We always knew that Obama has a glass jaw, that he can’t take a punch. But it’s a little surprising that he’s started staggering around the ring so soon after November, his approval numbers bleeding away, desperately counting the seconds until the bell rings at election time in 2014 to save him from further pummeling.
It’s also hilarious.
On paper he’s a bruiser. This is a guy who won a knockout reelection bout even though the economy was in the toilet. He hit the GOP with an uppercut over the Fiscal Cliff. He’s got an awestruck media in his corner that is so enamored of him that after his speeches they need cigarettes and cuddling.
And his most powerful asset is the fact that his opponent is the GOP, an organization whose recent track record of success compares unfavorably with that of the French Army of 1941.
And yet now he’s losing. Big time.
The Sequester turned out to be a big nothing. We were told to expect The Road Warrior but instead we got Wall Street. Who would have thought that the market might respond positively to news that the government was borrowing slightly less money from China to subsidize lay-about Democrat constituents’ Cheeto-munching, Judge Judy-viewing, couch-centric lifestyles?
Instead, he engaged in a frenzy of overwrought, dire predictions of zombie apocalypse-level doom if bureaucrats were forced to pare their annual budget increase by a couple percent. But nothing happened. Back before liberals took over the children’s’ books industry and made them all stories about gender-neutral teddy bears that their share feelings regarding global warming, kids’ stories usually had a point. There was this one about a boy who cried wolf with a lesson the President could have learned from.
Compounding this losing streak is the reality that he lost to the Congressional GOP. Think about that. He lost to the Congressional GOP. No one even thought that was possible. Of course, all the GOP had to do was…nothing. It just had to sit there and let the cuts happen. But most observers were pretty sure they would manage to screw that up anyway.
Then Eric Holder got in front of Congress and tried to avoid giving a straight answer to what is just about the no-brainiest of no-brainer questions anyone could ever ask the nation’s highest law enforcement officer: “Hey, is it cool for the government to whack U.S. citizens with Hellfire missiles here in the States?” Holder’s subsequent tap-dancing around to avoid answering with an unequivocal “No” led to Rand Paul’s remarkable filibuster, an event made even more remarkable by the fact that a lot of people who usually suck up to the POTUS came down on the side of the Tea Party hero.
Even the media is starting to get a tiny bit feisty, or at least what passes for feisty considering today’s low bar for press sycophancy. The press got pouty that The One picked Tiger Woods over them. Then Bob Woodward dared defy the narrative, and even a few others came forward with tales of clumsy thuggery by White House pipsqueaks. If these trends continue, sooner or later some reporter may ask him a tough question.
It’s only the beginning of Round Two and already Obama is running out of political capital as the fails just keep on coming. He nominated a guy for Secretary of Defense who managed to both force Senate Democrats to take a vote that their opponents will hang around their necks in 2014 and inflame the Republican squish caucus. The courts dissed him by requiring that when he makes recess appointments, the Senate has to, you know, actually be in recess. Hell, he even lost at the Oscars when the movie about Jimmy Carter, Argo, took best picture over the one he thinks is about him, Lincoln.
Yeah, in the last month he lost to both the Congressional GOP and to President Peanut. Think about that.
And, best of all, his crusade against guns remains the conservatives’ gift that keeps on giving. Obama really thought that his exploitation-fueled campaign against the troublesome Second Amendment was going to succeed and scatter his opponents to the four winds. No longer would liberal legislators be constrained by fear of accountability to voters nostalgic for their Constitutional rights!
Wrong.
Obama ignored the desperate signals of Democrats from the land outside the coastal cities that maybe this was one hornet nest he shouldn’t poke. Relying upon his vast experience with mainstream America gained from years attending cocktail parties with Bill Ayers in Chicago, Obama embraced a radical agenda of banning various guns, standard magazines and registration. But the high-fives among the gun-grabbers were premature.
He might get some background checks, assuming the feds aren’t allowed to keep records of them that could facilitate future stages of the plot to disarm America. He will get some red state Senate Democrats fired, assuming the GOP can nominate candidates whose sole opinion on rape is that they oppose it.
Best of all, Joe Biden took the opportunity to hold forth on his own unique views regarding tactical close combat techniques. Sure, Joe managed to sound borderline insane with his advice to randomly fire buckshot into the air and through closed doors, but in doing so he also reaffirmed the basic principle that individual Americans should use their weapons to protect themselves.
Way to go, Joe.
Now the President is reduced to hitting the campaign trail again, repeating his hackneyed lines about a “balanced approach” in front of staged tableaus of uncomfortable-looking cops and hardhats and…the Village People. Yes, even Saturday Night Live managed to stop sucking-up long enough to satirize his Sequester scaremongering with a parody of “Y.M.C.A”. It would have been “In the Navy”, except all the ships are in port.
Could it be that the President has no clothes?
Obama has always benefited from the respect and deference of his supplicants in the media and popular culture to maintain the illusion of competence. But it’s all an illusion. He’s President Oakland – there is no there there.
He’s failed on the economy, he’s failed on the deficit, and he’s failed in foreign policy. His approval ratings are dropping, as is the GDP. He has swollen the national debt and his fecklessness has led to a Middle East that, against all odds, he has somehow managed to make even worse than before. His sole legacy is a disastrous health care monstrosity that the American people hate and will come to hate even more when it drives their premiums through the roof.
And, worse for him, the House GOP is finally waking up to the fact that it can say, “No.” No to more taxes. No to a cap and trade racket. No to helping Obama win. The GOP hasn’t yet scored a knockout, but there’s no doubt it’s winning on points.
There’s no coming back. Obama just can’t take a punch. He never could. He dances and darts away from his opponent, never engaging directly, not winning himself but waiting for his opponent to self-destruct. It’s time for the GOP to drive him into the ropes and keep working the gut until the 2014 bell rings.