World

Where’s Obama?

by YankeeJim | March 2, 2011 at 04:03 am

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It isn’t just me that noticed that Obama appears to be asleep at the switch. Ruth Marcus reports in the Washington Post – Where’s Waldo? Missing from important matters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/01/AR2011030105489.html

“Obama's 'Where's Waldo?' presidency

By Ruth Marcus

Wednesday, March 2, 2011; 12:00 AM

For a man who won office talking about change we can believe in, Barack Obama can be a strangely passive president. There are a startling number of occasions in which the president has been missing in action - unwilling, reluctant or late to weigh in on the issue of the moment. He is, too often, more reactive than inspirational, more cautious than forceful.

Each of these instances can be explained on its own terms, as matters of legislative strategy, geopolitical calculation or political prudence.

He didn't want to get mired in legislative details during the health-care debate for fear of repeating the Clinton administration's prescriptive, take-ours-or-leave-it approach. He doesn't want to go first on proposing entitlement reform because history teaches that this is not the best route to a deal. He didn't want to say anything too tough about Libya for fear of endangering Americans trapped there. He didn't want to weigh in on the labor battle in Wisconsin because, well, it's a swing state.

Yet the dots connect to form an unsettling portrait of a "Where's Waldo?" presidency: You frequently have to squint to find the White House amid the larger landscape.”