Maureen Dowd is a member of the radical political left and a columnist at the New York Times — yet the title above is the very same title of her column just yesterday. Yep, you see what we see — the sarcastic and derogatory use of the first name Obama once used, “Barry.” But that’s nothing compared to what else Dowd had to say. In truth, it wasn’t easy to pick excerpts because so much of what she wrote is devastating. It can’t be easy for the president to read this kind of stuff from ideological allies. (The embedded link in the third sentence, by the way, is courtesy of BarbWire.)
Here’s Dowd’s opening:
Stop whining, Mr. President.
And stop whiffing.
Don’t whinge off the record with columnists and definitely don’t do it at a press conference with another world leader. It is disorienting to everybody, here at home and around the world.
I empathize with you about being thin-skinned. When you hate being criticized, it’s hard to take a giant steaming plate of “you stink” every day, coming from all sides. But you convey the sense that any difference on substance is lèse-majesté.
You simply proclaim what you believe as though you know it to be absolutely true, hoping we recognize the truth of it, and, if we don’t, then we’ve disappointed you again.
Even some of the chatterers who used to be in your corner now make derogatory remarks about your manhood. And that, I know, really gets under your skin because you think they just don’t get your style of coolly keeping your cards to yourself while you play the long game. Besides, how short memories are. You were the Ice Man who ordered up the operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
Ouch! And you thought only the political right had fun at Obama’s expense.
Two more short excerpts:
[Y]ou are the American president. And the American president should not perpetually use the word “eventually.” And he should not set a tone of resignation with references to this being a relay race and say he’s willing to take “a quarter of a loaf or half a loaf,” and muse that things may not come “to full fruition on your timetable.”
…
It doesn’t feel like leadership. It doesn’t feel like you’re in command of your world.
How can we accept these reduced expectations and truculent passivity from the man who offered himself up as the moral beacon of the world, even before he was elected?
“Moral beacon”? Why would she say that except to wound. The good news is that we’ve got less than 1,000 days left to the Obama Administration. On second thought, that’s a very long time.
Read more: New York Times
