Political gamesmanship is not the same as leadership.

Political gamesmanship is not the same as leadership.


Obama’s problem:

He doesn’t need to be a dictator, he needs to be a leader (and he’s not)

Of all the things Barack Obama says, the most pathetic may be when he pleads with everyone to understand that he is “not a dictator.” He says this not for the purpose of exalting the separation of powers inherent in our system. No, he says it as an excuse for not accomplishing things.

Why hasn’t he gotten the deficit under control? Why aren’t we seeing real economic growth? Why is unemployment still way above 7 percent? Why do we lurch from one fiscal showdown to the next?

Because Obama is not a dictator, you see. He can’t make those horrible Republicans do what he wants them to do, so Congress and the president can never make a meaningful deal on anything.

I say this is the most pathetic because Obama’s problem is not that he isn’t a dictator. It’s that he’s not a leader. The 43 presidents who preceded him were not dictators either, and under them we did not see constant fiscal crises, trillion-dollar deficits and a complete breakdown of the working relationship between Congress and the White House.



There were certainly political battles, and I’m not saying by any means that the things that got done were always great things. But we have never seen anything like the constant drama and confrontation we’re seeing now.

Let me explain the difference between leadership and what Obama does, because to him it might seem like he’s leading. After all, the polls continually show that the public takes his side in the showdowns with Republicans. Doesn’t the mean he’s leading? Doesn’t that mean he’s selling his ideas to the public and the Republicans are just being obstinate in their refusal to go along?

No. That’s not leadership. That’s political gamesmanship. Obama is very good at that. Political gamesmanship means that on any given day, you can convince a fed-up citizenry to be madder at the other guy than they are at you. Or you can impress the media with the notion that you’re outmaneuvering the other guy politically, such that they praise you for your shrewdness and the public reads headlines of another “win for Obama.”

Political gamesmanship keeps your poll numbers looking good, but it’s not leadership. Leadership is when you honestly put forward your vision for the nation, and the public is so sold on your vision that they not only support it but demand that their representatives in Congress do the same.

The public is not demanding that Congress support Obama’s vision. Most of them don’t even know what it really is because he doesn’t tell them. For example, people hear Obama say we need a “balanced approach” to reducing the deficit that combines “revenues” (tax increases) and spending cuts. That sounds good, but what Republicans in Congress know is that Obama a) has no intention of seriously cutting spending; and b) has never proposed a tax increase that makes even the tiniest dent in the massive deficit.

That’s why it’s not leadership. If Obama had a plan that would really balance the budget by cutting spending and raising taxes, and the public was behind the plan, Republicans might not like it but they might feel compelled to support it anyway lest they feel the public’s wrath. But since they know Obama has no such plan, and has misled the public through political gamesmanship, they recognize it is merely a political trap for them to support his agenda.

So he’s left to whine about not being a dictator. Dictators need their absolute power because they can’t honestly sell the people on what they want to do. Obama tries his best to baffle them with Bolshevik, and the media try their best to give him cover when he does so. But leaders solve problems, and the truth is that Obama has no solutions to the nation’s biggest problems.

What he thinks is the fault of his lack of dictatorial power is actually caused by this: He is not very good at the job of being president of the United States.