Who Is This Guy?

Dan Froomkin re-emerges at the HuffPo and asks the same question about Barack Obama that failed to resonate during the campaign - who is this guy?

We're finally going to get to know the real President Obama.

Once the final outlines of health-care legislation become clear, we'll know what really matters to him. Where he draws the line. How he wields the levers of power. Whose ox he gores when there's goring that has to be done.

We'll know who's really in charge.

What's amazing is that more than six months into a presidency that Obama vowed would be the most transparent in history, we still know so little about some basic things like how he makes up his mind and who influences him the most.

We are quite a bit past the "Let's elect him and find out" part of the getting-to-know-you process.

Dorothy Rabinowitz of the WSJ alludes to and reverses the "Who is this guy" mystery of Barack in her piece on the health care debate - in her view, Americans are also a puzzle to Barack:

The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowds—he is at home with those. He is a stranger to the country’s heart and character.

...

Who would have believed that this politician celebrated, above all, for his eloquence and capacity to connect with voters would end up as president proving so profoundly tone deaf? A great many people is the answer—the same who listened to those speeches of his during the campaign, searching for their meaning.

It took this battle over health care to reveal the bloom coming off this rose, but that was coming. It began with the spectacle of the president, impelled to go abroad to apologize for his nation—repeatedly. It is not, in the end, the demonstrators in those town-hall meetings or the agitations of his political enemies that Mr. Obama should fear. It is the judgment of those Americans who have been sitting quietly in their homes, listening to him.

Interesting.  Still, Bill Clinton also whiffed on health care, yet no list of his failings included a non-understanding of the Great Unwashed (We were his people!).

ERRATA:  Sample "Who Is This Guy" snark from last fall may work as a nostalgia piece, complete with cryptic "Joe the Plumber" reference.

Comments

[bad]

Froomkin writes of the secrecy and backroom deals involved in legislation but neglects the many rimes Ibama promised healthcare negotians would all be broadcast on CSPAN.

Is Froomkin uninformed or partisan?

[narciso]

Froomkin is showing the signs of
'credentialed moron' status. He failed at his job, consequently he applies blame for his negligence to everybody else

[PeterUK]

Obama.
Lip syncs
Has a body double for the love scenes.
Somebody does all his stunts.

And now they notice?

[Mike Myers]

It's interesting to watch Obama unravel before my eyes. I've got a sister in San Francisco--not wealthy--but runs in the sort of artsy fartsy intellectual salon circles that ate up Obama's sneer about "bitter clingers to God and guns" etc.

Last year she was enraged when I suggested that Obama's "greatest speech ever on race relations" contained some rhetorical tricks which I questioned. "How dare you?!" was the general tenor of her response. While she's a fairly smart person, she's also an Obama KoolAid drinker and I don't know if the scales have yet fallen from her eyes.

Still an empty suit is an empty suit and sometimes people discover that the empty suit has no person inside it (the reverse of the Emperor has No Clothes). Or as one might say, if you shook that suit until everything but the left wing crapola fell out--you'd have Obama.

I'll be headed to a town hall with Congressman Adam Schiff in Alhambra tonight; it's been years since I wore Brooks Brothers oxford shirts as part of my daily coat and tie office routine. So I'll have to wear a Nordstrom's shirt as I do my "un American" attendance at the town hall. Hope I don't get beat up.

[PeterUK]

"The clothes have no Emperor". I like that!

[Jack is Back!]

I wonder if Bob Woodward is doing a book?

I had to turn off the coverage of Obama in NH since it appears to be a typical planned and closely conducted event - too bad we can't get him into a Specter kind of town hall event.

He is more than and empty suit he is an empty person who we know nothing of substance except his narcissism.

[Original MikeS]

Big surprise. The most secretive, opaque candidate in history has a secretive, opaque administration.

I keep reminding people that Obama chose long ago to be a mysterious politician. It is as if he thinks that, if people knew the truth about him, then...

He was honest about not wanting to be the kind of president Clinton was. Bill used to claim he felt our pain. Obama admits he doesn't want to hear us talk.

[hrtshpdbox]

"The clothes have no Emperor". I like that!

It is really, really good, I agree. Where's the "go viral" button located?

[Thomas Collins]

Obama is everything Reagan was unjustly accused of being. Obama is lost without a careful script, is clueless about the facts and not interested in learning, and is in the service of rich folks. Reagan was great scripted, partially scripted or winging it. He understood economics and national strategy more acutely than any modern Prez. He believed in providing opportunity for all Americans.

[fdcol63]

" ... He is a stranger to the country’s heart and character. ..."

DUH! What else would you expect of someone who was born and reared in Hawaii thousands of miles from "the Heartland", spent a bulk of his most important formative years attending Muslim schools in Indonesia, and nursed Marxist, anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Semitic and black separationist hatred from mentors such as Frank Marshall Davis, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dorhn, and Leftist professors at Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard?

[bad]

Don't forget Rashid Khalidi.

By the way, when is LATimes gonna release the tape?

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Man, Obama is clueless about economics. And, he certainly isn't going to learn from the crowd he's listening to in NH right now.

Not to mention that he's dishonest, for instance he just criticized Sarah Palin--without mentioning her name--over the 'death panel' remark. About which she happens to be right.

Palin was making a reference to Obama adviser Ezekiel Emmanuel (Rahm's brother), who has a paper that spells out just what that means. He calls it
The Complete Lives System:

considers prognosis, since its aim is to achieve complete lives. A young person with a poor prognosis has had a few life-years but lacks the potential to live a complete life. Considering prognosis forestalls the concern the disproportionately large amounts of resources will be directed to young people with poor prognoses. When the worst-off can benefit only slightly while better-off people could benefit greatly, allocating to the better-off is often justifiable.... When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.

[PeterUK]

As I have always said "Obama does American like a foreigner".

Almost as if h had be trained in one of those Soviet Cold War era potemkin American towns where spies learned how to be American.

[Jane]

Every time he speaks I want to go rent The Manchurian Candidate.

[fdcol63]

I'm sure Obama has had the Khalidi tape "classified". We'll never see it.

[PeterUK]

"I'm sure Obama has had the Khalidi tape "classified". We'll never see it."

If he goes after the CIA you will.

[PeterUK]

Jane,
He's Nancy Pelosi's son?

[Stephanie]

Seen the headline on Drudge? Snerk...

[Mike Myers]

Nah, he's not Nancy Pelosi's son--he's her "love child". Of course that also makes him an SOB

[Robin]

I truly think that every morning he looks in the mirror and says "God damn America!"

[DebinNC]

Drudge story "developing": OBAMA 'UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems'... Developing...

This was BO's answer to why the public option won't drive out private insurance companies. I doubt "We'll make your health care as good as the Post Office" is a winner.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Liberals Now Saying Democracy Is The Problem With America?
By AJStrata

Want to talk about your childish, emotional rants? Check out this stroke of liberal desperation:

It Is Democracy, Not Health-Care Reform, That Is Sick

…

Given that there is no such thing as a “death panel,” nor any policy provision that would establish such a thing, it is hard to explain the institutional checks that would prevent a “death panel” from coming into being. When you have to explain why your bill won’t create death panels, and what will make sure that it doesn’t, you’ve pretty much lost the argument.

I have long noted the intellectual lightness on the left, especially when it comes to math and other cognitive analysis skills. To put it bluntly they can’t think beyond a 3rd grade level - which is why they continuously fall for simpleton ideas and sound bites.

[Jane]

He's Nancy Pelosi's son?

Oh dear. That puts a wrench in it, doesn't it?

[Stephanie]

Seems to me with his mentioning "death panels" five or more times, Palin won the argument....

Now tell me who's irrelevant and stupid?

[Frau Sturm und Drang]

Mike Myers - If Obama's mama married a bigamist, he is by definition a bastard.
And, Mike, give 'em hell in Alhambra. I'd be there but I'm up in the Seattle area and tying to avoid the local Thought Police.

Reagan was great scripted, partially scripted or winging it.... He believed in providing opportunity for all Americans.
Above all, Reagan was genuinely happy and optimistic. Our Comrade in Chief is neither. Pfui!

[rrpjr]

I'd correct Rabinowitz. Obama is not a stranger to the country's "heart and character." He just hates that heart and character. He's an intentional stranger. An important distinction many well-heeled conservative commentators miss, or can't bring themselves to say for sounding too much like the unwashed unelite (who at this point in our history, know a hell of a lot more about what's going in Washington than the experts).

[clarice]

He better not get fat--as soon as his face fills out he's the spitting image of Frank Marshall Davis.

[fdcol63]

" ... When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance ..."

What a coincidence! This is the largest demographic most likely to be self-abosrbed, impressionable, and vote Democrat.

Rock the Vote!

[Jane]

Oh dear. Our poor presidebt could not find anyone at his town meeting opposed to his plan - but people weren't bussed in or anything.

[fdcol63]

" ... Our poor presidebt could not find anyone at his town meeting opposed to his plan ...."

They were all afraid of being put on the Fishy List.

[PeterUK]

"Frankie and Nancy were sweethearts
Lordy, how they could love
Swore to be true to each other
Yeah, true to the skies above
He was her man, wouldnt do her no wrong"

[Frantz Fanon]

I think a lot of independent voters were so dumb that they needed a refresher on how bad the far left can be. Others were so dumb that they believed people like Keith Olbermann and Rick Sanchez telling them Obama was a moderate. He may be moderate in the circles he hangs out in, but that is just because those circles include several people who have already bombed US government buildings. We need to revisit Ayers, Rezko, Roland Burris and Blagojevich.

[RichatUF]

rrpjr-

This peculiar character flaw in Obama was pointed out a long time ago. LUN.

No one can claim they weren't warned.

[glasater]

Frau...

If you are in the Seattle area you have your work cut out for you helping to retire Patty Murray. Its the west side of the state that elects these embarrassments.

[rrpjr]

"Obama is everything Reagan was unjustly accused of being..."

Excellent. Thanks Thomas.

[mark]

Obama is a straight-up radical leftist crook and liar. It's really that simple.

[MTF]

Obama is not alone is his incomprehension of America. Ezra Klein is right there with him, and Klein goes one giant step further, since he reveals he also fails to comprehend the foundational ideals of American democracy. He bemoans all this messy "checks and balances" stuff, and decides that anyone who wants to limit government is "mentally ill". I kid you not-- read the link, the ahistorical ignorance of the left is astounding.

[AW1 Tim]

It just seems to me that, for an alleged "Constitutional Scholar", Obama seems to have a very skewed concept of what the Constitution includes.

[smith]

Yeah we get it cons, you don't trust black people.

[John Appleseed]

This website just lost all hope of me ever returning by citing to Fruit-kin for anything. That guy is an Obama-shill and the fact that you do not know it scares me. Fruit-kin has as much credibility as the sweat on my Great Dane's testicles.

[Stephanie]

Trolls got their marching orders...

Return to sender.

[bgates]

you don't trust black people

The seven posts above yours criticized an Anglo guy, an Irish woman, a Syrian, a Serb, two black guys, and a 14 year old Jewish kid. We don't trust crooks, leftists, and idiots.

[JM Hanes]

Patrick R. Sullivan:

I'm a Jacobson fan, but given his intelligent take on a wide range of subjects, it's hard not to believe he is being deliberately disingenuous when he characterizes "the Complete Lives System" as Emanuel's concept, and repeatedly refers to it as "Dr. Emanuel's proposal."

Emmanuel examines eight different allocation systems and their variants, both proposed and currently in use, which he divides into a few broad categories. He describes them primarily in the context of organ transplants, where demand indisputably exceeds available donors and organs, and where distributive decisions clearly must, and are, being made every day. He lays out advantages and disadvantages for each approach, including what he sees as moral components. Contra Jacobson, he does not advocate the Complete Lives System to the exclusion of other measures, but repeatedly states that no one system is sufficient unto itself when addressing what are, in fact, very complex issues of needs and benefits. While he clearly inclines towards factoring in the socialist tenet of "distributive justice," I don't believe that concept is entirely inappropriate where distribution, with life and death consequences, is already an inescapable fact of life.

The danger, as I see it, is using the triage required in the unique circumstances which attach to transplants as the matrix for comprehensive, point based, healthcare decision making across the board. The underlying assumption which drives such a universalist approach is that healthcare in toto is also already being rationed, with the lion's share going to the wealthy. From that perspective, government regulation will not result in rationing, government regulation will ensure a more equitable distribution of available care. To do that, of course, requires systematic government intervention at every level, resting on more complicated metrics -- in which efficacy studies, quality of life value judgments, and normative behaviour modifications will inevitably play a part.

Beyond some simple form of assistance for the truly needy, I, personally, believe in distributive decision-making, not government regulated normalization. At the same time, I have never actually had to choose between saving my young daughter or my aging mother. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind who would have come first, however, or that the underlying considerations implicit in that choice would include some of the elements Emanuel describes. I see no reason to excoriate someone for attempting to address those issues explicitly, and no defense for misrepresenting him.

If, as Emanuel obviously believes, government has a role to play in healthcare processes, and if we do, in fact, end up with government playing such a part, examining both practical and moral repercussions openly and fearlessly will be absolutely imperative. I made my own intense opposition to Obamacare and the moral arbitrage it will inevitably engender, yesterday, but I think that while accusing Emanuel of "proposing" that we Kill Granny! may be a potent battle cry, it is a profoundly political accusation given the content of his paper. If Obama is successful, we will be confronting the issues Emanuel articulates soon enough, and we may yet have cause to appreciate his cogent mapping of the field.

[New Orleans Home Mortgage]

Seems like we should of known the answers to the questions before the election

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

you don't trust black people

I don't trust anyone.

Now if you had said "you don't like black people," I would answer that there a many many black people I like very much, but there are some I don't like at all, i.e., Rev. Wright, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, Eric Holder.

There are many white people who I also like, but the number I don't would fill pages of comments here if I were to list them all.

Now take your racist b.s. somewhere else.

[justin]

I saw through Obama from the start and know exactly what he is.

He is hard core leftist who is convinced he is a moderate because he associates with radicals.

He views himself as the President of a vast wilderness of subhumans surrounding the good minded moderate progressives like himself.

If he has to bend a few rules and lie to get his goals accomplished, that's ok because it's for the best anyway.

You know what, the left see's through him too. They just agree with him.

It's all an unspoken game where they throw out things they don't even believe, and no one else believes them either.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Ah, now we know where the racist trolls got their marching orders today. They are such sheep.

Matthews Charges Town Hall Protestors 'Upset Because We Have a Black President'

[justin]

"It's all an unspoken game where they throw out things they don't even believe, and no one else believes them either."

"Ah, now we know where the racist trolls got their marching orders today. They are such sheep."

Thanks for proving my point.

[clarice]

"The underlying assumption which drives such a universalist approach is that healthcare in toto is also already being rationed, with the lion's share going to the wealthy"
In that sense, as I believe McArdle notes today, everything in life is rationed..food, shelter, transport.

James Lewis, the penname for a distinguished scientist , however, has noted the fallacy in this assumption. Healthcare is not a pie where if someone gets an expensive efficacious treatment others are denied it--Those treatments are often expensive in the first iterations, but as they become more common they tend to become cheaper and more accessible to all.

[Alana]

rrpjr: An Intentional Stranger.

That would be a good title for a book about him.

[Karen]

McCain was a horrible candidate and too old. What choice did people have? yes, we made the wrong choice. Alot of us wanted to have a strong black man as president. It was a feel good thing after a tough couple of years. It is amazing that we would have been better off with the old white guy and the beginner from Alaska. There is no way they could have messed it up more than Obama and Biden.

[fdcol63]

Often, you don't have any good or perfect choices.

Just the lesser of 2 evils.

So .... thanks to all of you Indies and Republicans who voted for Obama or just stayed home in Nov. because you felt you needed to "send a message".

Now we have to clean up the mess .... if we can.

[JM Hanes]

Clarice:

"Healthcare is not a pie where if someone gets an expensive efficacious treatment others are denied it"

That's really the defining difference between left and right, isn't it? To the left, everything is a finite pie. The end game is always equitable division, not growing more pumpkins and rolling out more pastry for the shell.

I realize I may have overextended the metaphor just a tad...

[bad]

Well, I don't know about overextended metaphors, but you definitly made me hungry.

[JM Hanes]

Made myself hungry, bad!

[Samuel -- Texas deer hunting fanatic]

Ultimately presidents tend to get known by how they handle the crises of their term. I am concerned about the real crises ending up being afghanistan.

[JL]

Thanks Clarice for clarifying a facile misrepresentation of "rationing" and distribution.

The end result of Obamacare will not be more rapid provision of "exotic" but effective treatments to the general public. (And millions -- even thousands -- of Americans are not dying because only the wealthy are getting treated.)

I am more convinced daily that the liberal part of the spectrum have an unshakeable belief in magic. You wave the government at something, chant nice words and voila!

Nothing really happens but people feel better, because they had good intentions and believe they are right, regardless.

[Robbins Mitchell]

Well,they don't call the boy "Stinky Pussy" Dunham's bastard alien pickaninny for nothing.

[Fen]

Obama's astro-turfed townhall meeting with softball questions is a joke. He really thinks people are stupid enough to swallow it as genuine. Perhaps because he spends most his time surrounded by Democrats.

[bgates]

Alot of us wanted to have a strong black man as president.

If any of you get that feeling again in 2011, either recruit Thomas Sowell to run, rent the first season of 24, or ask someone to explain what racism is and why it's bad.

[bc]

When the AMA was forming, at the time into a potent trade guild, the first order of business was to limit the supply of doctors through the accreditation of too few med schools. At the meeting, one brave soul pointed out that such intrusion into labor supply was Un-American, like making everyone drive a Cadillac. Immediately, this became the AMA battle cry. "Only Cadillac Doctors!".
Now the pendulum swings back, with a vengeance.

[kcom]

"you don't trust black people..." who are crazy, left-wing, incompetents trying to bankrupt the country. Or, for that matter, white people with the same character issues. On that score you're correct.

The rest, we trust just fine.

Of course, I understand how you probably want to shove all black people in the same box and remove from them the right to form their own opinions individually. After all, that's your prerogative as a white person, or so you and many like you seem to believe.

[Fresh Air]

Good to see Ezra & Froomkin were on the same Journ-O-List thread today. I guess we know what their marching orders were this morning...

RACIST!

[Kev]

McCain was a horrible candidate and too old. What choice did people have? yes, we made the wrong choice. Alot of us wanted to have a strong black man as president. It was a feel good thing after a tough couple of years.

There's the problem: You voted with your feelings. Please, please, vote with your brain next time; we'll all be better off.

[Duh]

Q: "Who is this guy?"

A: A law professor who has never held a real job in his life.

(And you voted for him because you thought he was a "moderate.")

[Why do you ask]

"To do that, of course, requires systematic government intervention at every level, resting on more complicated metrics -- in which efficacy studies, quality of life value judgments, and normative behaviour modifications will inevitably play a part."

Death Panels is the pithy name for what you are describing.

This reminds me of how Palin, being stupid, understood the necessity of Guantanimo and the difficulty of finding any other solution while the genius that is Obama is still floundering around trying to figure out how he is going to square the circle.

Some people are wise and understand the essence of a subject and others are intellectual and bury the lede under a deluge of words until they lose track of the point they were making.

Now what was I saying...

[AST]

I've had the feeling all along that he was chosen first as a figurehead for some resemblance to JFK, but that nobody vetted him for intellectual depth or democratic commitment. It's like NOBODY, not even the party insiders, ever stopped to ask what a community organizer was.

Of course, this is nothing new, since very few liberals I've ever seen could really articulate why they believe what they believe.

Jonathan Chait tried recently with a piece about how we must mind the economic inequality gap in society, but he was still assuming that his readers would agree that it's a governmental obligation to assure that all economic inequality be eliminated from society, conflating the moral responsibility of the members of society with the purposes of government. Yet the best argument for a society that eliminates poverty is precisely the one that most liberals despise, because it relies on faith in God rather than the mind of man: the early Christian community in which members consecrated all their private property to the church, as described in the Book of Acts. This can only be done by a covenant entered into by individuals, not by a law imposed from above by eager social engineers whose commitment to real altruism is made suspect by every word they utter.

[John Higgins]

For the lefties, Obama will always be what they imagine him to be. For independents and moderate Democrats, they are finally waking up from their dream and entering into a nightmare. For the rest of us, we are putting our shoulders into this administration, and will guarantee that Obama is limited to one term.

[plutosdad]

I knew he didn't understand us when he'd constantly insult us back in the beginning of his campaign. Saying things like "we have to do more than bomb civilians in Afgahnistan" and others, to the infamous "clinging to God and guns" statement.

He has no respect for people in the middle or Right, except as ignorant children who need to be trained in the way we should go. I just hope he spares the rod.

Re: Clinton, he wisely put his wife in charge, so if it failed it wouldn't look like his failure. Also, he knew when to give in and pick his battles.

I never thought I'd miss him. But every day of this new presidency I miss him more and more. At least he and that Congress held spending down.

[Invisible Man]

''The clothes have no Emperor.''

For some reason now I'm thinking that Obama is sort of what happens if Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' became President, an angry, black, marxist President.