The Disengaged Ditherer

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The New York Times tries to buff a turd in an article about the recent White House clusterfuck on Syria policy:

A close examination of how the Obama administration finds itself at this point — based on interviews with dozens of current and former members of the administration, foreign diplomats and Congressional officials — starts with a deeply ambivalent president who has presided over a far more contentious debate among his advisers than previously known. Those advisers reflected Mr. Obama’s own conflicting impulses on how to respond to the forces unleashed by the Arab Spring: whether to side with those battling authoritarian governments or to avoid the risk of becoming enmeshed in another messy war in the Middle East.

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And who unleashed the Arab Spring?

In the summer of 2011, the momentum of the Arab uprisings appeared to be sweeping all before it. Gone were the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, and in Libya, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi would fall later in the year.

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How did that all work out?

Even as the debate about arming the rebels took on a new urgency, Mr. Obama rarely voiced strong opinions during senior staff meetings. But current and former officials said his body language was telling: he often appeared impatient or disengaged while listening to the debate, sometimes scrolling through messages on his BlackBerry or slouching and chewing gum.

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Obama likes to give speeches. He likes to go fundraising too. He loves to golf, shoot hoops and rub elbows with the Rich and Shameless. But he doesn’t seem to have any interest in doing what he was elected to do.

“Presidentin’ is hard work” is the quote often attributed to George W. Bush. And it is indeed hard work. Obama loves being the president. He loves the perks of the job. But he hates working, which really isn’t surprising to anyone who paid any attention to his life story.

Remember the stimulus? Dingy Harry and Nasty Nancy did that. Obama campaigned for it and signed it but he didn’t help craft it. He was AWOL on writing Obamacare too, even though he claims it as his signature achievement. He has to be pushed into making decisions, as exemplified by the Osama bin Laden raid and his “evolution” on gay marriage.

Obama is the guy who voted “present” as an Illinois state senator. He’s they guy who made it through Columbia and Harvard Law School without leaving any footprints. Obama is the guy who wrote two memoirs by his mid-forties despite having accomplished nothing of substance in his life.

He’s a post turtle.

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