OBAMA - Matt Patterson on O.B.A.M.A.

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This opinion piece by Matt Patterson appeared on The American Thinker web site 18 August 2011. This article has never appeared in either the print or online version of The Washington Post. Mr. Patterson is not a columnist for The Washington Post. He has contributed opinion pieces to The Washington Post; this is not one of them.

O.B.A.M.A.
ONE BIG ASS MISTAKE AMERICA

Matt Patterson (columnist for the Washington Post, New York 
Post, San Francisco Examiner)

Government and Society 


Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an 
inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, the result of a baffling breed of mass 
hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. 


How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment 
beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, 
direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most 
consequential job? Imagine a future historian examining Obama's 
pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite 
unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a 
"community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of 
legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often 
did he vote "present") ; and finally an unaccomplished single term in 
the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential 
ambitions. 



He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a 
legislator. And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the 
white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's 
"spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as 
Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future 
historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected 
president? 



Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed 
the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white 
candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like 
Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted 
a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the 
eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American 
injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. Let that sink 
in: Obama was given a pass - held to a lower standard - because of the color of 
his skin. 



Podhoretz continues: And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when 
he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) 
"non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become 
the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest? 
Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama 
phenomenon -affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But 
certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and 
regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially 
white liberals, feel good about themselves. 



Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the 
back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not 
qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and 
high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't care if these minority 
students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and 
deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative 
action. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of 
the color of his skin - that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that 
isn't racism, then nothing is. 



And that is what America did to Obama. True, Obama himself was never troubled 
by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was 
told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at 
Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre 
record in Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no 
record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was 
told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the 
contrary. 



What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time 
Obama speaks? In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications 
nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. 
Those people - conservatives included - ought now to be deeply embarrassed. 



The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliches, and that's when he has 
his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely 
think or speak at all. 



Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth – it's all 
warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 
years. 



And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and 
everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited 
this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his 
own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. 



But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for 
anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly? 



In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the 
temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. 



When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the 
current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have 
gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.
Here's Matt's website. http://mattpattersononline.co...

Part of it is a rehash of a Post article by Norman Podhoretz. But... This is what my research has turned up'
Matt Patterson is editor of Labor Watch and Green Watch at CRC, and the 2011-2012 Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Matt's columns and commentary have appeared in some of the nation's top newspapers and political sites, including the Washington Post, New York Post, Washington Examiner, American Thinker, and FOXNews.com. From 2009 to 2010, he was a Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute. Previously he served as research assistant to Charles Krauthammer and political coordinator for the Rudy Giuliani presidential campaign.