There's one other facet of George Will's eruption of dyspepsia at Mitt Romney on Sunday that's worth noting. Conor is right that it was a nihilist column, with no real endorsement of anyone else. But what I also notice was the initial credentializing Obama attack:
Obama, a floundering naif who thinks ATMs aggravate unemployment, is bewildered by a national tragedy of shattered dreams, decaying workforce skills and forgone wealth creation.
Let's first note what this "floundering naif" has handled since arriving in the Oval Office: the worst recession since the 1930s, a mass revolt in the Arab world, a nuclear threat from Iran, two wars we had lost or were losing, a debt that, even if he had done nothing, would have been record-breaking, a global and domestic economy in the midst of tectonic changes. Let's assume the worst: that the stimulus only stopped the bleeding; that our influence in the Arab world had been decimated and he has not been able to turn it around, that healthcare and financial reform were too compromised by Congressional cooptation of them, that he has dropped the ball on tax reform.
I think you can make all sorts of legitimate criticisms, but none of them make Obama a "floundering naif". Compared with Bush on 9/11? Compared with Clinton's first chaotic two years? A man with Clinton, Gates, Panetta and Petraeus on his team? And note Will's only evidence for this is that Obama "thinks ATMs aggravate unemployment". But when you look up the source of that, you find Obama was only using an example of how technology and automation is indeed wiping out whole sectors of employment with dizzying speed. Does Will think that automatic banking at ATMs or online has created employment? Does he have a proposal for tackling mass unemployment at a time of technological acceleration that is wiping out job after job?
I'm still waiting for a truly interesting or cogent critique of what Obama has done wrong from the right. A critique that intelligently cites the historical context in which this poor fucker is working. Here is the "floundering naif"'s Inaugural address:
Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time…
With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.
Naif? Really? He never saw this coming?
The Dish 