I’m a fan of The Atlantic magazine, but I’m not a fan of Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan. He can be interesting given that he considers himself to be a conservative convert from liberalism, but his views are mostly warmed-over liberalism, what you can get in droves on Huffington. But for whatever reason, I had a look at his Daily Dish blog earlier today; and can I believe my eyes? Is Andrew Sullivan actually expressing doubt about President Obama’s leadership? Sullivan, who last autumn put Barack Obama on the highest pedestal, who reveled in the Democrat’s landslide victory in November — can it be?
Over the past few days, Sullivan has posted two comments both entitled “Reality Check”. On today’s check, he shows a graph regarding Obama’s declining approval rating, and introduces it with a simple statement. Worth quoting:
Americans are losing confidence in Obama’s ability to bring change. Because he hasn’t.
What? Does Andrew Sullivan no longer believe in Obama’s “change that we can believe in”? Or was he just having a cranky moment (since he posts every hour or so throughtout the day, you’d expect his blogs to vary a bit with the contents of his stomach and other psycho-physiological factors)? A second post from yesterday, similarly titled “Reality Check”, examined another graph, this one regarding the public’s declining confidence in Obama’s health care reform efforts. Here he says:
It [the eventual health care bill] will be like the climate change bill, a very modest, largely toothless start with very modest potential to affect change.
Then Sullivan gets gloomy, but perhaps gives Obama an out:
But government in bankrupt, divided, late-imperial periods are never very pretty to watch.
Ah! Bankruptcy, division, imperialism: Sullivan seems to be doing the knee-jerk liberal thing here, lining the table up to blame it all on George Bush. But once Obama gets through with purging our nation of the Bush-Chaney evil (and admittedly, those guys could get pretty evil), people like Sullivan should look forward to an Elysian future. Instead, Sullivan hints at an unfortunate future:
The final collapse – the dollar going south or hyper-inflation – is when it gets interesting again. Ready for Obama’s second term?
Oh goodness; the true Obama believers are starting to not believe. Obama got himself elected on the force of his oratorical skills, on his ability to enchant people. But I suspected early-on that what got Obama elected would wear off at some point. I didn’t think it would be this soon, though (although the elevated unemployment rate obviously has the nation in a bad mood; no President could be highly popular under present economic circumstances, circumstances that will get better if Obama can avoid interfering with).
Now we will find out what Barack Obama is truly made of. I pray for our nation that Obama has what it takes for true leadership.
As to what I myself am truly made of — well, they say that you are what you eat. And also perhaps what you drink. I drink a fair amount of beer, as Obama himself drank tonight in order to help smooth over his rather stupid comment last week about the Henry Louis Gates arrest. I heard on the radio that Obama is a “Bud man”. I myself am a Shipyard man. I like variety, and with all the various microbrews and craft brews and imported labels out there, you could go for months or years and not drink the same beer twice (unless you’re a real guzzler). I suppose that beer variety agrees with my fear of commitment.
But if I did have to commit to one beer for the rest of my life, it would be with Shipyard Export. To me, Shipyard is just a nice beer; it balances body, hops, and a twinge of malty sweetness with much finesse. I could drink it day after day and still be pretty happy. And yet, the beer experts don’t seem to have much regard for it. On the two biggest beer rating sites, “The Yard” doesn’t do terribly well. Beer Advocate gives it a B minus, and Ratebeer.com gives it a 2.84 out of 5, which is at the 31st percentile for its class (i.e., “golden ales”; thus, 69% of other golden ales are rated better).
Oh well. Once again, the world and I don’t see eye-to-eye on things. If you want to know, the top dog beer on Ratebeer is some obscure Belgian Trappist ale called “Westvleteren”. Belgian ales are nice, admittedly, but I really think that most drinkers would get sick of them if there was nothing else at all to drink. How does Budweiser do on Ratebeer? Well, regular old Bud gets a 0 percentile and a 1.39 out of 5.0. About the only thing it beats are the light beers (Bud Light gets a 1.16 out of 5.0).
One final point: now I know for sure that it’s summer, as I saw some lightening bolts streak across the sky a few nights ago while finishing up an evening jog (although the heat, humidity and long days were otherwise a good clue). When I was a kid, summer meant swimming and ice cream and sparklers and lemon ice and barbecue foods and getting up late most every day. That’s all gone for me now. But there’s still the occasional light show that nature provides whenever the clouds get rubbed the wrong away against intersecting hot and cold air flows. Ah yes, summer — when cold beer (hopefully Shipyard!) seems the coldest. Cold beer and hot lightening. It works for me!
Jim,
As I see it, the main problem with most people is that they expect (or expected) Obama to miraculously fix the nation’s problems over night. Just as too many people in the nation cannot fix their own economic problems overnight, so the nation cannot fix its economic (and other) problems overnight.
Furthermore, I see this insistence that the nation’s problems be fixed over night as just another aspect of the “have-to-have-it-NOW” approach of the “younger” generations. Sure, they want everything fixed immediately, but they don’t want to make the sacrifices themselves that are needed to fix the problems. I also see this “immediate-fix” approach to the nation’s problems as part of the general lack of ability of the younger generation(s) to postpone gratification. Everything has to be NOW—just as every problem needs a “twitter-amount” of response for a solution. Complex issues need complex solutions and long amounts of time and cannot be solved with “twitter-amounts” of time or answers to problems.
That being said, I have consistently said, Obama needs at least 2 years and perhaps an entire term for the nation to really make an intelligent assessment of how he is handling the nation’s problems.
And as to “blaming” the GWB administration: GWB’s administration is exactly the administration which should be compared to Obama’s; after all, GWB’s was the previous administration to Obama’s. However, to speak of an “Elysian future” and expect one has two things wrong with the concept. First, there will NEVER be an “Elysian future” as the nature of life will never, ever produce an Elysian future. Second, to have at least an improved future under the Obama administration requires more than a “twitter-amount” of time for problems to be solved.
As to the “beer summit”: I have considered that it is ridiculous when one considers that the president of the United States himself was forced to get involved in what will in a month have become not even a minor blip in history. Surely, the president has other things to occupy his time. I find myself wondering: Is there so little news that this issue has come to the president's attention? OR is the nation so worried about current problems that they need a distraction of this sort? OR is Gates relishing the fact that his "you haven't heard the end of this" to Crowley been just a way of proving he's got the president's ear as his friend? OR perhaps Gates had had enuf of being singled out as a black man and decided to play his "the-prez-is-my-friend" card and call in a chip from Obama. (Notice that 2 other black men [Powell and Obama] both agreed that Gates had a legitimate “gripe” about the racial issue. The difference among the men is that Powell and Obama would have handled it in a different way than Gates did.) I do know that there is a LOT of very subtle, but real, prejudice against blacks in this country. YET, as I understand it, the two men involved “agreed to disagree”—so I ask: Where is the real benefit that comes from a discussion on race? Perhaps the whole thing is simply what I thought it might be in the first place—too much testosterone flowing on both sides.
As to the beer discussion: I have nothing at all to say as I simply do not drink beer and never have; I almost never ever have even a glass of wine. Thus, I cannot evaluate the qualities of the various beers. And when one thinks about it, if the results are a “beer” discussion, definitely the hoped-for racial discussion has gone down the drain and likely the questions I asked in the above paragraph are the real issue—and both Crowley and Gates should be ashamed of themselves.
MCS
Comment by MCS — July 31, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
Jim,
As I see it, the main problem with most people is that they expect (or expected) Obama to miraculously fix the nation’s problems over night. Just as too many people in the nation cannot fix their own economic problems overnight, so the nation cannot fix its economic (and other) problems overnight.
Furthermore, I see this insistence that the nation’s problems be fixed over night as just another aspect of the “have-to-have-it-NOW” approach of the “younger” generations. Sure, they want everything fixed immediately, but they don’t want to make the sacrifices themselves that are needed to fix the problems. I also see this “immediate-fix” approach to the nation’s problems as part of the general lack of ability of the younger generation(s) to postpone gratification. Everything has to be NOW—just as every problem needs a “twitter-amount” of response for a solution. Complex issues need complex solutions and long amounts of time and cannot be solved with “twitter-amounts” of time or answers to problems.
That being said, I have consistently said, Obama needs at least 2 years and perhaps an entire term for the nation to really make an intelligent assessment of how he is handling the nation’s problems.
And as to “blaming” the GWB administration: GWB’s administration is exactly the administration which should be compared to Obama’s; after all, GWB’s was the previous administration to Obama’s. However, to speak of an “Elysian future” and expect one has two things wrong with the concept. First, there will NEVER be an “Elysian future” as the nature of life will never, ever produce an Elysian future. Second, to have at least an improved future under the Obama administration requires more than a “twitter-amount” of time for problems to be solved.
As to the “beer summit”: I have considered that it is ridiculous when one considers that the president of the United States himself was forced to get involved in what will in a month have become not even a minor blip in history. Surely, the president has other things to occupy his time. I find myself wondering: Is there so little news that this issue has come to the president's attention? OR is the nation so worried about current problems that they need a distraction of this sort? OR is Gates relishing the fact that his "you haven't heard the end of this" to Crowley been just a way of proving he's got the president's ear as his friend? OR perhaps Gates had had enuf of being singled out as a black man and decided to play his "the-prez-is-my-friend" card and call in a chip from Obama. (Notice that 2 other black men [Powell and Obama] both agreed that Gates had a legitimate “gripe” about the racial issue. The difference among the men is that Powell and Obama would have handled it in a different way than Gates did.) I do know that there is a LOT of very subtle, but real, prejudice against blacks in this country. YET, as I understand it, the two men involved “agreed to disagree”—so I ask: Where is the real benefit that comes from a discussion on race? Perhaps the whole thing is simply what I thought it might be in the first place—too much testosterone flowing on both sides.
As to the beer discussion: I have nothing at all to say as I simply do not drink beer and never have; I almost never ever have even a glass of wine. Thus, I cannot evaluate the qualities of the various beers. And when one thinks about it, if the results are a “beer” discussion, definitely the hoped-for racial discussion has gone down the drain and likely the questions I asked in the above paragraph are the real issue—and both Crowley and Gates should be ashamed of themselves.
MCS
Comment by MCS — July 31, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
I'm a big fan of Andrew Sullivan. I think that he is a meticulous journalist (he checks and re-checks his facts) and he writes with a great deal of passion.
I think his critical analysis of Obama is part of an effort to be "balanced" – but at heart I think that he is a diehard Obama fan.
Your description of the energy of summer was great!
Comment by beth — August 5, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
I'm a big fan of Andrew Sullivan. I think that he is a meticulous journalist (he checks and re-checks his facts) and he writes with a great deal of passion.
I think his critical analysis of Obama is part of an effort to be "balanced" – but at heart I think that he is a diehard Obama fan.
Your description of the energy of summer was great!
Comment by beth — August 5, 2009 @ 8:12 pm