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April 5, 2011

Obama's bizarrely discouraging pep talk

Thomas Lifson
Is President Obama depressed about his re-election prospects? It would appear so, based on a truly weird phone call made to grassroots activists. He began the pep talk by stating,

"I'm fired up, I don't know about everyone else."

Huh?  Dude, these are your peeps, and you don't know about them?

Sunlen Miller of ABC News reports on other strange statements in the call:

The president admitted that "we may not have the exact same newness in 2008," because there was something "so dramatic" about that process. He noted that the last two years have also taken a toll on him. 

"I'm gray, and I've got bags under my eyes. You know, I've got a few dings and cuts from some of the fights we've had in Washington," he said.

The activists picked up on the discouraged tone:

The first question was from an organizer who wondered how they should defend him against disillusioned voters, who felt that he could have done more for the country.

"I think the first thing is to provide people with what we have accomplished," Obama said referring to health care reform, financial regulatory reform, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and getting the country out of the threat of a depression.

Yeah, that ObamaCare "accomplishment" is going to persuade a lot of people. Megan McCardle reports this morning: "Obamacare not only hasn't gotten more popular, but is now showing a record gap between favorables and unfavorables"

Another supporter asked how without a primary they could get people mobilized. The president admitted that there an array of forces on the other side that are lined up against him. 

Imagine that! People are against Obama.

Keep your eyes on the president's mental state. It all looked so easy when he was a candidate. He'd close Gitmo, try the 911 terrorists in New York, and take care of everyone's health care. But now that he has executive responsibility for the first time in his life, it turns out to be a lot harder than he thought.

Obama sounds to me like a man who is fighting off depression, and that would be understandable. In the past, all he had to do was sound good, and nobody would hold him responsible for outcomes. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge he chaired spent scores of millions of dollars with no positive impact, and nobody cared. He was president of the Harvard Law Review and failed to write a signed article, as was always the responsibility of presidents, and he got a big contract for an autobiography. He failed to deliver the manuscript, and nobody cared.

But now he is president, and his miserable failures are being held against him. It all must seem so unfair, so uncontrollable, so hopeless.

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