http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/06/09/a-sudden-realization/A Sudden Realization
by Richard Fernandez
June 9th, 2014 - 4:02 pm
Ron Fournier reveals that yet another highly placed Democrat has quit on the president. He’s not naming names but paraphrasing what they said. The thing that broke the camel’s back for some was the Bowe Bergdahl incident. But it was not Bergdahl itself that mattered, so much as the train of events of which it was a part.
The email hit my in-box at 9:41 p.m. last Wednesday. From one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington, a close adviser to the White House, the missive amounted to an electronic eye roll. “Even I have had enough.”
Another Democrat had quit on President Obama.
The tipping point for this person was the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl case—not the soldier-for-Taliban swap itself as much as how the White House mishandled its obligation to communicate effectively and honestly to Congress and the public. More than that, Obama’s team had failed once again to acknowledge its mistakes, preferring to cast blame and seek cover behind talking points.
On closer inspection the real reason for the low-level Democrat fever is the unease from the growing suspicion that Obama doesn’t listen to them — listen to people who fancied themselves influential in the Democratic party. One of the foundations of insider self-esteem is to imagine you are a player. If all of a sudden you find the steering wheel through which you imagined yourself exercising influence proved actually like one of those child’s toys which only allow the user to pretend he’s driving — then you realize that you’re not an insider after all.
The illusion of concordance may have held up at first, at the start of the Obama administration. But ever since Hope and Change left the off-ramp it seems headed off into the blue and nobody is quite sure where it’s going. A terrible realization has set in among insiders. Suppose this wheel is disconnected from the steering linkage?
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