It occurs to me that Obama not understanding what is wrong — up until now anyway; does he now finally understand “it’s the labor market, stupid”? — is not that much different from Mitt and Republicans not understanding anything is wrong.
His “bitter” “get into guns and religion” blurb is just a different stereotype from Mitt’s “47%” blurb for the same demographic.
To make a strange comparison of Obama’s top-down thinking: his opening attempts at bi-partisan dialogue with Republicans reminds me of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara trying to apply a “rational” graduated response strategy to North Vietnam. Had McNamara taken the time to know his opponent he would have understood that Ho Chi Minh an company were willing to kill everyone in Vietnam — or in the whole world — to get what they wanted. Ditto for understanding that the Republican legislators were under the strictest orders from their leaders not only not to listen to the presidents offers but to obstruct without examination every single thing he proposed.
(If we killed one million North Vietnamese troops in the South, then we killed or wounded three million — or just about every military age North Vietnamese male — North population 13 million. For what?!)
How do we connect these guys up with the everyday world?
************
The following cut from Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
“Barack Obama was out here on the West Coast in November spending time with supporters. Oh, you thought I meant you?
“Obama fit seven such [$30,000 a plate type] dinners in to a three-day period visiting Seattle, San Francisco and LA.
It occurs to me that Obama not understanding what is wrong — up until now anyway; does he now finally understand “it’s the labor market, stupid”? — is not that much different from Mitt and Republicans not understanding anything is wrong.
His “bitter” “get into guns and religion” blurb is just a different stereotype from Mitt’s “47%” blurb for the same demographic.
To make a strange comparison of Obama’s top-down thinking: his opening attempts at bi-partisan dialogue with Republicans reminds me of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara trying to apply a “rational” graduated response strategy to North Vietnam. Had McNamara taken the time to know his opponent he would have understood that Ho Chi Minh an company were willing to kill everyone in Vietnam — or in the whole world — to get what they wanted. Ditto for understanding that the Republican legislators were under the strictest orders from their leaders not only not to listen to the presidents offers but to obstruct without examination every single thing he proposed.
(If we killed one million North Vietnamese troops in the South, then we killed or wounded three million — or just about every military age North Vietnamese male — North population 13 million. For what?!)
How do we connect these guys up with the everyday world?
************
The following cut from Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
“Barack Obama was out here on the West Coast in November spending time with supporters. Oh, you thought I meant you?
“Obama fit seven such [$30,000 a plate type] dinners in to a three-day period visiting Seattle, San Francisco and LA.
“The visit was productive as Obama raked in $6.5 million.”
http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2013/12/obamas-friends-on-west-coast-hand-over.html
He’s not going to grok us hanging out with those folks.