One and Done? WaPo Columnists Call for Obama to Step Aside
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Cross-posted from American Power: “Obama ‘Has Largely Lost the Consent of the Governed’.”
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I don’t take these calls all that seriously, mainly because I don’t believe that Obama’s a cut-and-run president, and while I disagree with him profoundly, that’s a good quality to have. He just needs to find a new tack, perhaps become more humble, and more attuned to a centrist style that’s genuinely appreciated by Republicans. I don’t know if there’s a way for that after two years of thinking you know what’s best for the country and screw everyone else, but if Bill Clinton showed us anything in 1994 it’s that you can be a colossal screw up and still be reelected to a second term. And folks shouldn’t get me wrong — I want Obama to fail, the way Rush Limbaugh wants Obama to fail. It’s just that there’s no office like the presidency, an institution that’s an engine of history. Announcing he’d not seek reelection in 2012 would make him even weaker than is now. He’d be transformed into a lame duck immediately, instead of after 2013 or so, after he’d expended his capital from reelection to a second term. And for what? Lyndon Johnson got a shellacking in the 1968 Democratic primaries. He stepped aside to “devote full attention” to the war in Vietnam. The president who signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is rarely referred to as one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Obama not only wants to be remembered as the first black president. He wants to be remembered as the black Lincoln. That’s probably out of reach, but he won’t even be the black Truman if he announces he won’t seek a second term.
Read the rest at American Power: “Obama ‘Has Largely Lost the Consent of the Governed’.”
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