Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Bad Press for the Pres

Articles like this are not good, even if they are not entirely true. He should have a smoke.

Discussions - 10 Comments

Even granting the liberties taken by the British press, this is not a good sign of what we have always known (or should have known): This guy is in way over his head. Not a good time for America.


In over his head, and not a class act.
With the botched Brown visit, we clearly have a combo of the two. Obama may prove to be a gift that keeps on giving.

What have we got a permanent government for? When these guys indicate that the victor takes the spoils ("We won") does that mean there is no one at the State Department or the White House or anywhere who had a clue as how to handle this visit properly? This is not just a matter of Obama being in over his head, what about his staff, who actually must have handled things like the gift. There is an arrogance in this, just as in all this crowd does in relation the economy and elsewhere, that is a bit frightening.

Where are the grown-ups?

If this was President George W. Bush, the Main Stream Media would have written about this issue ad naseum. Obama is a loser. And the Main Stream Media who elected Obama is shameful and useless. There is no moral clarity or personal responsibility in either Obama or the Media. I am disugsted.

I take a more charitable view. He never realized just how hard the job is. That's one of the reasons why it's better for government to do less. The President's job has become all but impossible to do well. It was hard enough before he was expected to manage the economy, respond to every national disaster, and make sure that everyone had health care if they need it, etc.

Richard Adams, I thought that was what permanent government was for. I thought TR's civil service reform was intended to make the too-hard job of running the country less hard because there was not a total turn-over of government with the election of the other party and there were a lot of "experts" available to manage everything. If this "progressive" crowd is bringing back a spoils-system mode of transition, an ultimate irony, then we are seeing the worst result possible from an election; we have all of the expense of permanent government with none of the benefit from the expertise of those bureaucrats whose continuity in office is supposed to keep government running smoothly.

I agree that the job of president is too much, too hard, just impossible; I have said something to that effect on this site many times before. Honestly, I blab about it all the time outside of blogland, too. No one could do it. Look what a mess Jimmy Carter made by thinking he was a Manager/President.

Don't you think, our administrative government could rumble along for quite a time, just doing what it does, if left to itself? It knows what it is doing, as long as no disaster comes along to disrupt its settled order. I am not saying this bureaucracy is necessarily good nor necessarily efficient in operation. For example, it eats an amazing amount of money, consuming every scrap on its plate and demanding ever more. I really don't like it.

I sure could go on with description, but you know what I refer to. I discuss it only to point out that there is probably a whole department available to help the president, whoever he is, with protocols and ceremony and diplomatic relations of all sorts. All of this mess does not merely indicate a crassness, as well as the "getting up to speed" or "who the hell could do that job" problem, all of which I agree is there, but indicates that neither the president nor his immediate staff listened to the experts they had available for this matter. Maybe this is a lesson learned, and they will look for the entrenched help the next time. Or maybe they are an arrogant crowd and is so, that will be an ugly situation for the nation.

Ironically, this should blow over for President HUSSEIN Obama (I say that only to mock those who use it as some sort of juvenile smear), as radio talk show host, previous Ashbrook Memorial speaker, and apparently popular FoxNews show host Glenn Beck had already warned His Fellow Americans that Prime Minister Brown was akin to some sort of socialist, New World Order type. And of course guys like that SHOULD be ignored and brushed off, right?

Craig, if Brown were not prime minister, I would agree with you, absolutely.

So I take it that you got my point - that too often people of the Glenn Beck/NLT far right have such warped and skewed sociopolitical definitions and benchmarks that they can actually characterize Brown in such a (inaccurate) way?

There are more than a few contenders for worst Ashbrook speaker (as in least deserving of the podium at an institution that assumes such a noble and grandiose purpose), but surely Beck is among the most disgraceful. If his followers swallowed his absurd (yet still unfunny) characterization of Brown they were probably perplexed and a bit glad to see Obama "snub" him this way, if the story is to be taken at face value.

And, given the amount of time folks on this site have taken in being upset about this treatment of Gordon Brown, you should have more completely taken my point. In reading The Guardian and uk telegraph and other such publications, the British think of Gordon Brown as some sort of socialist. He is some sort of socialist. Maybe your thought is too close to the same for you to see that.

You must listen to Beck more often than most people who write on here. I did listen to him on one morning drive, just to hear what you complain about. His style does not appeal to me, but I did not agree with his basic positions. He is a conservative talk show host and has found his niche in the noisy, hyperbolic realm. He gets people, like you, to listen to him, doesn't he? He makes money and gets himself heard. Why shouldn't Ashbrook have given him a chance to speak publicly? Did he say something offensive when he spoke there that you should take such umbrage? They probably have that podcast and I will listen to it to hear what offended you -- is there anything besides his being a conservative?

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