FRANK RICH---It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Obama!

[kpete]

Op-Ed Columnist
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Obama!

By FRANK RICH
Published: April 3, 2010



What a difference winning makes — especially in America. Whatever did (or didn’t) get into Obama’s Wheaties, this much is certain: No one is talking about the clout of Scott Brown or Rahm Emanuel any more.

But has the man really changed — or is it just us? Fifteen months after arriving at the White House, Obama remains by far the most popular national politician in the country, even with a sub-50 percent approval rating. And yet he’s also the most enigmatic. While he is in our face more than any other figure in the world, we still aren’t entirely sure what to make of him.

Depending on where you stand — or the given day — he is either an overintellectual, professorial wuss or a ruthless Chicago machine pol rivaling the original Boss Daley. He is either a socialist redistributing wealth to the undeserving poor or a tool of Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs elite. He is a terrorist-coddling, A.C.L.U.-tilting lawyer or a closet Cheneyite upholding the worst excesses of the Bush administration’s end run on the Constitution. He is a lightweight celebrity who’s clueless without a teleprompter or a Machiavellian mastermind who has ingeniously forged his Hawaiian birth certificate, covered up his ties to Islamic radicals and bamboozled the entire mainstream press. He is the reincarnation of J.F.K., L.B.J., F.D.R., Reagan, Hitler, Stalin, Adlai Stevenson or Nelson Mandela. (Funny how few people compared George W. Bush to anyone but Hitler and his parents.)

more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04rich.html?hp

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_supreme_court_stevens

[TygrBright]

1. Just for the record, I NEVER compared Bush to Hitler's parents. n/t

[Berry Cool]

2. This is a very wise assessment of Obama and the illustration is clever.

It seems that people truly do see in Obama what they want--or dread, but still want--to see. I am not sure that many people have yet seen what he truly is beyond the scrim of what they fear he is or what they want him to be or wish he was.

[truedelphi]

3. A man who is the president of the United States

Will be judged by some by the actions of those who he appoints, and by his own actions.

Sadly probably forty percent of all Americans have either given him a big thumbs up mostly because he is a Democrat and he smiles so much and is well spoken, and another subset of that 40 percent give him a big thumbs down because they are Republican RW-ers who have been offered many points by which to demonize the man.

As for those of us who make their judgements by looking at The appointees:

We see Rahm (- - - - -)

Geithner (- - - - - - - - - - - )

Bernanke (not appointed by O, but very much approved (- - - - - - - - - - - - - )

Gates (-)

Kissinger (-)

Clinton (Maybe a neutral?)

Barofsky (+)

And hopefully a plus, any one that he gets to appoint to the SCOTUS

His actions:

Expanding the war in Afghanistan (- - - - - - - - - - -)
(Does no one ever learn the Afghani War lesson?)

The Health Care reform Bill (- - - - - - - - - -) If the bill is not reformed to have some cost controls for consumers, and some serious stipulations about quality of care)

And Health Care Reform Bill (+ +) Should it be seriously revamped

His lack of intervention in the Banking mess, especially given that he pledged, circa Oct 2008, to "Us the Consumers" that in his first year in office he would undertake placing stipulations on the banks if it was proven that Banksters were screwing us (- - - - - - - - - - - ) Why Obama feels scolding the Banksters is enough, I can venture a guess, but that would be cynical!

Minor tweaks allowing people to have continuing unemployment and food stamps (+ + ) we really need some jobs, not welfare

Stem cell research approval (+ + + + + + ) of course the common worker will probably not have the money to benefit from this, but still a step up





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[zonkers]

4. Yes, very clever.