Obama's whining sounds like "I'm not up to the job"
Far from one-off asides, Mr. Obama's jabs at his predecessor have been a common feature of his speeches, fund-raisers and the like. They seem especially to pop up whenever Mr. Obama discovers some decision he must make is not as easy as he'd thought. And they date back to the first moments of his presidency.
After a perfunctory thank you to Mr. Bush, a newly sworn-in President Obama declared that Americans had gathered for his inaugural "because we have chosen hope over fear," that his administration would "restore science to its rightful place," and that he would never allow America to "give [our ideals] up for expedience's sake." In other words, President Bush had chosen fear over hope, was being "expedient" rather than defending the nation, and had chosen religious fundamentalism over science when making decisions in areas such as embryonic stem-cell research.
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Policy differences, of course, are fair game for sharp debate, and in the end history will apportion the credit and blame due Mr. Bush. By any measure, however, Mr. Obama's ongoing snipes against a predecessor who is no longer involved in setting policy are extraordinary. They are more extraordinary still issuing from a president who campaigned on a promise to transcend the political divisions of the past.
Barack Obama may believe that his incessant whining about all the challenges his predecessor left him lets America know how tough he has it. The danger to his presidency is that it can sound awfully like "I'm not up to the job."
Comment: History will judge him as "not up the job". I suspect the electorate will as well!
I hope he's simply not up to the job, and not using the difficulty of success as an excuse to do what he wanted to do all along--let America fail. When I look at his buddies, alas, the latter option doesn't seem unthinkable.
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