Charisma, character, and the Office of the President.

Obama is in a peculiar situation right now: he just can't win.  It seems that no matter what he does, he's going to be wrong in the eyes of most of the American public.

Some of the shift to this position can be seen in the differences between two articles written by Charles Krauthammer and Peggy Noonan in recent months.  Krauthammer, earlier in September, wrote about how Obama has lost some of his superstar status of late for the Washington Post in an oped entitled Obama the Mortal; Noonan's can be found as an oped for the WSJ entiteld It's His Rubble Now.  While Krauthammer focuses on how Obama's political star power has dwindled a bit, Noonan focuses on how Obama can no longer really blame the Bush administration for all things wrong with the US today.  (Krauthammer has another insightful piece that contributes to Obama's present situation as well, entitled Does He Lie? - an obvious reference to Congressman Wilson's "YOU LIE" outburst; the article is relevant here as it details some of the doublespeak people are detecting in Obama's presentations and agenda.)

Even though these are both conservative commentators writing in conservative journals, their arguments and examples are not so particularly conservative that only a conservative could accept them.  Obama has gone from a super star to a mere mortal to someone that much of the country is pretty frustrated with.  The man can't even win the Nobel Peace Prize properly.  Think about that for a moment - a sitting president of the United States of America has been nominated for and received an international peace prize, and most peoples reactions are "why" and "how could this happen?"  While I too had this same reaction, it is interesting to note that this is the reaction rather than a sense of pride over our nation's leader and his office being recognized.  So too with healthcare, stimulus, and global warming initiatives; Obama is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.  He simply can't do anything right.

How did we get this way?  Is the handling of the Monica Lewinsky scandal to blame?  Is it the liberals' treatment of Bush to blame?  Is it Obama's campaign style, the notion of charisma over character, and both over the office?

Incipit sermones thomistici recalcitrantis...

I suppose it's best to begin with an introduction.

As a graduate student in philosophy, I gained a reputation for being staunchly Thomistic (and derivatively, staunchly Aristotelian). I was that guy who always had some Thomistic objection, or made some Thomistic point, or wanted to talk about metaphysics and natural theology or natural law or virtue ethics. In a broader discussion about Descartes' Meditationes (and my obstinant resistance to them as an undergraduate), the chair of the philosophy department suggested that I was "born with a Thomistic spoon in my mouth." Later, a fellow classmate obliquely referred to me as a recalcitrant Thomist. This seemed like an excellent name for a blog (not only to me, but to several friends as well), and now here we are: a blog about politics, culture, religion, and philosophy from the point of view of the Recalcitrant Thomist.

-RT