Can the New York Times please put Maureen Dowd back behind the firewall?
No Drama Obama is reticent about displays of emotion. The Spock in him needs to exert mental and emotional control. That is why he stubbornly insists on staying aloof and setting his own deliberate pace for responding — whether it’s in a debate or after a debacle. But it’s not O.K. to be cool about national security when Americans are scared.
Our professorial president is no feckless W., biking through Katrina. He is no doubt on top of the crisis in terms of studying it top to bottom. But his inner certainty creates an outer disconnect.
He’s so sure of himself and his actions that he fails to see that he misses the moment to be president — to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders, who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments.
He’s more like the aloof father who’s turned the Situation Room into a Seminar Room.
I don’t know why Maureen Dowd is so needy for a strong father but I’ll pitch in for a presidential bullhorn if it will make her shut up.
As I commented on another blog, she gets paid mucho dinero to write this mindless drivel. And the Times wonders why they are losing money.
At least she’s complaining about actual presidential behavior (and, as usual, psychoanalyzing a celebrity). If Hillary were the Pres., Dowd would be cracking on her pantsuit.
And if Dowd and David Broder had a love child….nah. Don’t wanna go there.
Booman Tribune ~ Daily Drivel
Oh yes it is – cool is precisely what you should be when everybody else is losing their heads and shooting off in all directions. Scared people need the reassurance of a leader who is in command – of his own emotions as well as on top of the affairs of state. You can disagree with Obama, but it’s hard to make the case that he doesn’t have a handle on what’s going on – a sense that W. constantly evoked.
It is Obama’s unwillingness to run with the crowd, to demagogue at bogeymen, to speak softly but carry a big stick that marks him out as a leader. Would Maureen prefer to have McCain, Palin, or Cheney in charge?
One guy tries to blow an airliner – the risks of death by terrorism are less that walking/driving to your local shop – and all the wingnuts go crazy. No wonder Al Qaeda have been so effective. It’s so easy to scare the shit out of bullies.
Well said.
“Scared people need the reassurance of a leader who is in command – of his own emotions as well as on top of the affairs of state.”
That’s just it. It’s likely he’s actually on top of things, but the average fear-drenched American is not going to know that. Without him going up on the cable nets and talking about it, they won’t get that reassurance of a leader in command.
The thing is, they are not going to un-learn it in time either. All his attempts at treating voters like adults result in more congressional losses.
I wonder if Americans are really so “fear drenched” as the media wants to believe they are as they sensationalize stories of moron wannabe terrorists failing at their mission. The Right puts on a good fake-freakout about anything that they think they can score a political point off of, but were average non-partisan and liberal people really scared to death when they heard about the Underwear Idiot?
I wasn’t. None of the (few) people I have regular contact with were. Did anyone even do a poll to see if people felt legitimately fearful after the event? I’m curious.
The majority of Americans are okay with Obama’s handling of the bomber. This is not good news for McCain.
this guy gets it:
ben franklin opined that “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security”.
sadly, there are far too many sheeple in this country, from the pols on down, who are more than willing to do so, with the msm leading the charge for even more draconian measures.
It’s painful. But at least Dowd writes something interesting about 1 out of 20 times. Same thing with David Brooks…occasionally he’s interesting (although mostly he’s just disingenuous.)
That’s much better than the WaPo’s stable of Broder, Krauthammer, and Will, who are mendacious and predictable 100% of the time.
I don’t know why Maureen Dowd is so needy for a strong father but I’ll pitch in for a presidential bullhorn if it will make her shut up.
The better question: Why is she exposing her own psychological problems for all to see?
Maureen, who’s your daddy?
Many people do indeed look to their leader for this kind of “strong” leadership, especially those with an authoritarian tendency.
Not everyone has the level of moral self-sufficiency one would like. Those lacking it are disproportionately in the Republican party but not only there. It is also a common tendency among those with fundamentalist religious views.
Daddy God, Daddy dictator…come protect me!
Obama does have to play this role, as tiresome as it may seem to the rest of us or to him.
most people I know were not in need of hand holding. the whole manipulating of fear during the last 8 years have left people not really wanting someone to hold their hand and blather platitudes.
The only ones I have seen hyper over the whole thing have been the media. they all took to thumb sucking and crying for a daddy to hold their hand.
the rest of us hardly needed that. As long as Obama was checking into what went wrong, we were pretty cool.
And I live in the midwest.
seems what alot of the panting wetting pundits this past week or so want is Obama to preen and posture in a flightsuit.
How about putting O’Dowd against the wall? With blindfold.
Dawd is a finger-in-the-wind kind of writer. Can’t stand her sometimes!
How about we pitch in and buy her a gardener with a strong back…
She sure is an odd one, isn’t she. I wonder if she ever commented on the Bush Administration using fear to rally their faithful? I’ve read that her snarkiness is because she isn’t on the White House’s guest list, the Obama’s aren’t playing the inside Washington elite game like they are supposed to.
I wondered if that was her problem. Earlier in the year, she alluded to not being invited to some function. Every since then her comments have seemed a little petty and juvenile to me. “Captain Obvious” – geesh that’s lame. No wonder she’s not invited to the “in” parties… If I’m not mistaken, Frank Rich has been to a few functions. He’s not exactly uncritical of this administration but his articles are well written and make you think, which is more than I can say for Dowd.
…and i’ll do it for half the price Maureen Dowd does.