The Amateur (7 page)
Authors: Edward Klein
Tonight, in front of nine prominent American historians, Obama wasn’t shy about flaunting his famous self-confidence. He intended to bring the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table and create a permanent peace in the Middle East. He would open a constructive dialogue with America’s enemies in Iran and North Korea and, through his powers of persuasion, help them see the error of their ways. He’d pass legislation in Washington to revolutionize the country’s healthcare system and energy policy. And he’d inject the regulatory hand of the federal government into the American economy in an effort to create “a more just and equitable society.”
When several of the historians brought up the difficulties that Lyndon Johnson had faced trying to wage a foreign war while implementing an ambitious domestic agenda, Obama grew testy. He knew better. He could prevail by the force of his personality. He could solve the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, put millions of people back to work, redistribute wealth, withdraw from Iraq, and reconcile the United States to a less dominant role in the world.
It was, by any measure, a breathtaking display of narcissistic grandiosity from a man whose entire political curriculum vitae consisted of seven undistinguished years in the Illinois Senate, two mostly absent years in the United States Senate, and five months and ten days in the White House. Unintentionally, Obama revealed the characteristics that made him totally
unsuited
for the presidency and that would doom him to failure: his extreme haughtiness and excessive pride; his ideological bent as a far-left corporatist; and his astounding amateurism.
unsuited
for the presidency and that would doom him to failure: his extreme haughtiness and excessive pride; his ideological bent as a far-left corporatist; and his astounding amateurism.
These characteristics had already set the pattern of his presidency. He conducted his own foreign policy more than any previous president, including Richard Nixon. He made all the decisions, because he believed that only he understood the issues. He spent his evenings writing decision papers on foreign affairs when, instead, he should have delegated that chore to experts and devoted his time to befriending members of Congress in order to get his bills passed. He still loved making speeches to large, adoring crowds, but he complained to foreign leaders on the QT that he had to waste precious hours talking with “congressmen from Palookaville.”
In meetings with his Cabinet and national security team, he acted as though he was the smartest person in the room, which didn’t encourage people to speak their minds. He rarely bothered to pick up the phone and seek the advice of outside experts, and he never called the people who had brought him to the dance—those who backed his presidential bid with their money, time, and organizational skills. The Kennedys didn’t hear from him. Oprah Winfrey didn’t hear from him. Wealthy Jewish donors in Chicago, who had helped fund his 2008 campaign, didn’t hear from him. The “First-Day People”—African-American leaders in Chicago who had paved the way for his political ascent—never heard from him, either.
The senior people in his administration proved to be just as inexperienced and inept as Obama when it came to the business of running the government. Members of his inner circle—David Axelrod, campaign manager David Plouffe, press secretary Robert Gibbs, and éminence grise Valerie Jarrett—had proven their mettle in the dark arts of political campaigning, but they had no serious experience in dealing with public policy issues. If they could be said to have any policy exposure at all, it was their ideological enthusiasms for the Left.
What’s more, the members of Obama’s inner circle didn’t treat him as the most important
politician
in America, which he was by virtue of occupying the Oval Office. After all,
politician
was a dirty word in Obama World. Instead, they treated Obama as though he was a movie star or the heavyweight champion of the world, a political Muhammad Ali who never tired of hearing that he was the greatest. “He is the living, breathing apotheosis of the American melting pot,” enthused David Axelrod, who privately coined a nickname for his boss: “Black Jesus.”
politician
in America, which he was by virtue of occupying the Oval Office. After all,
politician
was a dirty word in Obama World. Instead, they treated Obama as though he was a movie star or the heavyweight champion of the world, a political Muhammad Ali who never tired of hearing that he was the greatest. “He is the living, breathing apotheosis of the American melting pot,” enthused David Axelrod, who privately coined a nickname for his boss: “Black Jesus.”
The one discordant note in this chorus of hosannas came from Obama’s hard-as-nails chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a professional pol who in years to come would privately confess, “I whipped ass up and down, front room and back room, and I got sick and tired of the White House. I got sick of fighting and losing in the White House, and I was eager to leave.”
Over the two-hour dinner, Obama and the historians discussed several past presidents. It wasn’t clear from Obama’s responses which of those presidents he identified with. At one point, Obama seemed to channel the charismatic John F. Kennedy. At another moment, he extolled the virtues of the “transformative” Ronald Reagan. Then again, it was the saintly Lincoln... or the New Deal’s “Happy Warrior,” Franklin Roosevelt ... or ...
In the words of Victor Davis Hanson, who, like other
conservative
historians, had not been invited to attend the dinner, the new president seemed to be looking for “a presidential identity not his own.... endlessly trying on new presidential masks.”
conservative
historians, had not been invited to attend the dinner, the new president seemed to be looking for “a presidential identity not his own.... endlessly trying on new presidential masks.”
Obama told the historians at the table that he had come up with a slogan for his administration. “I’m thinking of calling it ‘A New Foundation,’” he said.
Doris Kearns Goodwin suggested that “A New Foundation” might not be the wisest choice for a motto.
“Why not?” the president asked.
“It sounds,” said Goodwin, “like a woman’s girdle.”
If the meeting proved anything, it was that Barack Obama didn’t have the faintest idea 1)
who
he was; 2)
why
he had been elected president; and 3)
how
to be the commander in chief and chief executive of the United States of America.
who
he was; 2)
why
he had been elected president; and 3)
how
to be the commander in chief and chief executive of the United States of America.
In short, he didn’t know what he didn’t know.
He believed, wrongly, that his so-called “personal narrative” had gotten him elected. Even as president, he never tired of telling the same old stories—more myth than reality—about his idealistic white mother and brilliant African father; his American-as-apple-pie white grandparents, Gramps and Toot; his cockeyed Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro; and his transformation from a confused young man of mixed race named Barry to a proud African-American adult named Barack Hussein Obama.
He further believed, wrongly, that he was not only a different kind of leader by virtue of his race, strange name, and exotic upbringing, but that he was a child of destiny, a special person who had been singled out for great things. In his mind, he had been elected to be a transformational president and to save America from itself.
None of this was true. Barack Obama wasn’t elected because of his charisma and biography. And he certainly wasn’t elected to turn America into a European-style quasi-socialist country in which the state controls economic and social matters. The political stars had aligned for him in the election year of 2008 because the American people were scared to death about the economy, fed up with George W. Bush and the spendthrift Republicans, disillusioned by the seemingly endless war in Iraq, and sick at heart over the decline of their society’s values.
But Obama couldn’t see any of that.
He was blind to reality because he suffered from what could only be described as a messianic complex—meaning that he believed he was destined to become America’s savior. “My attitude is that you don’t want to just be the president,” Obama told an interviewer for
Men’s Vogue
. “You want to change the country.”
Men’s Vogue
. “You want to change the country.”
For a long time, people didn’t understand that there was a method in his madness. As Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, pointed out, “Among today’s liberal elite, bad faith in America is a sophistication, a kind of hipness. More importantly, it is the perfect formula for political and government power. It rationalizes power in the name of intervening against evil—I will use the government to intervene against the evil tendencies of American life (economic inequality, structural racism and sexism, corporate greed, neglect of the environment and so on)....”
Obama’s acolytes in academia, the media, the churches, and the world of entertainment encouraged this dangerous delusion. Micah Tillman, a lecturer in philosophy at the Catholic University of America, said: “Barack Obama is the Platonic philosopher king we’ve been looking for for the past 2,400 years.” At a campaign rally in South Carolina, Oprah Winfrey had referred to Obama as “The One,” a reference to both Jesus Christ and Neo from the movie
The Matrix
. The
New York Times
called his election “a national catharsis.” His hometown newspaper, the
Chicago Sun-Times
, wrote, “The first African-American president of the
Harvard Law Review
has a movie-star smile and more than a little mystique. Also, we just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra.”
The Matrix
. The
New York Times
called his election “a national catharsis.” His hometown newspaper, the
Chicago Sun-Times
, wrote, “The first African-American president of the
Harvard Law Review
has a movie-star smile and more than a little mystique. Also, we just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra.”
Obama’s political apostles never seemed to tire of coming up with fresh examples of his divinity. Some examples:
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews:
“I’ve been following politics since I was about 5. I’ve never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament.”
“I’ve been following politics since I was about 5. I’ve never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament.”
Newsweek
editor Evan Thomas:
“In a way Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He’s sort of God. He’s going to bring all the different sides together.”
editor Evan Thomas:
“In a way Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He’s sort of God. He’s going to bring all the different sides together.”
Film director Spike Lee:
“You’ll have to measure time by ‘Before Obama’ and ‘After Obama’.... Everything’s going to be affected by this seismic change in the universe.”
“You’ll have to measure time by ‘Before Obama’ and ‘After Obama’.... Everything’s going to be affected by this seismic change in the universe.”
Jonathan Alter in his book
, The Promise: President Obama, Year One
:
, The Promise: President Obama, Year One
:
Rabbi David Saperstein, reading from Psalms in English and Hebrew, noticed from the altar that the good men and women of the congregation that day, including the Bidens and other dignitaries, had not yet stood. Finally Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Church asked that everyone rise. At that moment Saperstein saw something from his angle of vision: “If I had seen it in a movie I would have groaned and said, ‘Give me a break. That’s so trite.’” A beam of morning light shown [sic] through the stained-glass windows and illuminated the president-elect’s face. Several of the clergy and choir on the altar who also saw it marveled afterward about the presence of the Divine.
The absurd, not to say blasphemous comparison of Obama to the Almighty became so embarrassing that Vice President Joe Biden couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease the president about his messiah complex. Speaking at the 2009 white-tie Gridiron Club Dinner, Biden said. “[President Obama] can’t be here tonight because he’s busy getting ready for Easter. He thinks it’s about him.”
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