And excellent piece by Richard Cohen in today's Washington Post.
I suffer from Tea Party envy. There is little about the actual party I like and there are some members I abhor, but I am jealous of its sense of purpose, its determination and its bracing conviction that it is absolutely right. In its own way, it waves a crimson battle flag while President Obama’s is a sickly taupe — the limp banner of an ideological muddle.
Obama would be a good White House chief of staff, but as a president he lacks political savvy. He never knew how to get ahead of the Tea Party wave. He never knew how to marshal — or create — his own constituency. Republican invective notwithstanding, he lacks demagogic tools. He tries to solve problems instead of, for the Republicans, creating them. Barack Obama does not do pain.
[The Tea Party] knows precisely what it wants to do. It stands in shimmering contrast to Obama, who seems vaguely at a loss. He had ideas galore, but they were merely interesting and not powered by ideological passion. He liked. He didn’t love. Afghanistan is the epitome of Obamaism: More troops and then fewer troops and the goal is not to win, just merely to end it so that it does not look like a loss. It’s a vaporous policy, a war in the spirit of the one waged in Libya, which could have ended by now had the United States not stopped its active participation. Does he want to win? Does he care about losing? What’s the cause? Obama’s wars lack music.The only thing I'd quibble with is everyone talking about the Tea Party as if it exists, or is something new. They're simply conservative Republicans organized by Dick Armey, the former number two Republican in the House under Newt Gingrich. If you think "Gingrich disciple," the Tea Party's conservatism and obstinance make perfect sense. They're not new. This is the Gingrich government shut down all over again, but better played and against a decidedly less adept enemy.
