As the media and political observers pick over the remains of the failed Olympics-bid debacle, the debate has boiled down to this: Will it be a temporary embarrassment for the president or a long-term problem, an emblem of overreach and underachievement? There is more to this than simply predicting the toll it will take on Obama. Both the rebuff and the Obama team’s stunned reaction have stripped the veneer from the Obama mystique. Suddenly, the entire country realizes that there is no “master plan” behind what Obama does. In fact, there may be no plan at all.

Obama’s frosty demeanor, his upending of the Clinton machine in the Democratic primary, and his smooth presidential campaign helped create the myth that he was in control of all events and could see two or three moves ahead. If he procrastinated in dealing with the Reverend Wright flap, it was because he knew something we didn’t—or anticipated how events would play out. If he was mute during the financial crisis, it was because he intuitively understood that John McCain would knock himself out. There was a reason for everything.

The same assumptions prevailed once he got to the White House. He knew it was best to let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid craft the stimulus. He was laying the groundwork for something or other. And he was not derelict in failing to spell out his own health-care scheme; this was a carefully orchestrated strategy to let Congress (just like McCain) knock itself out so he could finally step forward to save the day.

And all that genuflecting on the world stage and those unilateral concessions—there must be a game plan, a secret deal, with Russia. He’s got it wired. The same with that secret Iranian nuclear plant. Sure he knew about it and didn’t say anything, but it really was better—and he knew this all along—to delay the revelation and let months and months pass as the Iranian mullahs worked diligently to cement their regime and advance their nuclear program. Can’t you just hear the gears whizzing in the White House?

And this was true of  the Olympic-city bid as well. Observers were convinced that the deal to give it to Chicago was set, because no president would go—and no staff would let him go—to Copenhagen to be humiliated, right? Uhh, no. They hadn’t a clue and they had no game plan. They played roulette with the president’s prestige—and lost.

Could it be that there is less to Obama and his team of geniuses than we were led to believe? Maybe Obama’s domestic and foreign-policy agenda is all based on wishful thinking: a cost-neutral health-care plan will emerge from Congress, talks with Iran will produce results, sweet-talking the Russian bear will pan out, there is some magic pill to achieve victory in Afghanistan that has escaped the nation’s leading counterinsurgency gurus, and private-sector jobs will return despite the anti-employer policies flowing from Washington.

Could it be that Obama is not, in fact, a sophisticated analyst and astute policy wonk but merely has led a charmed political life, benefiting from a series of inept opponents (think Alan Keyes, the snarling infighters in Hillaryland, and the McCain gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight), a sycophantic media, and an electorate willing to give him every benefit of the doubt? It might just be that neither he nor his advisers have thought through much of anything because they convinced themselves that they had the secret weapon, the gravity-defying political colossus. Obama could get away with doing seemingly inexplicable things (e.g., picking a fight with Israel over the nonstarter settlement freeze, backing the lunatic Manuel Zelaya, allowing the left wing in Congress to write his agenda) because this charismatic leader would inevitably defy the odds (not to mention public opinion, geopolitical realities, and common sense) and get results that mere mortal politicians could not.

The IOU rebuff may turn out to be Obama’s man-behind-the-curtain moment, straight out of the Wizard of Oz. It may be that the whole Hope and Change routine has been little more than a lot of cheesy special effects—and a cynical game to convince the public that the great and powerful leader really is worthy of awe.

The people are finally figuring out the act.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 6:05 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.