Have Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd Given Up on Barack Obama's Presidency?

Have Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd thrown in the towel where President Obama is concerned? If they have, then he has lost two key supporters in the media. President Obama has been treated in an ugly manner by the Republicans and the Tea Party, but he cannot continue to come across as weak and spineless. Quite frankly, this isn't the "change I can believe in" that I signed up for when I voted for him in 2008. I suspect the same thing that happened to Jimmy Carter with the Iran hostage situation and the economy spiraling out of control, as well as George H. W. Bush with the horrible economy, is also gradually engulfing the Obama presidency and it's not all his fault. People on Main Street are just sick and tired of being sick and tired. Here's an excerpt from Maureen Dowd's recent article in the New York Times.

 ONE day during the 2008 campaign, as Barack Obama read the foreboding news of the mounting economic and military catastrophes that W. was bequeathing his successor, he dryly remarked to aides: “Maybe I should throw the game.”

On the razor’s edge of another recession; blocked at every turn by Republicans determined to slice him up at any cost; starting an unexpectedly daunting re-election bid; and puzzling over how to make a prime-time speech about infrastructure and payroll taxes soar, maybe President Obama is wishing that he had thrown the game.

The leader who was once a luminescent, inspirational force is now just a guy in a really bad spot. His Republican rivals for 2012 have gone to town on the Labor Day weekend news of zero job growth, using the same line of attack Hillary used in 2008: Enough with the big speeches! What about some action?

(…)

You know you’re in trouble when Harry Reid says you should be more aggressive. If the languid Obama had not done his usual irritating fourth-quarter play, if he had presented a jobs plan a year ago and fought for it, he wouldn’t have needed to elevate the setting. How will he up the ante next time? A speech from the space station? Republicans who are worried about being political props have a point. The president is using the power of the incumbency and a sacred occasion for a political speech.

Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.

The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.

The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.

After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring. “The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.” The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for. Source: NY Times

Ouch, that hurt. Frank Rich called Obama's presidency as a "rhetorical and substantive failure." Here's what he had to say to Piers Morgan about the jobs speech flap:

 

President Obama's speech on Thursday won't offer any jobs legislation this year but will be a rallying call to his base to support him in his re-election bid. I am not completely sold that he will prevail, though I think he may, considering how weak the current GOP field is. If President Obama wins re-election, it certainly won't be on his record, since he hasn't really brought us the "hope" and "change" he promised, but will come about by the Democrats annihilating the Republicans and the candidates in the media. Where's the community activist we saw on the campaign trail? That's the fighter I want to see, not the president who doesn't seem to fully grasp the awesome power he holds in his hands. President Obama, you are the Big Kahuna in Washington D.C., not John Boehner. Please act like you want to keep your job and stop caving to the Republicans at the drop of a hat.