I’ve written elsewhere of Barack Obama’s growing disinterest in being President of the United States. This observation has been made by many others, too.
But his boredom seems perhaps to have descended into contempt for politics generally. Here are some headlines regarding his response to Tuesday’s election that make this point. Of note is that these are stories in mainstream, certainly non-conservative publications like TIME, the New York Times and National Journal.
“Republicans just won the election. President Obama doesn’t much care.”
“Obama: Midterms? What midterms?”
“Obama Isn't Listening to Voters He Claims to Hear”
“Obama, Chastened But Uncompromising”
“Allies Right to Worry About Passive Obama”
“His Party Is at a Low Point, and Obama Seems Passive”
“Obama Resists Course Change After Election Rebuke”
“President Obama is Not a Happy Warrior”
As an exasperated Dana Milbank wrote in today’s Washington Post, the President “seems numb to this latest ‘sheallacking’ of the Democrats:”
“I hear you,” President Obama said to the voters who gave Democrats an electoral drubbing in Tuesday’s midterm elections. But their message went in one presidential ear and out the other … It’s true that voters are disgusted with both parties, but they were particularly unhappy with Obama. In exit polls, 33 percent said their votes were to show disapproval of him.
Milbank says that although Mr. Obama “had called Democrats’ 2010 losses a ‘shellacking,’ he declined even to label Tuesday’s results.” Later in his piece, Milbank concludes that Mr. Obama’s “solution was to defer responsibility.”
No President has the luxury of petulance, disdain or disengagement. Christians should pray that, for the good of our country, Mr. Obama not only would make wise decisions and turn from wrong views and failed policies, but that he’d get his head in a game with stakes far, far too high to let languish.
