Jonah Goldberg‘s latest column at National Review Online explains that the man who once described cynicism as his rival in the race for president now has changed his tune.
The man just isn’t very persuasive.
Now Obama’s defenders, starting with the man himself, insist this isn’t his fault. He’s actually super persuasive and bipartisan, he just suffers from the fact that the Republicans are the most unreasonable politicians ever, so he can’t be blamed for utterly failing to work with them. It’s like the guy who insists that he’s a real ladies’ man but can’t get a phone number because all of the hot women in the bar just happen to be gay.
Actually, it’s worse than that. Everywhere the president goes, he explains that he’s failed to get anything done either because the system is broken or because his opponents lack the honor and decency to work with him. Such arguments define cynicism.
But for Obama, cynicism is a vice for other people.
For instance, just this month, after five Democratic senators and several members of his own inner circle (including Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and former chief of staff William Daley), not to mention the unified leadership of the Catholic Church, expressed profound dismay over Obama’s decision to force religious institutions to pay for contraceptive and “preventative” services in violation of their faith, Obama insisted that opponents of the move were “cynical.”
