After Big Win on Debt Ceiling/Deficit Reduction, Wall Street Journal Piles on Mr. Obama

It’s Not Enough to Win, It’s Winning Ugly

Everyone in the known universe recognized that Republicans got a big win in the Debt Ceiling/Deficit Reduction agreement. But Conservatives are rarely satisfied with just winning.   So on Saturday the editorial/opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal celebrated by attacking President Obama on both a professional and personal basis, declaring the day the official “Get the President Day”.

To get things warmed up for the attacks on Mr. Obama we have a Mr. Peter Berowitz from the Hoover Institution (gosh, is there no limit to the number of idealogues there) who rants about Progressives. He finds them uncivil.  Really, he does

They have ferociously attacked congressional Republicans, particularly those closely associated with the tea party movement, with something approaching hysteria.

And concludes

The progressive mind is on a collision course with itself. The clash between its democratic pretensions and its authoritarian predilections has generated within its ranks seething resentment for, and rage at, conservatives.

The interesting thing is that if one were to copy Mr. Berkowitz’s rantings into a WORD file, substitute the word Conservatives where he has liberals, progressives and Democrats one would get a reasonable, cohesive and convincing piece of writing.  Really you should, try it.

Next up is Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. who goes after Mr. Obama in a way that is so incoherent that it is difficult to summarize his position, or even find a good quote that exemplifies what he is saying.  There is this, though



Mr. Jenkins



Almost everything Mr. Obama understands as pro-growth consists of bets on "bureaucrats and the people who make a living on control and planning."

which is weird because Mr. Obama has not only extended the Bush era tax cuts, but added a lot of his own.  So if the recovery is not all it should be, doesn’t that mean the Republican policy of massive tax cuts really doesn’t work?  Just a thought.

Even the normally level headed Peggy Noonan takes off on Mr. Obama (she must have gotten the memo).  In reference to his July 25 speech,



Ms. Noonan in her RNC Advisor
Role, which is different how, from her
WSJ Opinion writer role?



He was boring in the way that people who are essentially ideological are always boring. They bleed any realness out of their arguments. They are immersed in abstractions that get reduced to platitudes, and so they never seem to be telling it straight. And he was a joy-free zone.

Ms. Noonan fails to recognize the problem of Mr. Obama, namely that he is not ideological, that he fails to come across as someone with core beliefs.  Of course the true ideologues are . . .

But finally, in the classic piece of the day is an interview with Eric Cantor, Majority Leader for the Republicans in the House.  Mr. Cantor is given free rein to comment on the deficit/debt ceiling package and uses his time to rant against Mr. Obama on a very personal basis. He says of Mr. Obama



Mr. Cantor Wrapped in the Flag



"It's almost as if someone cannot have another opinion that is different from his. He becomes visibly agitated. . . . He does not like to be challenged on policy grounds."

which is interesting since it seems instead to describe Mr. Cantor and the radical Conservative positions he represents.  Does Mr. Cantor
think we do not remember how he walked out of negotiations on the debt ceiling/deficit reduction talks because the President's teams wanted to talk about revenue increases and he didn't?

Surprisingly, all of this is good for Mr. Obama. Really it is. America is a nation of good winners.  General Grant is praised by all sides for his generous nature in dealings with General Lee.  After World War II the Marshall Plan helped produce modern Europe and the Douglas MacArthur regency of Japan is a case study into how to turn a ruined enemy into a valued ally. 

  Mr. Obama’s leadership issues and the stalled economy have made it very difficult for him to win re-election on his own merits.  His major hope is that his opponents over-reach, that they release such unvarnished venom that the voting public sees them for what they are and not for what they say they are. 

 It’s not a great strategy for winning, but for Mr. Obama it may be all that there is.  And with foes like the editorial/opinion pages of the WSJ, it could work.