7

"The difference between a Jewish liberal and a Jewish conservative is that when a Jewish liberal walks out of the Holocaust Museum, he feels, "This shows why we need to have more tolerance and multiculturalism." The Jewish conservative feels, "We should have killed a lot more Nazis, and sooner."" - Philip Klein

Offline pennyjangle

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Re: President Obama the scold
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2010, 12:13:34 PM »
He needs to talk, did he ever do an honest days work in his life? Then he wants to tell us how to live!
Hasta La Vista Baby!