An FDR Lesson Obama Missed

by Wesley Pruden - March 2nd, 2010 - Washington Times

Barack Obama is trying to be the new FDR before the concrete settles around his image as the new Jimmy Carter. History will ultimately decide, but last week's celebrated health care summit made him look more like Mr. Jimmy than FDR.

The president was full of self-righteous talk, mostly about himself, and he twice felt it necessary to remind everyone that he's the president, recalling Richard Nixon's bizarre reassurance that he was not a crook. Some things are self-evident, and if they're not, such things are usually not true. We can stipulate that, like it or not, he's the president.

How much contempt for his opponents does Obama have to feel to continue to think it necessary to remind them he is the President? It is not insecurity. Nothing indicates Obama is insecure. Quite the contrary, he is secure and confident in the face of continuing examples of his own inadequacies. This was on display at the recent health care summit when he tried to make a point about how insurance companies treated their customers unfairly using an example from his own youth.

All the example proved was that he did not understand the difference between liability insurance, collision insurance and uninsured motorist insurance. He tried to make a claim against his insurance company for a rear end accident that would only have been covered under one of the last two policies when it was clear he had only purchased the first. The embarrassment is that he still does not understand the difference. This naive amateur was making a point that would have embarrassed anyone else in the room. Yet he thought it brilliant as you could tell from his smug attitude while relating the story.

Except for a few blogs, the media continues to ignore his constant gaffes that would have sunk anyone else ever elected to the office he holds. Clearly this coddling by the media has only reinforced Obama's detachment from reality. He will not shut up no matter how often he embarrasses himself.