HAPPY ANNIVERSARY “BREAK
IT DOWN!”
(Note: This is a Reprised and Amended Presentation of My Original Blog Post)
Today, in
acknowledgement of the 10th anniversary of “Break It Down,” As I
have done occasionally in the past, I am revisiting my inaugural blog posting.
Unlike in the past, I will augment the discussion, in light of having a new,
also inexperienced President.
Tempus
fugit (Time Flies)!
Sunday marked another significant milestone in the life and development
of “Break It Down!” I initiated this blog August 20,
2007, on a lark…almost a dare. That was ten years (and 529
editions) ago. Having related the story a number of times over the past
several years, I will not repeat the complete details today.
I will note
that on that summer’s eve, I contemplated and discussed, in five paragraphs,
the experience, or in reality the lack thereof, of then Senator Barack Obama, as he navigated the early stages of his historic Presidential
Campaign. The prodigious parameters of that history were not evident at
the time. To be sure, over the next 14-½ months, he bested the
odds and won not only the Democratic Nomination, but also the Presidency, not so unlike what Donald Trump did in
2015-16. In so doing, my lack of conviction, along with that of
many others, in Mr. Obama’s ability to claim the nation’s biggest
political prize, was exposed as a patently errant assessment.
I want to
make one more note about the blog. In addition to this week
marking the Tenth Anniversary of Break It Down, this week’s post commemorates
the Five-year Anniversary of using WordPress as my primary Host Platform. The link, http://TheSphinxofCharlotte.com is simpler and more
straightforward than the Blogger
(Blogspot) link, http://TheSphinxofCharlotte.blogspot.com. The site design and
presentation at Word Press is cleaner, and less busy than the one at Blogger.
Please note, while I may migrate Break It Down exclusively to WordPress,
the blog remains available at both sites for the foreseeable future.
So this was
the message in Post #1, five brisk paragraphs and a sign-off:
In an apparent calculated
act of derring-do, Obama declares the virtue of inexperience. Gotta love
it! ;-)
Personal footnote of
recollection: I recall Jimmy Carter running the "anti-Washington"
(i.e., lack of Capitol Hill experience) campaign in '75-76. You know what, it
worked.
The problem was, once JC
sent all the reigning bureaucrats & policy wonks home, he was left with an
assembly of newbies who didn't understand how to get things done in DC. The
result was a very smart guy, genuine humanitarian, and erstwhile successful
leader presided over a disastrous presidency, fraught with innumerable policy
failures (see the Shah of Iran, double-digit inflation, & the outrageous
Interest/Mortgage rate morass) and public relations gaffes (remember the killer
rabbit, and the failed helicopter gambit).
Fortunately for him he was
able to live long enough and subsequently do enough good deeds to distance
himself from most of an unremarkable tenure as a one-term president, followed
by a resounding defeat by that cowboy actor Teflon guy.
Of course none of that has
anything to do with Obama...except in the unlikely even he prevails, let's hope
he doesn't take that inexperience thing too far. As W constantly reminds us,
getting to the White House is one thing (after all, he's done it twice),
providing prudent and effective leadership once there is quite another.
'06!
Posted on Mon, Aug. 20,
2007
PS. Just for perspective,
see a story the news carried on the subject that day:
DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL
HOPEFULS DEBATE IN IOWA
Obama posits virtue of
inexperience
What rivals criticize as
naiveté, he presents as break from status quo
MIKE GLOVER
Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa
--Democrat Barack Obama on Sunday tried to parlay his relative lack of national
experience into a positive attribute, chiding his rivals for adhering to
"conventional thinking" that led the country to war and has divided
the country.
In their latest debate,
the candidates also said they favored more federal action to address economic
woes that have resulted from a housing slump and tighter credit. New Mexico
Gov. Bill Richardson called the current financial crisis "the Katrina of
the mortgage-lending industry."
Prodded by moderator
George Stephanopoulos at the outset of the debate, Obama's rivals critiqued his
recent comments on Pakistan and whether he would meet with foreign leaders --
including North Korea's head of state -- without conditions.
"To prepare for this
debate I rode in the bumper cars at the state fair," the first-term
senator from Illinois said to laughter and applause from the audience at Drake
University.
The debate capped an
intense week of politicking in Iowa, an early voting state in the process of
picking a nominee. The Iowa State Fair is a magnet for White House hopefuls
each presidential election.
Sen. Christopher Dodd,
D-Conn., directly addressing a question about Obama's relative inexperience,
said: "You're not going to have time in January of '09 to get ready for
this job." Dodd has served in Congress for more than 30 years.
Former Sen. John Edwards
said Obama's opinions "add something to this debate." But Edwards
said politicians who aspire to be president should not talk about hypothetical
solutions to serious problems.
"It effectively
limits your options," Edwards said.
Obama said he could handle
the rigors of international diplomacy and noted that many in the race,
including Dodd, Edwards and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden, voted
to authorize the Iraq war in 2002.
"Nobody had more
experience than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and many of the people on this
stage that authorized this war," Obama said. "And it indicates how we
get into trouble when we engage in the sort of conventional thinking that has
become the habit in Washington."
The debate, hosted and
broadcast nationally by ABC, took place less than five months before Iowa
caucus-goers begin the process of selecting the parties' presidential nominees.
As we reflect upon the
Campaign of 2008 it really does harken the recognition of how swiftly time and
events pass. Indeed, I am especially reminded of how a supremely confidently
the Senator approached his moment. I shall always recall that it
propelled me to write, "Obama Plays the Inexperience Card!" Needless
to say, he has gained an enormous amount of experience in the intervening
years.
As I wrap this up in 2017, it
is with an entirely new vantage point, and a completely different appreciation
for what an inexperienced Barack Obama brought to his job, vis-à-vis what an
inexperienced Donald Trump is currently bringing to the job. Mr. Obama inherited
a fragile country with a downward spiraling economy, a nearly double-digit
employment rate, and a foreboding 700,000 job losses per month. By the time he
left 8 years later, the unemployment rate had been halved, to less than 5%, the
country enjoyed the longest period of consecutive job gains, 75 months, in
history, over 11 million jobs had been added, including 1.2 million in his last
6 months in office, while the Dow Jones rose from a slumping 7,949 when he took
office to 19, 887 when he exited. While no President controls every single
lever that triggers all that happens during his tenure, when things go south,
he occupies the space where the proverbial buck stops. Conversely, when things
trend rosy, he gets a fair amount of the shine.
In that light, Mr. Trump
entered office in a much different environment, benefiting from what can
rightfully be called the Obama Recovery. Let’s be clear. There is definitely
still work to do. But anyone who suggests that Obama didn’t bequeath more and
better than he inherited is full of bovine excrement. Full stop!
With that said, these are
the salad days of the Trump Administration. It must be said he has delighted
his base. At least the ones with whom I have spoken believe he’s the cat’s
meow, and they say (whether they believe it or not) he’s been doing exactly
what they hoped for when they voted for him. I would suggest that anyone who
didn’t vote him, or support him, or who is undecided about supporting him,
should let that sink in for a moment or two, or twenty.
Team Trump contends Democrats,
liberals, the Main Stream Media, and some nebulous ill-defined entity referred
to as the deep state, are solely responsible for all that has stymied or delayed
even potential successes by the Trump Administration. So, health care, travel
ban (or whatever appellation one cares to affix to it), Transgender Military
Policy, Charlottesville Messaging, the Obama wire tapping claim, the Flynn
firing, the Comey firing, the Spicer firing, the Priebus firing, the Scaramucci
firing, the Bannon firing, and oh by the way dare I say, his tweets…Can we
really blame all that on the Party that holds a minority in both houses, or a
media that has no votes, and presumably no say in who Trump hires in the first
place, or fires for that matter, or on the deep state, whatever the Sam Hill
that is?
If you are a Trump trooper,
you can, and you most certainly do. If you are not, then you probably think
such an assertion is sheer lunacy on its face. Perhaps…just maybe, he is
finding difficulty gaining traction because he is not only fighting through an
experience deficit, but he is operating with a startling lack of curiosity,
matched only by an overabundance of hubris. All things considered, I am
inclined to look back on the time when I wrote, “Obama Plays the Inexperience Card Redux,”
and conclude that we (who should be a grateful nation) were considerably better
served than with the current inexperienced occupant of the Oval Office.
I’m done; holla
back!
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