Chris Matthews' Devastating Critique of Obama and His Administration

The disillusion that Matthews expresses here seems to me to be utterly compelling in light of Bob Woodward's book, The Price of Politics.

What is scary about this clip is that it is from a year ago. There is nothing that Matthews says here that shouldn't completely explain the first presidential debate to him.

For me a vote in a presidential campaign is rooted as much in whether I trust or respect a candidate, and in the general direction they'd take the country, as in their policy arguments.

Although I don't think either candidate is being candid about what needs to be done to tackle our immense financial difficulties, I have two things against the Democrats in this regard that I think the Republicans will improve. First, the Democrats went on the most irresponsible, insane spending spree in history in the first two years of the Obama administration. It stimulated nothing and only made our situation far more dire. Second, they had a responsibility, as the party in power, to propose a plan to deal with the problem. Chris Matthews, in an astoundingly truthful clip, nails that they did not propose such a plan. I see no commitment or capacity in Barack Obama to do the immensely difficult work that reducing the deficit will require.

Neither does Chris Matthews.

Barack Obama went from being an unremarkable state legislator in Illinois to being President of the United States in four short years. An utterly undistinguished four years as a U. S. Senator, in which he seldom even voted for or against a bill, intervened. On this scant experience--and no experience as an executive--he was given the highest office in the land and arguably, the most powerful and important job in the world. He always hated legislative work and has been out of touch with Congress for his entire presidency. What were we thinking?

America is beginning to wake up from a mass delusion, and historians are going to be studying, for a long time, how desire, propelled by almost the entire mass media, could have so trumped realistic expectations or assessments of Barack Obama's abilities. He was bored as a U. S. Senator, which is, to me, astounding. He goes from being no one, to U. S. Senator, and the job isn't big enough for him. Now he's bored with being president. Maybe Emperor?


addendum: for application to foreign policy, see today's WSJ editorial by Dorothy Rabinowitz: "The Unreality of the Last Four Years": Rabinowitz, October 22, 2012