Obama's "Soft Sell": Blaming Us For His Failures?

The New York Post slaps the whiny bitch-in-chief upside the head:

Here’s President Obama’s newest strategy for re-election: Blame the sagging economy on the American public itself.

Good luck with that one, Mr. President.

“The way I think about it is, you know, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft -- and, you know, we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track,” he said in an interview this week.

Translation: Obama’s policies have nothing to do with the nation’s economic troubles -- it’s everyone else’s fault. Right.

Hey, it’s progress, anyway: At least it’s no longer George W. Bush being held responsible for all Obama’s failures.

Then again, it’s not exactly clear how Americans will enjoy being thrown under the bus by Obama for having been out of work so long and for the nation’s chronically weak growth rates.

Oh, it's clear all right.  Just look at Obama's approval ratings, and note that virtually every Republican in the field beats him, including, in some polls, Ron freakin' Paul. That's because the "soft sell" rhetoric has actually been on display for a while now.  Byron York:

Look at Obama's speeches in the last couple of months, and he has repeatedly scolded audiences for not working hard enough and for not sacrificing enough to achieve the goals he has set for his administration.  He's done it with both supporters and with adversaries.  With friends, his message has been: Nobody told you this would be easy, and you've got to work harder to enact my agenda.  With adversaries, his message is:  You've had it too easy, and you've got to make sacrifices to enact my agenda.  Obama's "gotten a little soft" remark fits into that theme: A soft America is one that is insufficiently willing to work and sacrifice to enact the Obama agenda...


.....Quit complaining. Stop grumbling.  Get to work. Sacrifice.  Obama is constantly telling Americans they need to shape up and snap to it, all for the purpose of making the Obama agenda a reality.

Well, Obama does achieve one dubious accomplishment with his "soft" commentary, I suppose. Charles Krauthammer says that though it’s really hard to do, by blaming America for his problems in referring to America as ‘soft’, Obama has compounded condescension, incompetence and narcissism, all in one sentence.

Perhaps Obama's frustration comes from the fact that were he in academia, a struggling but earnest student like himself would likely be given a strong grade (and maybe even the leadership of the Harvard Law Review!) for his effort and perhaps color of his skin.  Alas, the real world does not work that way, and so an unaccustomed Obama lashes out at the very people who gave him the very job he so desperately craved.

President Carter "malaise" speech in 1979 (Back then, Carter harangued Americans for a “crisis of confidence that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis ... in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation") was similar in underlying meaning to Obama "soft" commentary.  Turned out back then it wasn't the American people who were to blame, it was a weak, feckless, incompetent leader who applied all the wrong (albeit ideological) remedies for our ills.  We switched doctors - to one Mr. Ronald Reagan - and got healthy in no time.

We have an appointment set up for November 2012 with a new doctor, as yet unnamed but from a school of thought that promises a different kind of therapy.  I'm feeling pretty optimistic that we'll finally get the course of treatment we need...