“I am not an ideologue” ??!!

George Rebane

This guy gets more unbelievable by the hour.  Obama claims not to have an overarching ideology that informs his decisions??!!  An ideology is a coherent and cohesive set of tenets that comprise the socio-political part of a well-formed belief system.  And according to the dictionary, an ideologue is one who has such an ideology.  A reasoned ideologue is one who will modify any of his tenets when presented with compelling evidence that his current ones are wrong.  Recall Keynes’ famous reply to a reporter, ‘I change my mind when presented with new evidence, what do you do?’

Are we to believe that the community organizer got to be President without having an ideology that he uses as the basis (or utility function for you decision analysts) for making the hard decisions that are called for by his office??  What kind of BS is that to feed to the nation via yesterday's meeting with Republicans?

Does this make him doubly stupid or does it elevate him to the pantheon of gods where his decisions from Olympus come down to us in their purity, and to us mortals their basis is a mystery hidden in the mists.  He has behaved as the most ideological President since FDR, and if he now claims to have done it without benefit of a stable and defendable ideology, then what does he do, use that eight-ball with the little round window?

(Full disclosure – Dear reader, I do my best at being a reasoned ideologue.  But you knew that.)

Comments

[Michael Anderson]

I think Obama certainly has an overarching ideology upon which he depends for guidance. But Reagan was the last president whereby this trait was acceptable to the American people for some reason, and so all presidents since Bush I have had to pretend that they are nothing more than a mirror of their sacred constituency.

Bullshoy.

Bush II was the poster boy for claiming to not have an overarching ideology when he really did. He was just a guy you could have a beer with!

I would make the case that Bush II's overarching ideology, perhaps best exemplified by the Bush Doctrine, came out of the Joint Chiefs and Company rather than George's studied world view (if such a thing actually exists). But still, it was an overarching ideology.

We have until January, 2013, to find out the Obama backstory. Stay tuned.

[Mikey McD]

My "presidential lie counter" ran out of digits. He might not be an idealogue, but his puppeteers certainly are.

Until I hear otherwise I will assume that Obama's quote was an attempt at sarcasm.

[Mikey McD]

George, I thought you miss quoted our head politician “I am not an ideologue”... I apologize, you were correct: here is the short slip.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/01/29/obama_to_gop_i_am_not_an_ideologue.html