Wall street journal editorial says Obama suck as prez but will win because he's not white

Obama's Unspoken Re-Election Edge
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This presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to match..

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And yet Republicans everywhere ask, "Who do we have to beat him?" In head-to-head matchups, Mr. Obama beats all of the Republican hopefuls in most polls.

The problem Mr. Obama poses for Republicans is that there has always been a disconnect between his actual performance and his appeal. If Hurricane Katrina irretrievably stained George W. Bush, the BP oil spill left no lasting mark on this president. Mr. Obama's utter confusion in the face of the "Arab spring" has nudged his job-approval numbers down, but not his likability numbers, which Gallup has at a respectable 47.6%. In the mainstream media there has been a willingness to forgive this president his mistakes, to see him as an innocent in an impossible world. Why?

There have really always been two Barack Obamas: the mortal man and the cultural icon. If the actual man is distinctly ordinary, even a little flat and humorless, the cultural icon is quite extraordinary. The problem for Republicans is that they must run against both the man and the myth. In 2008, few knew the man and Republicans were walloped by the myth. Today the man is much clearer, and yet the myth remains compelling.

What gives Mr. Obama a cultural charisma that most Republicans cannot have? First, he represents a truly inspiring American exceptionalism: He is the first black in the entire history of Western civilization to lead a Western nation—and the most powerful nation in the world at that. And so not only is he the most powerful black man in recorded history, but he reached this apex only through the good offices of the great American democracy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704569404576299241421694066.html?mod=googlenews_wsj:

people in America. :sarcasm:

but they know it is important that they make sure to frame this as "people voting for the cultural icon." They can't allow their sheeple to think anyone will vote for him based on performance. Never mind that his policies enabled them to overcome their own excesses, his bailout of GM and Chrysler is almost unquestionably a success, and the $750 billion TARP that they nearly universally begged for looks like it will ultimately cost the treasury less than $20 billion. Oh well, fuck 'em.

Obama represents the politics of personality. Someone who lacked his charm and charisma would never be able to pull off ignoring high unemployment, expanding the police state, extending the wars, and pushing such the kind of extremist neoliberal agenda that this President supports.

the exact same qualities that made them swoon with love for St. Ronald Reagan.

Steele is a black conservative who is involved with the conservative/libertarian Hoover Institute. Back in '08 he wrote a whole book about why Obama couldn't possibly be elected - and for mostly the same reasons he cites in this Wall Street Urinal article.

http://blacksnob.blogspot.com/2008/04/shelby-steele-thinks-obama-is-gamble.html

on this president."

Just one of many intellectually dishonest thoughts in this screed.

Yes, Mr. Steele, they are equivalent events and the presidential response was equivalent.:sarcasm:

"Donald Trump shot to the head of the Republican line by focusing on Mr. Obama as a president, calling him our "worst" president. I carry no brief for Mr. Trump, but his sudden success makes a point:..."

First of all, Trump did not "focus on Mr. Obama as president." He focused on his birth certificate, his college grades, his "otherness". At least if you are going to set up a false argument, get the details correct.

I am amazed that even the Wall Street Journal would print trash like this.

I'm not. Not any more, since Murdoch bought it. Their editorial writers have always sucked hard enough to bend light - James Taranto has been particularly loathsome -- but they used to have a fairly decent news division. Now even that has started to suck. So the fact that they are publishing dreck by the likes of Shelby Steele does not surprise me a bit.