Rocky Balboa's goal, in the first "Rocky" movie was not to defeat Apollo Creed, but to simply survive, to remain standing after going 15 rounds with the champion, to Go The Distance.
In his 20 page report in the New Yorker, Remnick portrays Barack Obama as having the same mindset, the same limited ambition. It is his strength to be unfazed by immediate set backs, by people who are writing history in 10 minute increments, but the portrayal is in some ways depressing, not because Mr. Obama looks less admirable, but because as he talks about Obama, Remnick portrays the world in which he lives, the polluted water in which he must swim every day. Obama is discovering, as Thomas Carcetti does in "The Wire," how limited his options are, how little power he actually wields and how the intransigence of his opposition, the structure of our government, the effect of gerrymandering, a Congress which is largely absent, which is not representative of the American people in important ways, can combine to thwart his best intentions.
One remark which has gained great attention is Mr. Obama's simple observation that marijuana is less worrisome than many other legal drugs, to wit, alcohol and tobacco. Mad Dog speaks with doctors every day, in specialties from pulmonary to gastroenterology to neurology to cardiology and not one would disagree with Mr. Obama's assessment.
But local police chiefs in New Hampshire are shocked, outraged and dismayed the President should say such a thing when the police are working hard to discourage the use of marijuana among the innocent youth of New Hampshire, who risk beginning their slide down the slippery slope from marijuana to crack cocaine because the President has told them that's okay.
It was, surprisingly, a Republican delegate the New Hampshire House of Representatives who said the opposition of the police chiefs was in a sense, a move for job security. As long has they have kids to arrest for smoking pot, we will always need more police, more jails and the so the police justify their own jobs. Pot arrests are something like speeding stops--the police can always count on that business. It's low hanging fruit, shooting fish in a barrel, easy pickings.
Mr. Obama is said to be "a reluctant politician: aloof, insular, diffident, arrogant, inert, unwilling to jolly his allies along the fairway and take a 9-iron to his enemies. He doesn't know anyone in Congress. No one in the House or in the Senate, no one in foreign capitals fears him. He gives a great speech, but he doesn't understand power...This is the knowing talk on Wall Street, on K Street on Capitol Hil, in green rooms--the 'Morning Joe,' consensus."
Of course, what Remnick demonstrates is the problem is not in Mr. Obama's personality but in the world he finds himself. Lyndon Johnson would not get a single bill through committee in the current Congress. "They could invite every Republican in Congress to play golf until the end of time...and never cut the Gordian knot of contemporary Washington." That trope, the wisdom of the chattering classes is just the story the Morning Joe people like telling themselves. It fits their own needs, makes them feel superior.
The description of Mr. Obama's trip to the West Coast "rattling the cup in one preposterous mansion after another," is as depressing a scene as the Mad Dog can remember. It is worse than "The Candidate" and worse than "Shampoo." It is the view of what it really means that 1% of the population controls 50% of all the wealth in the nation. People with so much money they junk up their lawns with sculptures, load their walls with priceless art, people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Mad Dog deeply hopes Mr. Obama will survive his Presidency, riding about in his "beast" Cadillac, with 5 inch thick glass windows, secured against bomb blasts, poisonous gas and sniper attacks. He hopes Mr. Obama can go back to Chicago and walk down the street, with his Secret Service guards a discreet distance behind, and go into a Starbucks and buy coffee and a paper. That's what Mr. Obama misses most, the real world.
Where he lives is something between "VEEP" and "House of Lies."
Mad Dog,
ReplyDeleteIt's a good thing the President is able to take the "long view" of his Presidency-it must be one of the few things he can do to keep his sanity given the circumstances he's been forced to govern in. I was glad to read that he sees each Presidency as " a paragraph " in a much larger story-that sometimes the best a President can do is set things in motion and that the actual goal may not be realized for decades to come. As he told Remnick , it took 150 years after Lincoln for civil rights to be fully realized. I agree it was disturbing to see that there is still the requirement of fundraising even though his own campaign days are over. It was never specifically stated what the funds he was collecting in California were for, I assume to add Democrats to Congress. It's a sad commentary on our system that even our local and state election outcomes are very dependent upon money raised. One of the best aspects of being a politician I think, would be the opportunity to meet and listen to one's constituents, but to have to do that so often with your hand out for money is both unappealing and sadly essential.
Unfortunately I don't think he'll ever be able to return to the normal life he covets. Even if he's no longer riding around in the "Beast" with the special Presidential blood supply in the trunk, a normal existence does seem out of his reach, but he's got three more years to figure out his post Presidency goals. Reportedly he'll be stating in tonight's speech that he'll be taking every opportunity to get things done over those years with or without Congress. Good.
Did you happen to see Joe Nocera's piece in the NYTimes today where he published actual e-mails from the NRA to it's members. It would be impossible to make up nuttier correspondence. The missive about the special Life Insurance available in case of a "fatal accident" was pretty good as was the bit about 10% off NRA Christmas cards-what exactly would those look like, maybe Santa packing a piece. A lovely sentiment. ..What I still don't understand is why the recipients of such craziness are not running to cancel their membership in the NRA, are there really that many dimwitted kooks out there? Apparently, and to think they are the ones that shape most of our gun laws-good God. If you haven't read it already you have to...
Maud
Maud,
ReplyDeleteI had stopped reading Mr. Nocera. I'll look for that piece.
I've heard some of the guys on my baseball team talk about their guns. It's a sort of naked source of cheap, instant masculinity. They may not be making much money, may not have done well in school, may not be able to hit the fastball any more, but they got their guns. They hold a gun and they feel strong, powerful, in command.
Teachers, bosses, parents, wives may have humbled or humiliated these men, but the people at the gun shot and the shooting range provide a shot of power into shriveled parts.
Mad Dog