I disagree with the conclusion of Ron Fournier’s National Journal column:
In politics and in everyday life, rarely are both sides equally wrong, which is why journalists shouldn’t draw false equivalence. Balz is an example of how to measure blame fairly, not necessarily equally.
Rarer still is one side 100 percent right, which is why Obama is guilty of false purity. Obama’s intellectual dishonesty has prevented him from learning on the job, which is what’s required of great presidents—the kind who overcome obstacles that others whine about.
While I think there’s merit to the first part of his column in which he suggests that blaming everything on Republicans is a gross oversimplification, I disagree that the president is “guilty of false purity” or intellectual dishonesty. I just think he’s mistaken.
The president can’t escape the belief that if he just had a House majority, if he just had more votes in the Senate, if there weren’t so many right-wing ideologues in the Supreme Court, he could accomplish everything he dreams of. Both he and I have lived under just such a system here in Illinois and, far from being a parousia, it could hardly be more messed up.
Faction is forever. Even under single party rule there are factional differences, personal ambitions, personal rivalries.
I don’t understand what your point of disagreement is with Fournier. At most, it seems like a quibble over Obama’s mindset.
I see a big difference between dishonesty or fallacy and error.
I suppose I see it as a mix of both, fallacy leading to the dishonesty of self deception.
Unlike some commenters here I cannot reach into Fournier’s mind and read it. But I took “false purity” to be in the Gatsby-like sense, putting ones self up in a superficial false light juxtaposed against evil opponents in the way of truth, justice and the American way. For someone who was once Emil Jones’ bagman and a supposed Constitutional scholar, I happen to also find it intellectually honest. Stupid Obama is not. Dishonest? Now THERE is cause for a library in that vein.
I think at best – the very best – Obama’s stance may not be dishonest but indicative of an executive incompetence that should make people shiver and recoil, given his position.
It’s always seemed to me to be important that Obama’s state career had two distinct phases: the first serving in a Republican Senate with a Republican Governor, and the second in a Democratic Senate with a Democratic Governor. Under Illinois’ strong party leadership system, the first phase was impotence, the second phase was amends.
” I disagree that the president is “guilty of false purity†or intellectual dishonesty. I just think he’s mistaken.”
I disagree. Obama never admits an error, and continually casts aspersions on his rivals and opponents as a way to circumvent any of the blame game. In his world, he is always on the side of social justice. That’s why he continues to excuse any weak outcomes of his political agenda as simply an “inheritance” of such magnitude that he couldn’t possibly be held accountable for not turning things around faster or more adroitly. That’s also why he characterizes all scandals as more like trivial brouhahas not of his making. He seems to see himself as more of a side dish in DC than the Commander-in-Chief, when it comes to being responsible for the malfunctions of his administration. Even the latest outing of an important CIA figure in Afghanistan is being “investigated”, and probably forgotten, like all the other past F&F, AP, IRS, NSA, Benghazi investigations. As some reporters are saying, “it’s a pattern being repeated over and over again.”
“The president can’t escape the belief that if he just had a House majority, if he just had more votes in the Senate, if there weren’t so many right-wing ideologues in the Supreme Court, he could accomplish everything he dreams of. “
As Fournier already brought up, Obama’s first two years were a President’s dream, in having huge majorities in both the House and Senate. IMO, he squandered this political prowess on formulating the ideological PPACA rather than dealing with the economy in a way that would have resulted in real progress. Remember how his infamous stimulus was also a waste — only 3% being spend on infrastructure — something that has only recently surfaced by a retrospective analysis of how the stimulus was spent. Where did the rest go?
As for the SCOTUS, Obama didn’t do too badly on his legacy legislation in getting the court to say his HC plan passed constitutional mustard, only by being seen as a “tax.” I kind of think the Supremes were more on his side than on those who stridently opposed it — don’t you?
Lastly, I have seen Fournier as one of the most honest, unbiased journalists in this era of Obama. He supported the president’s ideological bent, including his HC reform, until he could no longer do it — when it went off the rails of honest implementation. This analysis of his was brought on by a reversal of opinion — observing the travails of Obama’s presidency and calling it as it is — a dismal failure of leadership and competence.