"Helpless President Lit"--The Latest Trend in Political Tragedy--by RJ Escrow

[KoKo]

"Helpless President Lit" - The Latest Trend in Political Tragedy
by RJ Eskow | August 24, 2011

Call it "Helpless President Lit." A recent Ezra Klein column is the latest in a growing genre which celebrates our Commander-in-Chief, not as a powerful leader, but as a perennial victim. It portrays him as someone who's powerless over other people's actions, and sometimes even over his own. In this genre the President is forever at the whim of forces beyond his control, even when he has a supermajority in the Senate and a strong majority in the House.

Helpless President Lit is a form of melodrama. It's like an old-fashioned cliffhanger with the President replacing Little Nell, that noble young creature who's forever being tied to a train track or suspended over a gorge by some dastardly villain. Except the country's about to get hurt, not him - and nobody's coming to the rescue.

----

There are strict conventions in "Helpless President Lit." Its authors must characterize the President's progressive critics as naive. They must say his detractors are expecting more than any President can deliver. The President must be portrayed as a victim of circumstance, powerless in the face of Republican intransigence.

This calls for the frequent use of code words like "realistic," designed to persuade the reader that its plausible to describe the most powerful executive in the world as a helpless creature of our political climate, rather than someone with the platform and the power to reshape it.

Forget all that talk about a "post-imperial Presidency." To them it's a post-Presidential Presidency. Can you imagine George W. Bush's supporters talking this way?

More of an interesting read at.........

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/rj-eskow/38062/helpless-president-lit-the-latest-trend-in-political-tragedy

[Demeter]

1. Irony so Thick, You Can Cut It With a Knife

(I'm talking about the "Helpless President" meme, of course, which resembles the highest quality BS).

Bravo to the smirkingchimp for an excellent diagnosis.

Unfortunately, it may very well be that the President is held hostage by the threat of violence upon himself and his family, thanks to the thugs who have been allowed to take over at home and maybe even abroad. Poppy Bush's own Assistant Secretary of Housing reports she was physically threatened and attacked....funny, I don't recall Poppy acknowledging or getting exercised over it. After all, that's what the CIA is for, isn't it?

In her own words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pudykXGTDtg&feature=player_embedded

second half of the show...

[alsame]

2. k&r

[unblock]

3. thing is, our so-called leaders are actually followers.

the forces of power are invariably what actually runs a country, not necessarily the ostensible leader.
in a democracy, the "leaders" must choose one of just a few courses:
a) curry favor with the true powers, giving them everything they want (the republican party approach)
b) give as much as they can get away with to their less powerful base while giving the true powers just enough to keep them from pushing you out (the ostensible establishment democratic party approach)
c) put everything into building up a new power base to overpower the existing true powers (the liberal/progressive approach)

to my mind, only c) really qualifies as genuine "leadership", and even then this only works if the new power base actually is strong enough to mount a solid fight against the existing true powers.

even dictators face the same choices, although they usually exist in an environment where the true powers are so strong the dictators can easily choose option a) and ignore the masses with impunity. dictators who cross their benefactors wind up dead.


fdr certainly seemed to be a great leader, but realistically, could he have done otherwise with such overwhelming liberal majorities in congress and pro-worker and socialist thought in its heyday? in a sense, he had little choice but to follow the true powers at the time. his "leadership" was in identifying that laissez-faire capitalism had been so discredited that the new true power was with the workers and the would-be workers and the retirees who were victims of thet excesses of the unbridled capitalists.

unfortunately, we're not in the same situation. this time, the rich and powerful have been far more methodical in extending their control and power than they were in the 1920s. so despite the outrage, the rich and powerful remain in control of the microphones and the (pseudo-)intellectual thought.

what WE need to do is build up the TRUE power and MAKE obama do what WE want rather than what the rich and powerful want.

if only i knew how to do that. i'm working on saving enough to buy a network and make it a liberal outlet to compete with fox, but this is likely to take a while. wish me luck!

[Doctor_J]

4. The tragedy is, if he'd adopted the approach he had during the campaign,

all 70 million people who voted for him and their children would have been in the streets demanding that his/our will be carried out. And trust me, if 90 million people marched, wrote, called, and emailed, demanding single-payer HC (Medicare for all), it would have happened.

[twiceshy]

6. Gotta agree with you there

But if I remember, one of the first things Obama did was disband (for all intents) his grassroots organization and then pander to the banks and multinationals. Can't let the little folk have any say once you have made it to the corner office.

[yurbud]

8. he won with the bully pulpit, then promptly used it for firewood.

[xchrom]

5. recommend

[blkmusclmachine]

7. IF the Office of President of the USA just became powerLESS:

Why are the elections so expensive? Corporations will pour tens of Billions of dollars into the 2012 Presidential race. Funny, seeing how the President is so "powerless." I don't remember GWB ever being described as "powerless." Bush seemed to get pretty much everything he wanted. But Bush never really hamstrung himself always chasing phony "bi-partisanship" rainbows. I believe Obama is hiding behind his "bi-partisanship" schtick to cover for a very right-leaning philosophy that he doesn't want to be held accountable for.

Clap louder, dammit!

[yurbud]

9. presidents are now powerless to help average people, but infinitely powerful to help the rich

same goes for congress: incremental drips of change that might help us, but a firehose of change as soon as some indolent sociopathic trust fund baby clears his throat about his right to profits being slightly obstructed by laws, regulations, or taxes.

[truedelphi]

10. His appointees are all powerful people, who have taken the power they have

Been offered and done extremely damaging things.

And unless I see the film of the gun held to Obama's head when he appointed Tim Geithner, or Valsick, or Mike Taylor, or even Henry F____g Kissinger, I can't allow him much pity.

For Pete's sake, all he had to do was google "Tim Geithner" back in November of 2008 and he would have seen how Geithner loused up the Japanese economy. Kept the economy there in an L shaped situation that still troubles the nation.

But the fact that the two men grew up together, and are "good buddies" (an expression Obama has used dozens of times publicly,) and also the fact that Obama's mom worked for the Ford Foundation explains a lot about who he really is.

And he isn't someone determined to help out the average person. In fact, in his private lexicon, I am sure we are mere peons.

[yurbud]

11. he grew up with Geithner? Got a source?

[swilton]

12. Obama has not only enacted failed policies

that thwart the lower and middle class and contradict the 2008 Democratic Platform and his campaign promises, he now has little to campaign on and his campaign strategy is as week as his administration...

Many defend him because of his race - his race is a campaign gimic that camouflages his persona as 'one of the people' and disguises his socio-economic policies of white elitism that are more in character with Republican politicians.

[emilyg]

13. Correct.

[girl gone mad]

14. sooooo true.

[_ed_]

15. Anyone who says "Obama has no power"

is a liar who is just trying to protect their Dear Leader. These people are sheep that will say anything to avoid dealing with reality.

[COLGATE4]

16. K&R

[the_chinuk]

17. Food for thought.

Regardless of whether or not I agree with this, I found it argued its case very well. It also had the right of it on the things the President should have done, and the things he wound up doing.

[woo me with science]

18. K&R

[Enthusiast]

19. Thanks, KoKo. nt