Now that I've had the opportunity to watch Obama's moves over the last few weeks on the stimulus bill, I've drawn some reasoned conclusions about how shrewd this man named Obama is.
While it's true that Republicans have been dominating the debate in the mainstream media from a decibel perspective, the most recent Gallup poll reveals that Americans have come to strongly disapprove of the way Congressional Republicans are handling the crisis and give Obama high marks for his approach.
... More after the fold ...
[ Cross-Posted to Library Grape ]
What does this tell us? Think back to a year ago when Obama was being routinely counseled by partisan hacks and the mainstream media to "take the gloves off" against Clinton and McCain. Remember how many times Obama was flying under the radar only to ultimately hand his opponents a neverending series of trouncings?
The simple fact is that Obama is a once-in-a-generation political virtuoso who is able to think many moves ahead in the complicated game he is engaged in. As someone said to me recently, Obama's playing three-dimensional chess while we're still stuck playing checkers.
Almost without fail, Obama has time and again proven himself more shrewd and astute in the game of politics than any of the tired partisan hacks that control the media spigots of "conventional wisdom" and misinformation.
People on the left who are worked into a frenzy about how supposedly muted Obama has been at times over the last few weeks need to take a deep breath and give him a chance to prove himself to us.
Chances are, Obama is going to make all them sound pretty tone-deaf once he unveils yet another unexpected checkmate.
Here's Andrew Sullivan's take, which I think is exactly right:
One feels exactly as one did in the primaries as his occasional drifts against Clinton led to a chorus of attacks from the base that he was being too much of a wimp, too defensive, too polite. My gut is to advise him to let rip. But Obama's brain is often shrewder than many guts. From a long-term strategic perspective, even the critics are already entrenching the central meme that Obama has tried to bring as many people on board as possible. They are doing his work for him. If his core identity has been established as genuine and conciliatory - something Bill Clinton, fairly or unfairly, failed to achieve - then he can make a good faith case for his bill on its merits, not on the demerits of his opponents. The case is more effective if people don't interpret it as partisan. And since I suspect the case is very strong, that's his long-term advantage.
Update: A new CNN poll reinforces the earlier Gallup polland shows that Americans are seeing through the Republicans' partisan bullshit:
Three out of four poll respondents said that Obama is doing enough to cooperate with Republicans in Congress, but only 39 percent feel that congressional Republicans are cooperating enough with the president.
Six out of 10 approved of the way Democratic leaders in Congress are handling their jobs. But only 44 percent of those questioned approved of the way Republican leaders in Congress are performing. Overall, only 29 percent said they like the way Congress is handling its job, with 71 percent disapproving.
Update 2: JCWilmore makes a great point in his diary:
Did Barack Obama simply want to catch the Republican Party and its leadership on camera while it behaved badly and ignored the American peoples' desire for some kind of economic relief?
Barack Obama brought the cameras and the Republican Party and its leadership performed precisely as expected. The American people were appalled. The Republican Party ran our country into a ditch and has no plan for getting us out. The Republicans are obstructionists, intent on blocking Democrats from implementing any solution because they know that if Democrats succeed where Republicans have failed so miserably then Democrats will control the government for the foreseeable future. Barack Obama is trying to save our nation and Rush Limbaugh wants Barack Obama to fail.
