The hallmark of the Obama era is government of, for and by crisis. Elected amid (or possibly because of) a financial crisis, the Panic of 2008, President Obama has spent his time in office lurching from disaster to disaster.
Obama’s reflexes, praised instinctive timing and audacious as a candidate, turn out to be poorly suited to high office. Obama has been mostly reactive and mostly captive to events. Veering here and there is part of being president. The world is big and dangerous and governance is hard. But watching Obama govern is like watching a distracted man flipping through television channels and all of it bad.
“If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”(flip) Never mind. (flip) We must bomb Syria now! (flip) Er, scratch that. (flip) Al Qaeda is on the run. (flip) It depends on what you mean by “core al Qaeda.” (flip)
Some of the crises have been self-inflected, and sometimes even intentional. Obama’s signature health law, for example, was born of a crisis in Congress. As support for the entitlement long sought by liberals was fracturing, even with Democrats in complete control of Washington, the president jammed the throttle down. The crisis of confidence demanded that a poorly constructed law be passed. Now! Now! Don’t think. Don’t read. Just vote.
That decision, of course, has led to other crises. The one playing out now is the risible implementation of the law. Democrats are all dripping with glib swipes about how Republicans have been waging a very messy civil war amid the partial government shutdown. But the Democrats are pushing their confident chuffles through gritted teeth. They know that the launch has been damaging, and if unrepaired, possibly fatal to the law. However the current budget debacle ends, the ObamaCare debacle has just begun.
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