"We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For"

One of the most disarming and endearing qualities in any leader--whether a business leader, academic leader, church leader, or politician--is the ability to poke fun at oneself, to engage in self-deprecating humor. It conveys a degree of humility--a quality of not taking oneself too seriously.

By contrast, leaders who display arrogance or an inflated self-importance necessarily separate themselves from those they're leading. They alienate themselves, and are more vulnerable to losing the respect of those they're leading to the point that the followers will soon agitate for new leadership.

The 2010 Midterm Elections witnessed the greatest turnover of U.S. House seats from one party to the other since 1938. The election was not so much a vote in favor of Republican policies or ideas as it was an abject repudiation of President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership. And part of that repudiation comes as a result of Obama's arrogance, who famously stated repeatedly during his campaign for President in 2008 "We are the one ones we've been waiting for!"



Aside from the curious and lazy phraseology of the statement, what is most striking is its puffed up self-importance. Obama was telling all of us that he has finally arrived, although his message is buried in The Royal We. What is The Royal We? It is also known as the Majestic plural and is used, according to Webster, as "the use of the plural pronoun to refer to a single person holding a high office, such as a monarch, bishop, pope, or rector.

So what is so arrogant about the statement "We are the ones we've been waiting for"? By employing The Royal We, Obama was already assuming the mantle of power before he'd been elected. Worse, he was proclaiming to America that he was the one we'd all been waiting for; he had finally arrived. There was not then--nor is there now--a drop of humility in the man. He is generally regarded as thin-skinned, as someone who does indeed take himself all too seriously. You don't find any self-deprecating humor in Obama.

If he was the one we'd been waiting for in 2008, the midterm elections of 2010 should send a clear message to Mr. Obama that we're not waiting for him anymore.

Hubris or Leadership?

The week ahead will be full of political theater. Democrats are poised to force a vote on the House floor for President Obama's healthcare reform package, which would federalize one-seventh of the the U.S. economy. What's remarkable about this legislative effort is that the President and Democratic leaders in Congress continue to push this unpopular bill in spite of the fact that the American people--after more than a year of debate--are clearly telling their elected representatives that--while they want healthcare reform--they do not want this bill to become law.

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, 43% of Americans support the bill while 53% oppose it. More telling, only 23% strongly favor the bill while 43% strongly oppose it. This sentiment is not just being expressed in public opinion polls, but in the polls that are the only ones that count--the ballot box. During the fourth quarter of last year, Democrats suffered defeats in Virginia (a moderate, usually right-of-center state), New Jersey (a consistently left-leaning state), and--remarkably--Massachusetts (the bluest of blue states and consistently liberal). Yet in spite of these electoral losses and the clear message that voters seem to be sending to Washington, Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have clearly adopted a "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" strategy. They are leaning heavily on Democrats to vote affirmatively on the bill, even though many of those Democrats sense that a yes vote will mean a quick ticket home when they come up for re-election this November.

Some see this as leadership--the notion that the President, against a wave of negative polls and the headwinds of public opinion, will lead us out of the morass and into a new era of prosperity with healthcare coverage for all Americans. I see it as hubris on a grand scale.

During a moment of unguarded candor, Obama opened a window on to his view of the often messy democratic legislative process in an interview with Katie Couric of CBS News on February 7: "I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care, and didn't have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it, and just go ahead and have that passed. But that's not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people." 


When one parses this quote, some interesting undercurrents in the President's thinking are revealed:

• He believes that an 'academically-approved' approach is the best. Clearly, if we would only allow the academic elites at Harvard or Yale to figure out this healthcare mess for us and then enact their solutions into law, all would be well.
• Not only is the academic approach best, but it would be 'very elegant'. The democratic process which includes lobbyists, deal-making, public polls, town hall meetings with voters, and commentary from the pundits is unsavory and beneath the dignified, direct, and monarchical approach which Obama would clearly prefer.
• Having 'legislative fingerprints' on a piece of legislation just messes things up. The Constitution is incredibly inconvenient for a man of Obama's intelligence, sophistication, and prowess.

And so it ends with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn't worth it--worth the discord, the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost over the past year is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous. Memo to future presidents: never stake your entire survival on the painful passage of one bad bill.