Posted by
Mike Bates on Monday, October 19, 2009 1:31:25 PM
ABC News's Web site includes the article
"Is Obama 'Too Nice' to Make Tough Decisions?" by correspondent David Kerley. The piece begins:
With problems for the president in Afghanistan, health
care and unemployment, some critics on both the left and right are
asking: Is the president essentially "too nice" to make the important
decisions?
The National Journal magazine asks in a just-out edition, "Is He Tough Enough?"
"Be decisive," says Tom Tradewell, the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Even liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd says the
president will have to "break some eggs" to cook up a more perfect
union.
None of the people quoted assert the problem is Obama's affability.
Rather, the difficulty is the extreme caution he exercises, many times
so as to not offend interest groups.
We know Obama has little reluctance in employing the us-versus-them
class struggle rhetoric against private enterprise. He's accused
surgeons of removing legs and tonsils for the money. (The American
College of Surgeons pointed out his
statement that a surgeon receives $50,000 for a leg amputation was a
little off; Medicare pays between $740 and $1,140). Obama has no
qualms sending his flunkies forth to attack Fox News. On Saturday, he
personally claimed that health insurers are “filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads.”
Too nice? Not hardly. Indecisive? Definitely. Dithering? You
bet. Waffling? Absolutely. Unqualified? The answer increasingly
becomes apparent. While Obama repeatedly says he wants to make things
clear, rarely does he provide specifics.
As he stumbles and vacillates and falters, we've seen the mainstream
media supply an arsenal of excuses for Obama's failings. He inherited
it all from Bush. He set too ambitious an agenda. Large Democratic
majorities in both houses of Congress aren't enough. He's so terribly
brilliant and nuanced that it takes the American public quite a while
to catch up with him.
And now an excuse is he's just too nice. That's as empty as Obama's promises, and will last about as long.