What's That Smell?

On Friday President Obama lost the vote in the House of Representatives to grant him Fast Track Authority on trade. The majority of Democrats voted no. Obama even went to the hill to meet with Democrats to try and persuade them to his side. He took no questions and by all accounts was insulting and engaged in brow beating.

The question the media is asking is has President Obama lost his influence with the Democratic caucus? Here's the answer (I know they're reading) you can't lose what you never had.

For all of Barack Obama's considerable talents, getting along with and influencing his fellow Democratic colleagues isn't one of them. Mostly because he really doesn't consider them his equal. He is like Zeus casting lightning bolts from Mount Olympus. In his arrogance he believes if these lesser beings would just shut up and trust him everything would be much better.

Barack Obama is a formidable campaigner, you could easily argue that he loves that part of politics. He makes wonderful compelling speeches, but his actions have not lived up to the rhetoric. The problem is he hates the politics of politics. He doesn't enjoy the cutting of the deal and forging coalitions outside of his inner circle. This is most odd coming from someone who was a community organizer or is it? In that role he probably received deference as being the smartest person in the room, even if he wasn't. His time in the Illinois Senate and then the U.S. Senate do not reveal a coalition builder when dealing with other politicians of his own party.

His natural political enemies, the Republicans, is understandable but once he became President, that faction made a grave error. Republicans ratcheted up all things anti Obama to the point they cut their own nose off. They could in fact have accomplished much of their own agenda by working with Obama in his first term. He would have been willing to cut deals with them in order to prove the image of being above politics even if it meant angering his own party. What the Republicans failed to realize is that Barack Obama is  a middle of the road politician, they came to believe their own propaganda. A bag of misrepresentations that had already failed to defeat him and in the process brought the business of the people to a grinding halt. They abdicated their legitimate role as an opposition party engaged in honest debate and supplanted it with lunacy.

Another vote will occur on Fast Track and he may ultimately get it. But what does it really mean for you and I. If the T.P.P. doesn't address currency manipulation, and the President admits it doesn't, how will we deal with it? The Chinese and Japanese have both repeatedly engaged in this activity. How will we compete with a labor force in Vietnam that earns fifty cents an hour? How is it acceptable that multinational corporations will have the ability to challenge any of our laws in trade disputes in secret tribunals?

Lots of questions, lots of opinions, limited information and even less trust.

Wow, my head hurts!