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Edited on Tue Nov-18-08 10:44 AM by Kurt_and_Hunter
Think locally. Act Globally.
Step 1: Construct a neurotic personalized fantasy of Barack Obama that is fundamentally about your personal psychological issues Step 2: Blame everyone else in the world for the defects and inconsistencies of your interior psychodrama
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In reality, Barack Obama ran on whatever he thought would win as an essential first step toward his real ambition, which is to be a good president.
The man has no great interest in ideology, or even policy. He is interested in politics and governance.
He thinks he can be a better sort of president. That's his bag.
He's not a policy wonk. (He understands policy, but the fine print doesn't drive him.) He has no over-arching revolutionary idea of foreign policy. (Unlike the Chimp, who does.)
He is a visionary in terms of politics, management and leadership. And perhaps that is what is best for the country because this is, for good or ill, a democracy. (Product is process, form follows function, etc.)
I think he will be an excellent president. A remarkable president.
Because his ONLY interest is that things work well.
These dope-dreams about the vast conspiracy that is forcing Hillary, or Summers, or Gates or Rahm or whoever on Obama are low comedy.
Obama's role model is Reagan, not FDR. Not ideologically, of course, but in terms of national symbolism and management style. Carter and Clinton are brilliant men who micro-managed. Reagan was a dope who was shrewd enough to delegate.
Obama is a brilliant man who is brilliant enough to not want to repeat the micro-managing errors of his brilliant predecessors. "What if Reagan had been smart and good?" "What if Clinton had been secure enough to be more decisive?"
The idea of a brilliant president who is not intellectually vain has a lot going for it.
The concept of making Hillary SOS and Rahm COS is the same as Reagan turning much of the government over to Bush campaign manager James Baker. Baker knew what the fuck was going on.
Obama's gig isn't that the Clinton presidency was immoral. His gig is that it was ineffective. "I could have enacted Bill Clinton's policies better than he did, without the drama and scandal and partisan warfare."
During the primaries and election Obama said what had to be said to get people to vote for him... same as everyone else. That's how politics works. Nobody older than twelve is supposed to believe that stuff.
And now that he has won his only interest is in being the best president he can be. And that means turn over the nuts and bolts of government to people he believes know what the fuck is going on. The record so far suggests he is a shrewd judge of talent so I have no reason to assume he has a bad idea of who knows what's what.
The "change" Obama has ALWAYS run on is political change as exemplified through a personal, non-idealogical management style.
Folks who think "change" means upheaval just haven't been listening very hard. Obama has never been about dramatic change in policy, foreign or domestic. He's a policy agnostic. That's why he ran on Hillary's policy platform in the primaries. He never said, "I will do something different" (except to those desperate to hear that.) He said, I can do Hillary's policies better than she can.
And he's probably right.
It wouldn't have ever crossed my mind to make Hillary SOS, but it seems that Obama has looked at the big picture and decided that American foreign policy will be best managed by Hillary, and that Hillary at SOS aligns Bill CLinton's interests with Obama's, and Bill has a LOT of weight internationally, and Hillary and Biden are generally on the same page, and all the things that go into saying, "this is the best choice for America and for the popular efficacy of my presidency."
So deal with it.
He is a manager and a leader and a political theorist. He will be a great president because he is willing to accept on a deep and meaningful level that some people know more about stuff than he does.
I have never been so confident that an incoming president would make the correct moves.
I am also certain that he will step on one or more of my single-issue moral absolute issues. But that's built into the system. I can only hope he steps on fewer of them than someone else would. (There's a reson I do not fall in love with politicians.)
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