Politics
It’s His Rubble Now
Peggy Noonan is a gifted writer who worked in the Reagan administration and has written voluminous political commentary since. She has an amazing ability to bring an issue down to its simple basics. In this article she rightly gauges the Obama presidency and calls him to responsibility. I hope this article made it to his desk. It could save his presidency–if he is willing to “change.” RB
It’s His Rubble Now
And the American People What Him to Fix it
By Peggy Noonan
At a certain point, a president must own a presidency. For George W. Bush that point came eight months in, when 9/11 happened. From that point on, the presidency—all his decisions, all the credit and blame for them—was his. The American people didn’t hold him responsible for what led up to 9/11, but they held him responsible for everything after it. This is part of the reason the image of him standing on the rubble of the twin towers, bullhorn in hand, on Sept.14, 2001, became an iconic one. It said: I’m owning it.
Mr. Bush surely knew from the moment he put the bullhorn down that he would be judged on everything that followed. And he has been. Early on, the American people rallied to his support, but Americans are practical people. They will support a leader when there is trouble, but there’s an unspoken demand, or rather bargain: We’re behind you, now fix this, it’s yours.
President Obama, in office a month longer than Bush was when 9/11 hit, now owns his presidency. Does he know it? He too stands on rubble, figuratively speaking—a collapsed economy, high and growing unemployment, two wars. Everyone knows what he’s standing on. You can almost see the smoke rising around him. He’s got a bullhorn in his hand every day.
It’s his now. He gets the credit and the blame. How do we know this? The American people are telling him. You can see it in the polls. That’s what his falling poll numbers are about. “It’s been almost a year, you own this. Fix it.”
The president doesn’t seem to like this moment. Who would? He and his men and women have returned to referring to what they “inherited.” And what they inherited was, truly, terrible: again, a severe economic crisis and two wars. But their recent return to this theme is unbecoming. Worse, it is politically unpersuasive. It sounds defensive, like a dodge.
The president said last week, at a San Francisco fund-raiser, that he’s busy with a “mop,” “cleaning up somebody else’s mess,” and he doesn’t enjoy “somebody sitting back and saying, ‘You’re not holding the mop the right way.'” Later, in New Orleans, he groused that reporters are always asking “Why haven’t you solved world hunger yet?” His surrogates and aides, in appearances and talk shows, have taken to remembering, sometimes at great length, the dire straits we were in when the presidency began.
This is not a sign of confidence. Nor were the president’s comments to a New York fund-raiser this week. Democrats, he said to the Democratic audience, are “an opinionated bunch.” They always have a lot of thoughts and views. Republicans, on the other hand—”the other side”—aren’t really big on independent thinking. “They just kinda sometimes do what they’re told. Democrats, y’all thinkin’ for yourselves.” It is never a good sign when the president gets folksy, dropping his g’s, because he is by nature not a folksy g-dropper but a coolly calibrating intellectual who is always trying to guess, as most politicians do, what normal people think. When Mr. Obama gets folksy he isn’t narrowing his distance from his audience but underlining it. He shouldn’t do this.
But the statement that Republicans just do what they’re told was like his famous description of unhappy voters as people who “cling to guns or religion.” (What comes over him at fund-raisers?) Both statements speak of a political misjudgment of his opponents and his situation.They show a misdiagnosis of the opposition that is politically tin-eared. Politicians looking to win don’t patronize those they’re trying to win over.
But the point on the We Inherited a Terrible Situation and It’s Not Our Fault argument is, again, that it is worse than unbecoming. It is unpersuasive.
How do we know this? Through the polls. In all of the major surveys, the president’s popularity has gone down the past few months. A Gallup Daily Tracking Poll out this week reported Mr. Obama’s job approval dropped nine points during the third quarter of this year, that is between July 1 and Sept. 30, when it fell from 62% to 53%. It was the biggest such drop Gallup has ever measured for an elected president during the same period of his term. A Fox News poll out Thursday showed support for the president’s policies falling below 50% for the first time. Ominously for him, independents are peeling off. In 2006 and 2008 independents looked like Democrats. They were angry and frustrated by the wars, they sought to rebuke the Bush White House. Now those independents look like Republicans. They worry about joblessness, debts and deficits.
The White House sees the falling support. Thus the reminder: We faced an insuperable challenge, we’re mopping up somebody else’s mess.
The Democratic Party too sees the falling support, and is misunderstanding it. The great question they debated last week was whether the president is tough enough: Does he come across as too weak? It is true, as the cliché has it, that it’s helpful for a president to be both revered and feared. But this president is not weak, that’s not his problem. He willed himself into the presidency with an adroit reading of the lay of the land, brought together and dominated all the constituent pieces of victory, showed and shows impressive self-discipline, seems in general to stick to a course once he’s chosen it, though arguably especially when he’s wrong. His decision to let Congress write a health-care bill may yield at least the appearance of victory. And if Mr. Obama isn’t twisting arms like LBJ, and then giving just an extra little jerk to snap the rotator cuff just for fun, the case can be made that day by day he’s moving the Democrats of Congress in the historic direction he desires. All his adult life he’s played the long game, which takes patience and skill.
The problem isn’t his personality, it’s his policies. His problem isn’t what George W. Bush left but what he himself has done. It is a problem of political judgment, of putting forward bills that were deeply flawed or off-point. Bailouts, the stimulus package, cap-and-trade; turning to health care at the exact moment in history when his countrymen were turning their concerns to the economy, joblessness, debt and deficits—all of these reflect a misreading of the political terrain. They are matters of political judgment, not personality. (Republicans would best heed this as they gear up for 2010: Don’t hit him, hit his policies. That’s where the break with the people is occurring.)
The result of all this is flagging public support, a drop in the polls, and independents peeling off.
In this atmosphere, with these dynamics, Mr. Obama’s excuse-begging and defensiveness won’t work.
Everyone knows he was handed horror. They want him to fix it.
At some point, you own your presidency. At some point it’s your rubble. At some point the American people tell you it’s yours. The polls now, with the presidential approval numbers going down and the disapproval numbers going up: That’s the American people telling him.
A Quiet Plurality Speaks
;)
“912” may go down as another day that changed the course of America.
9-11-01 brought the terrorists to our shores. 9-12-09 brought the quiet plurality to their feet.
It was thrilling to see over 100,000 American citizens who converged on the American capital on Saturday, September 12, 2009. to send a message to our elected officials. “A quiet plurality,” is how Georgetown University professor Stephen Wayne put it. Their message was pretty clear:
- We’re not happy with the pork-laden and ineffective stimulus plan and don’t want greater deficits placed on the backs of our children and grand children.
- We want the Administration to get out of the private business sphere and set it free to soar.
- We don’t want the government to run health care in this nation.
- We won’t accept higher taxes on anybody or anything.
- We’ve had enough of the quasi-statist take-over and want our freedom back.
Of course the main driver behind the mass “Tea Party” in Washington DC was the issue of national health care. Just days before the event, President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress trying to rally flagging support for major government involvement in the health care future of the American people. Using his distinct oratorical skills, the President offered various tid-bits to various constituencies (anti-abortionists, seniors, those desiring tort reform, etc.), but there were two major problems with the speech.
First, the president didn’t tell the truth–as Congressman Joe Wilson passionately reminded us. There is a huge credibility gap between our current leaders in Washington and grassroots America citizens who have been doing their homework, coming out en masse to town hall meetings, and letting their elected officials know that they no longer trust them. Here is a sampling of false claims as compiled by PrayInJesusName.org:
Falsehood #1: “No federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.”
THE TRUTH: The Capps Amendment to HR 3200 has a Section 4B that reads: “Abortions for Which Public Funding Is Allowed. — The services described in this sub-paragraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is permitted.” The Washington Times reported: “You can’t get more explicit than that.” And FactCheck.org exposed Obama’s untruth this way: “Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.”
Falsehood #2: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period.”
THE TRUTH: The Democrat controlled Congressional Budget Office said Obamacare would add $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years, but will not succeed at shrinking the overall costs of our nation’s health care. Republicans claim it’s more like $600 billion increased deficit spending (confirmed by Associated Press, September 9, 2009).
Falsehood #3: “Don’t pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut…That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.”
THE TRUTH: The Washington Post reports Obama proposes “to squeeze more than $500 billion out of the growth of Medicare over the next decade….[which has] fueled fears that his effort to expand coverage to millions of younger, uninsured Americans will damage elder care. As a result, barely one-third of seniors support a health-care overhaul, several polls found” (Washington Post, August 9, 2009). Even the liberal Washington Post admits Obama was not truthful.
Falsehood #4: “If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage.”
THE TRUTH: Whether working or not, rich or poor, you will be ordered to get mandatory government-run health-care coverage, or pay a fine a $3800 fine per family, under the new Senate plan being railroaded through the finance committee by Max Baucus D-MT (New York Times, September 9, 2009). Obama pretends you’re “able” to get coverage, when he knows it’s mandatory (with a big tax increase or “fine” penalty).
Falsehood #5: “The claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens, such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.”
THE TRUTH: Mandatory “end of life” counseling in HR 3200 “shall” include counseling every five years to the elderly, giving doctors a monetary incentive to persuade you to sign a “do not resuscitate” (DNR) order to pull the plug on Grandma, just like the Obama administration already pressures all Veterans to sign them (confirmed by the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, read extensive details at prayinjesusname.org). And under the British NHS government-run health plan, “Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned” (The Daily Telegraph, September 2, 2009). Dr. Ewing Cook just admitted intentionally killing patients who signed DNR authorizations during Hurricane Katrina. “I gave her medicine so I could get rid of her faster…there’s no question I hastened her demise.” Bottom line: Grandma, don’t sign Obama’s DNR order, even if your doctor gets a bonus check from the President for talking you into that. Click here to view a John Stossel video that confirms many of these falsehoods.
Erick Erickson adds this commentary on untruths told to the American public: “Barack Obama said the plan will not cover illegal aliens. This is a lie. Joe Wilson was right. The legislation clearly says it will not fund illegal aliens BUT the legislation also prevents anyone from checking on the citizenship status of any person seeking healthcare. He is trying to have it both ways. The entire speech from Barack Obama was loaded with half-truths and flat out lies. For example, he said he would not force the government option on anyone. But, the legislation provides an incentive for private employers to shove their employees onto the government plan.”
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council put it this way: “While the outburst [Joe Wilson] calling the President a liar was unfortunate and inappropriate, I am sympathetic to the frustration on the part of many in Congress. The President’s speech to a joint session of Congress was unprecedented in how many times the President referred to those who disagree with him as being untruthful, yet he himself was misleading on a number of factors. The speech was not one of a leader looking to unite, but of a campaigner looking to further divide this necessary debate on health care.”
Secondly, though this lack of candor is bad enough, the fatal flaw in the current push toward socialized medicine in America is this: It places trust in Big Government to provide for people’s needs. Government is an able protector of life and liberty–that’s its God-given calling in a fallen world (Romans 13)–but it’s a lousy provider due to its lack of competition, innovation, and concentration of power. That’s why wise civilizations, including our founders, favored limited forms of government to keep it honest. Governments handle power, and as Lord Acton rightly said in the 19th century, “Power tends to corrupt; Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
In the Obama speech, he condemned insurance companies, medical professionals, talk show hosts and commentators, and also the American people (those who don’t choose to have medical coverage). But he didn’t say one bad or suspicious word about government. Why? Because Barack Obama believes in government and its concentration of power. That’s a fatal flaw in his thinking and in our current leadership.
The greatest thing we have to fear is not free peoples and their enterprises–it’s the corrupting power of government to destroy that freedom in the name of providing for us all. It’s never worked in all of history. It will lead to our demise and destruction as a nation.
But the march on Washington shows that the people know better. A quiet plurality is beginning to make their voice heard.
The politicians had better be listening–and all of us should be praying–that God will use the present debate to bring a spark of revival and reformation to the United States of America.
We Need Leaders Who Lead Like Jesus
There is a real void of good leadership in our nation and world at this present time. In fact, I believe that the current leadership of the United States might be the worst in our history–with some of our key national leaders being either radical, egotistical, immoral, corrupt, deceptive, patronizing, not listening to their constituents–or in a phrase–devoid of godly character.
This is one reason why there is such fear, reaction, and distrust among the people as we enter the fall of 2009. We desperately need leaders with faith, wisdom, humility, skill, and insight to guide us through these perilous times.
There is no greater example in all the world of good and effective leadership than that of Jesus Christ. Twenty years I wrote a book on servant leadership, Leadership for the 21st Century: Changing Nations Through the Power of Serving, which concluded with a section by William MacDonald that described what made Jesus the greatest leader that ever walked the earth. It contains the most succinct principles of wise leadership I have ever heard or read.
I share them with you today to apply in your own life, to look and pray for in leaders that we need in America, and to point you to the Greatest Leader of all time who also invites you to follow Him.
Jesus – The Greatest Leader of Men
By William MacDonald
1. Jesus clearly envisioned the destination to which he was leading his people–the kingdom of God. The first principle of his leadership was that he knew precisely where he would lead the faithful and how to get there. Reversals and mid-course corrections were unnecessary under his leadership (Luke 9:51, 22:15,16).
2. Jesus led without forcing his values on anyone or coercing anyone into following. That is, he never drafted anyone in violation of individual autonomy. Much prayer preceded the call of those who would be his closest colleagues in ministry (Luke 6:12,13).
3. Jesus was not obsessed with gaining the psychological power of great numbers of warm bodies. Volunteers who would not pay the price of total commitment were turned away rather than being signed up on their own terms (Luke 9:57-62).
4. Jesus won the hearts of his followers by leading through friendship rather than fear. He shared with them his secrets and his strategy as rapidly as they could benefit from and implement them (Luke 18:26-30).
5. Jesus had no reason to hide his human finitude by impressive staging. Instead of barricading himself in inaccessibility (behind walls and many subordinates), he ate and slept with the troops, leaving them only for quiet times alone with his Father. Even little children had access to him (Luke 18:15-17).
6. Jesus was unafraid as all great leaders must be. The visible faces of clay could neither intimidate nor dissuade him from his objectives. Nor could the invisible powers of darkness deter him from accomplishing his mission (Luke 13:31-35).
7. Jesus never compromised his moral integrity in order to accomplish his objectives of his revolution. He operated above demeaning dirty tricks, back-door gifts, assassinations, rash unredeemable promises, or even flattery (Luke 11:52-54).
8. Jesus was patently selfless in his motives of leadership. He sought to bring believers to the depth of experience with his Father that he already enjoyed (Luke 10:22).
9. Instead of providing distracting entertainment for people to enable them to forget momentarily their confusion, guilt,suffering, loneliness, and unmet needs, Jesus provided solutions, corrections, and resources to meet those basic needs. The result for believers was lasting foundation for joy (Luke 4:40-44, 9:37-43).
10. Jesus did not squander nature and its resources; he took control as Adam was told to do, taking “dominion” without wasting or polluting, in order to utilize nature to bless and help humanity (Luke 9:17).
11. Jesus, a forceful public speaker, could hold the attention of large gatherings without taking advantage of people. His speech was spiced with colorful, unforgettable sayings and illustrations. When facing large crowds, he did not become superheated and tyrannical. There were no harangues, but always with them there was a deepening of his compassion. He gave clear and simple directions for finding one’s way into the kingdom of God (Luke 5:1, 8:4-15, 13:22-30).
12. Jesus was appropriately tough or tender in dealing with everyone and every crisis. He gained the respect and loyalty of men and women alike. His leadership style of personal relationships fit the situation with just the right amount of pressure being exerted in every case.
13. Jesus never “plead poverty” for the kingdom of God, “took” offerings by psychological jerks, or extracted monies legalistically from the reluctant. But likewise he never did refuse people the privilege of giving who offered their gifts prompted by love (Luke 8:1-3).
14. Jesus’ genuine wholesomeness was that of a man who was sure of himself. This made it possible for people to confidently put their faith in him and to gladly follow him. His winsomeness consisted of a perfect balance between self assurance and affability (Luke 6:20-49).
15. Jesus was the concrete expression of what he taught (Luke 6:20-49). If one could not clearly understand where he was leading by what he was saying, he could find the same truths expressed and reinforced in Jesus’ whole demeanor and activities. Those who were not abstract thinkers (four out of ten) could see the truth unfurled in his unforgettable actions and lifestyle (Luke 23:47).
16. Jesus was able to lead effectively and with full respect without the advantages of special identifying clothing and insignia that are universally recognized as symbols of authority. Royalty, the priesthood (Exodus 28:2), and the military must all step down to this leader dressed in ordinary clothes (and a special anointing) whose presence commanded respect wherever he was (Luke 4:18-22).
17. In decision-making, Jesus was neither indecisive nor rash. Prayerfulness was the fulcrum of his administration. Hence,the kingdom of God was never held back for want of resolute action, nor did it lurch forward on opportunistic whims and crash programs (Luke 6:12-16).
18. The power that Jesus tapped was not that whose source was in individuals; rather it was the power given him by God. This made it possible for him always to have something valuable to give freely to the people who followed him. Most worldly leaders aggrandize power by first taking it from people, abrogating some of their rights and confiscating certain of their resources; and later in a display of paternalism they return some of what was previously taken. Jesus did not need to do that for he depended heavily on divine resources to found the kingdom of God (Luke 3:22; cf. Acts 10:38).
19. Jesus was consistently resolute in that he followed through to the end with his goals for the kingdom. He would not surrender his aims for lesser ones when the going become difficult and his leadership was misunderstood. Thus he never backed off from the full-time responsibility of leadership (Luke 2:45-51).
20. Jesus knew well his followers and dealt with each one appropriately–not using the same patterns of assignment and expectation with such diverse men as Peter and John. He cultivated the development of the two talent man and one twice as talented by giving each the proper resources and relationship in which to develop (John 21:17-22).
21. Jesus knew how to pace both himself and the revolution, sensing when to advance and when to withdraw from the crowds of people, when to refuel, and when to face up to his most trying hours. In the words of the Old Testament, he knew when and how “to go in and out among the people,” and as a result his timing was never off (Luke 9:18-27, 19:28).
22. Jesus’ settled concept of his own identity and of the one who sent him made his leadership rise above popularity. Therefore, he was psychologically impervious to popular praise of himself–it did not inflate him–and to negative criticism of himself–it did not deflate him. Knowing at all times what the Father thought of him gave great evenness and steadiness to his leadership (Luke. 4:22,28,29 19:37-41).
23. Jesus had a uniquely positive revolutionary methodology (John 18:36):
- not arms, but faith, hope and love.
- not explosives, but mountain-moving faith.
- not sabotage of the enemy, but doing good to those hating you.
- not fear, but the love that crowds out all fear.
- not crowd-pleasing propaganda, but the truth.
- not firing squads, but raising the dead.
- not deceit and intrigue, but parables, proverbs and enigmas.
24. Jesus accomplished his revolution without dependence on the power structures of the world. He operated without any of the following standard foundations for kingdoms (Luke 29:1-8, 19-26):
- institutional backing
- political machines and party affiliation
- government support or anti-government patriotism
- class struggle exploitation–playing on desires for upward mobility.
25. Jesus met all of mankind’s deepest needs–those that only the Creator and Savior of man can supply. Consequently, he is the only leader of all time that when the deepest gratitude of followers wells up, and admiration calls for praise and exultation, it is not wrong to actually worship this leader as LORD AND GOD (Luke 24:52).