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Obama the Wimp.

Obama the day before yesterday: "I'm gonna kick your ass! You better run, bitch! I will mess you up! I will rip off your head, tear out your heart and make your torn off head eat your ripped out heart! Ah hah hah hah hah!" (I paraphrase.)

Obama yesterday: “Some of this stuff gets overhyped.”

Is it possible that when we say things like "Obama needs some seasoning" that what we really mean is, "Obama's kind of a pussy?"

Yet again in last night's debate, Obama's mouth ran ahead of his fists. After much talk of how he would finally engage Hillary, it was Edwards who did all he punching, swinging away like the desperate, nothing-to-lose washout he is, while the elegant Mr. Obama threw a few limp-wristed jabs and retreated to his corner to watch the rest of the bout from there.

No one wants another George W. Bush. No one wants another shrill, insecure, phony-macho, my-daddy-got-me-into-the-national-guard, rich-boy poseur. We're not looking for another president who plays out his daddy issues by starting wars he lacks the brains to manage.

But we don't want a wimp, either. I mean, yes, Hillary is scary. I can see swallowing hard at the prospect of throwing down with her. But the POTUS has to be able to face the Putin. And the Chinese, and the Iranians, and L'il Kim. Not to mention the various crazy jihadists.

Every president of the United States in modern history has had to pull the trigger on someone. A cruise missile here, a bomb there, the occasional invasion. If you cannot throw a good, hard punch at Hillary, how are you going to deal with dropping bombs on people? How are you going to scare the bad guys with credible threats? It's not a job for swaggering nitwits, but it's not a job for pansies, either.

“Obama the Wimp.”

  1. Blogger P_J Says:

    "If you cannot throw a good, hard punch at Hillary, how are you going to deal with dropping bombs on people?"

    Very few people want Alan Alda for President. Or Dennis Kucinich, for that matter. C-I-C still means something to people, thank goodness.

  2. Blogger Burt Likko Says:

    Obama's need for de-pussificiation is a symptom of his inexperience with national politics. Indeed, it's a symptom of his inexperience with contested races.

    Obama's early political career consisted of being the piss-boy for a hedge fund financier, who engineered a clear field for a very safe Democratic seat in the Illinois Senate representing Hyde Park on Chicago's south side.

    Then, Obama lost a primary challenge to an incumbent U.S. Congressman from the same area, but two years later he held on to his safe seat in Springfield against, functionally, no opposition.

    When he took aim at the U.S. Senate, the only other significant challenger for the Democratic nomination got hit with a wife-beating scandal, again clearing the field for him despite his having done nothing to clear it.

    After that, his Republican opponent got blown out of the race with a bizarre sex scandal. (Why is it always the "values Republicans" who get tied up in bizarre sex scandals?) So instead, he got to have three debates with Alan Keyes, and all he had to do to win in a format like that was not be insane, and along the way he got a gift-wrapped invitation to deliver the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, which is why we all are talking about him now.

    Most, if not all, of his at-bats in politics have resulted in walks or fly-outs rather than base hits. Before running for President, he'd never been in a fight, against either a Democrat or a Republican, in which he had to throw down against a rival politician in a major way.

    Maybe he will learn how to do it, one day. But he's never had to before now. Hillary, on the other hand, is definitely a graduate of the school of hard knocks. And maybe you'd rather be lucky than good, but in a race for President of the United States, you need to be both.

  3. Blogger Randy Says:

    Agree with everyone here. Obama's failure to really go on the offensive makes me wonder if his advisers (and pollsters) are telling him he can't show aggressiveness, that it plays to into some stereotype (as in "angry young black man.")

  4. Blogger P_J Says:

    Not that I've been following this closely, but my understanding is that Obama is the candidate of hope, unity, and positive thinking. I think the box he's put himself in is with Norman Vincent Peale. Carter is the closest Americans have come to electing someone like that, and few people want anyone like him back in charge.

    No doubt Americans don't want to elect NWA, but it seems Obama could be a lot more aggressive before he sounds like Ice Cube.

  5. Blogger P_J Says:

    Maybe Obama has really been running for VP all along. Illinois is a nice lock to have in the general election.

    Say Giuliani runs against Hillary and Obama. She can be hawkish while he plays nice and talks about hope and optimism. It takes away the voter appeal of "crunchy" conservatism. Rudy swings hard, comes across as the the angry white guy, and Obama is Rodney King. Diabolically clever.