海角大神

With the news filled with headlines of international chaos in Ukraine, Gaza, Iraq, Libya, and Syria 鈥� just to name five聽world hot spots 鈥� and domestic politics being riled by everything from immigration and a border crisis to ongoing budget disputes, President Obama is once again coming under criticism for聽seeming to ignore what鈥檚 going on around him. Much of this criticism, to be fair, is partisan in nature and not all that different from what we鈥檝e heard from Republicans for the past five years. At the same time, though, the president is finding himself coming under criticism by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for seemingly聽standing back and not doing anything to prod Congress into acting on the border crisis beyond giving speeches聽and polls continue to show that聽the public has lost confidence in the president鈥檚 leadership, something that we have聽seen for several months now.

Peggy Noonan echoed that theme in聽a July 4 column at聽The Wall Street Journal:

This weekend at聽The Telegraph, Matt K. Lewis raises a very similar argument, wondering if聽perhaps the president hasn鈥檛 basically checked out:

As a general rule, I think that the criticisms that have been leveled against President Obama regarding things like how he spends his leisure time are聽unfair. As both and I others here at OTB have noted before, the criticisms of things such as how many times the president has golfed over the past five years (see here, here and here for commentary on that topic) or the fact that he has spent summers vacationing on Martha鈥檚 Vineyard聽or聽the Christmas holiday in Hawaii are silly.聽First of all, the president is never really 鈥渙n a break鈥� whether he鈥檚 on the golf course at Andrews Air Force Base or vacationing. Everywhere he goes he is, of course, accompanied not only by a phalanx of security, but also but numerous aides, the ability to be contacted by the White House at any given moment, and, of course, the guy with the nuclear football, not to mention a press contingent. Secondly, he idea that he鈥檚 actually skipping out on work that he needs to do on any of these occasions is utterly absurd both for these reasons, and because of the simple fact that, as president his job largely involves receiving information and giving instructions to others based on that information. The president doesn鈥檛 go out on his own and implement the policy he sets, he doesn鈥檛 personally lead the military actions or intelligence operations that he authorizes, and the doesn鈥檛 build the roads that the transportation bill he signed funds. When people start complaining about the fact that the president is away from the White House, whether he鈥檚 golfing, or on vacation, or fundraising, then, they鈥檙e are displaying something of a misunderstanding of what the presidency is all about and what a president does or realistically can do. A president who shuts himself or herself inside the White House every time there is some domestic or international crisis isn鈥檛 really going to accomplish much of anything, except perhaps create the perception that a given situation is more serious than it actually is.

All that being said, it does seem quite apparent that President Obama is at least creating the perception that he is disengaged from the problems of the nation and the world, and I鈥檇 suggest that this is at least in part related to issues about his leadership abilities that go back to the beginning of his presidency. Perhaps due in no small part to the fact that he came into office with no executive experience and a political r茅sum茅 that essentially involved being a backbench Democrat in the Illinois Legislature and a senator in Washington. That r茅sum茅 does not appear to have served him well when it comes to dealing with Congress, even when it was controlled by his own party, or working on the international stage. In the case of these particular crises and the state that the world finds itself in today, Obama seems to be creating the impression that he has disengaged. Even if it isn鈥檛 true, and I suspect that it isn鈥檛, this isn鈥檛 a smart impression to be leaving either with the general public or the world as a whole. On some level at least, the American people need to believe that the president is on top of what is happening in the world and taking the actions necessary to protect American interests. As the polling indicates, both in general and on specific issues such as the聽economy聽and聽foreign policy,聽the public has generally lost confidence in the president as a leader, and that鈥檚 not good either for the president or the country.

At this point, I鈥檓 not certain what I鈥檇 suggest the president do to turn this around, assuming that鈥檚 even possible. There鈥檚 no rational reason for him to stop golfing on the weekends or cancel vacation plans. Perhaps toning down the fundraising would be in order, especially when it becomes so conspicuous that even the press is talking about it, and about the fact that they are consistently barred from reporting on what the president says at these events. Indeed, on some level, the issue here isn鈥檛 so much about the president doing something so much as it is about him being a leader, which is as much a matter of appearance as it is one of substance. For the most part the public impressions about the president鈥檚 leadership abilities are set in stone thanks to the events of the past five years. Some of the perception that has set in is due, no doubt, to the incessant criticisms from Republicans in Congress, but in the end the president has nobody to blame for the situation he finds himself in but himself.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.