Kathryn Jean Lopez: Condescender in Chief
[Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of NRO.]
They called it a “miracle.” Maybe it wasn’t the Spirit of 1776, but something derivative of that was in the air as Republican Scott Brown was elected to the U.S. Senate seat that had been held by Edward M. Kennedy for five decades. Running on resetting health-care reform in Washington, tax cuts, fiscal responsibility, and not trying enemy combatants in criminal courts, Brown did what really was considered impossible.
It was a safe Democratic seat, we were to believe. But one of the messages the Brown victory sent was: There are no safe seats. There is no inevitability in politics. Even the memory of Teddy Kennedy, a liberal icon, with all the weight of America’s Camelot romance — with his wife on the campaign trail — couldn’t drag this election away from issues. No one’s entitled to any seat. No party is. Election Day actually matters.
It was a powerful statement. An inspiring statement. From around the country that special-election day in Massachusetts, I received e-mails from Americans who felt a newfound connection to what happens in Washington. They felt a newfound power. They, in some cases, even wondered, for the first time in their lives, whether they should run for office.
But there was an entirely different spirit emanating from the teleprompter during Pres. Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address (he decided not to give last year’s speech that name). Barack Obama seemed determined to squash that spirit like a bug. Without using the not-yet-sitting senator’s name, he dismissed growing frustrations with the president and his party and their policies, as represented by the Brown victory, as a “campaign fever” that acts as an obstacle to the ability to govern.
Characteristically, the president swatted his critics like pests. He chided them, for instance, as if they had no plans of their own to offer — most prominently, on health care. But it’s not that they have no plans: It’s that he has no interest in them. They are not legitimate in his mind. They all simply represent obstacles in the way of his agenda.
This is the wrong attitude. These are the wrong lessons.
The (un)presidential attitude seemed to be: Oh, what silly children you are, you American voters. If only you’d listen to me more carefully; perhaps if I spoke slower and used USA Today graphs, you’d get it.
With his condescending attitude, President Obama takes whole new ownership of the paternalistic, nanny-state ideology that is his own, and that is at the root of his domestic-policy priorities. Even as he tries wearing a more centrist cloak, waving rhetorical concessions like a year-off limited spending freeze and a primetime Ronald Reagan hat tip as a cover...
Read entire article at National Review
They called it a “miracle.” Maybe it wasn’t the Spirit of 1776, but something derivative of that was in the air as Republican Scott Brown was elected to the U.S. Senate seat that had been held by Edward M. Kennedy for five decades. Running on resetting health-care reform in Washington, tax cuts, fiscal responsibility, and not trying enemy combatants in criminal courts, Brown did what really was considered impossible.
It was a safe Democratic seat, we were to believe. But one of the messages the Brown victory sent was: There are no safe seats. There is no inevitability in politics. Even the memory of Teddy Kennedy, a liberal icon, with all the weight of America’s Camelot romance — with his wife on the campaign trail — couldn’t drag this election away from issues. No one’s entitled to any seat. No party is. Election Day actually matters.
It was a powerful statement. An inspiring statement. From around the country that special-election day in Massachusetts, I received e-mails from Americans who felt a newfound connection to what happens in Washington. They felt a newfound power. They, in some cases, even wondered, for the first time in their lives, whether they should run for office.
But there was an entirely different spirit emanating from the teleprompter during Pres. Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address (he decided not to give last year’s speech that name). Barack Obama seemed determined to squash that spirit like a bug. Without using the not-yet-sitting senator’s name, he dismissed growing frustrations with the president and his party and their policies, as represented by the Brown victory, as a “campaign fever” that acts as an obstacle to the ability to govern.
Characteristically, the president swatted his critics like pests. He chided them, for instance, as if they had no plans of their own to offer — most prominently, on health care. But it’s not that they have no plans: It’s that he has no interest in them. They are not legitimate in his mind. They all simply represent obstacles in the way of his agenda.
This is the wrong attitude. These are the wrong lessons.
The (un)presidential attitude seemed to be: Oh, what silly children you are, you American voters. If only you’d listen to me more carefully; perhaps if I spoke slower and used USA Today graphs, you’d get it.
With his condescending attitude, President Obama takes whole new ownership of the paternalistic, nanny-state ideology that is his own, and that is at the root of his domestic-policy priorities. Even as he tries wearing a more centrist cloak, waving rhetorical concessions like a year-off limited spending freeze and a primetime Ronald Reagan hat tip as a cover...