WASHINGTON — 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.
I
also appreciate the fact that it’s harder for you than it was for
J.F.K., W. and all those other pols who had their rich daddies and their
rich daddies’ rich friends to buy anything they needed and connect them
up and smooth the way for them. That gives them a certain nonchalance
in the face of opprobrium and difficulty, a luxury that those who propel
themselves to the top on their own don’t have.
We
understand that it’s frustrating. You’re dealing with some really evil
guys and some really nutty pols, and the problems roiling the world now
are brutally hard. As the Republican strategist Mike Murphy says, it’s
not like the campaign because you have “bigger problems than a will.i.am
song can fix.”
But
that being said, you 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.”
An American president should never say, as you did to the New Yorker editor, David Remnick, about presidents through history: “We’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.”
Mr. President, I am just trying to get my paragraph right. You need to think bigger.
An
American president should never say, as you did Monday in Manila when
you got frustrated in a press conference with the Philippine president:
“You hit singles; you hit doubles. Every once in a while, we may be able
to hit a home run.”
Especially
now that we have this scary World War III vibe with the Russians, we
expect the president, especially one who ran as Babe Ruth, to hit home
runs.
In
the immortal words of Earl Weaver, the Hall of Famer who managed the
Baltimore Orioles: “The key to winning baseball games is pitching,
fundamentals, and three-run homers.” A singles hitter doesn’t scare
anybody.
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?
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