President Barack Obama is on the defensive over his presidential multitasking, for refusing to scrub his schedule of events that seem peripheral — even trivial — compared with the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
As oozing oil fouls Louisiana’s marshes, Obama has committed to maintaining the semblance of a regular schedule, adhering to his walk-and-chew-gum style of crisis management even as criticism of his administration mounts.
That includes a sit-down to talk hoops with Marv Albert, events touting the stimulus and Duke’s basketball team, a Memorial Day appearance in Illinois and a pair of fundraisers in California that roughly overlapped with a memorial service for 11 workers killed in the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon platform...
“There are times and places where his cool, technocratic mastery is a great blessing. ... But, ideology aside, what do you think [President Ronald] Reagan would have done in this situation? He’d be down there. Look at [Louisiana Gov. Bobby] Jindal. ... It is puzzling, the detachment,” said one veteran Democratic strategist, a frequent defender of Obama.
“I just cringe at the specter of the president doing a political fundraiser in San Francisco during the memorial service instead of going to the memorial service,” the person added. “He was sure there for the coal miners in West Virginia; he spoke at their funerals. That juxtaposition can’t be good.”
Some disappointed followers are slowly perceiving that their hallowed image of "the one" does not, in reality, square up to the man himself. Just as with his candidacy, Obama's entire presidency is nothing but an interminable exhibition of elaborate, glossy packaging gimmicks set in motion years ago in order to avoid being exposed as the radical he truly is.
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