Packer Fudges

Predictably bad analysis from George Packer on Obama's first year. Maybe "analysis" is the wrong word--more like self-deception.

Reading Packer, you'd get the impression Obama and his people are above ideology, when they're pretty clearly ideological--more so, I'd say, than our last three presidents

Worse, Packer claims Obama's real problem is he's too fair, too intelligent, too nice. He treated the Republicans too well, and they were never going to play ball with him. I don't think he reached out that much, but whether he did or not, who cares? (Reaching out, by the way, is not asking others to agree with you, or even seriously considering their side--it's making actual compromises that aren't forced upon you.) Obama had a lead in Congress the size of which no President has enjoyed for a couple generations. He didn't need any help from Republicans. If he couldn't get what he wanted, don't blame them.

Packer sums up:

But the fundamental reason why the soaring emotions of the inauguration have soured just a year later goes beyond anything that Obama can do. The country is in deep trouble, not just with ten percent unemployment (though that accounts for a lot of unhappiness), but with chronic, long-term social and economic problems. Whatever responsibility George W. Bush and his Republican Party might bear is almost forgotten; in the age of the iPhone and cable news, that was half a century ago.

So we shouldn't blame Obama for "chronic, long-terms" problems. But I guess it's okay to blame Bush. In the age of George Packer pieces in The New Yorker, Bush assumed office half a century ago.