My guess is that much of Obama's political
<i>strategy</i> is mostly just to pretend. So, there
he sees a public issue and says something,
just something, just says it, to defuse the
issue and, then, counts on (1) the mainstream
media not getting into the details of what
is wrong with the fantasy statement, (2) the
voters being busy with other things, and (3)
soon something else in the headlines.<p>Except for the fantasy statements, Obama
is careful about actually doing anything.
He's good at making sure that whatever
happens, he is not held to blame.<p>But he does actually do some things:
He pushed 'clean, green, pure, pristine,
100% all-natural energy' and got a
lot of campaign contributions. He
has pushed ObamaCare but seems to
want to 'push' its implementation out
past the end of his second term
(fine with me). So,
he wants ObamaCare as fantasy but not
as actual implementation. He does some
little things in Syria, e.g., supposedly
trained about 20 rebels in how to use
some Russian missiles; so, he gets to
claim to support 'fighting for freedom'
or some such in Syria without actually
doing much or much he could get blamed
for. He asks the DoD to give him
options for doing more in Syria, no
doubt already knowing that all the options
would be high on cost and low on
effectiveness and that he won't approve
any of the options; but just by making
public that he asked for the options
he will please some voters. After one
of the high school shootings, he visited
the site and said he was going to 'get
the guns' or some such. Of course the
Second Amendment and the NRA are still
there, along with a lot of gun owners
in rural and Western states. But the
high school shootings are out of the
headlines now. We could go on and on
this way.<p>For the NSA leak issue, he sees right
away that a lot of voters are concerned
about the Fourth Amendment and so
makes statements, like the one to
Leno, that he is against 'over reaching
government' or some such. But as the
Salon article explained in detail,
what Obama said to Leno was just nonsense.
But such nonsense is about all Obama
needs because only a tiny fraction of the
voters will get as deep as the Salon
article, and the MSM mostly won't
go there. So, superficial nonsense
is enough.<p>Maybe it's a smart strategy. There is
a danger that once people catch on that
mostly he's just passing out fantasy
nonsense no one should take seriously,
too many voters will get pissed. Maybe.
Maybe not.<p>At least he's not actually doing much,
and money he doesn't spend isn't wasted
and projects he doesn't do aren't failures.
We've got plenty of government and
in total don't really need more. So
in a major sense, Obama can get by
without doing very much. Actually
I wish that at times W had done less.<p>There is a risk if the country actually
needs a president; in the meanwhile
it's okay for him to spout fantasy
nonsense on Leno and work on his
golf game and jump shot.