bobbyw24
12-20-2009, 08:49 AM
By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Nearing the end of his first year in office, President Barack Obama is in many ways a changed man.
He's stayed the course on his highest-profile goals, still reaching for universal health care, still striving for a global pact to curb global warming.
Governing has proved to be far different from campaigning, however. The world looked different once elected. The economy raced even faster toward collapse and Afghanistan worsened. Congress turned out more difficult. The world proved resistant to his charms.
Also, the image of Obama as an idealistic, post-partisan leader who'd transform politics at home and abroad has given way to a more pragmatic, partisan politician, one who's abandoned or broken promises in pursuit of deals such as health care, who no longer invites Republicans to the White House for drinks, who's seen his outreach to rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea met with defiance.
"They always change," said George Edwards, a scholar of the presidency at Texas A&M University.
"Campaigning is wonderland. It's all aspirations, like saying let's close Guantanamo Bay. But you get in and, gosh, it requires a lot of things that are hard. ...They've learned some things about the basic strategies of governing."
"He was the 'Yes, I can' president confronting a 'No, you can't' world. He's learned a lot from that," said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department adviser and the author of the soon-to-be-published book "Can America Have Another Great President?"
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/80973.html
WASHINGTON — Nearing the end of his first year in office, President Barack Obama is in many ways a changed man.
He's stayed the course on his highest-profile goals, still reaching for universal health care, still striving for a global pact to curb global warming.
Governing has proved to be far different from campaigning, however. The world looked different once elected. The economy raced even faster toward collapse and Afghanistan worsened. Congress turned out more difficult. The world proved resistant to his charms.
Also, the image of Obama as an idealistic, post-partisan leader who'd transform politics at home and abroad has given way to a more pragmatic, partisan politician, one who's abandoned or broken promises in pursuit of deals such as health care, who no longer invites Republicans to the White House for drinks, who's seen his outreach to rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea met with defiance.
"They always change," said George Edwards, a scholar of the presidency at Texas A&M University.
"Campaigning is wonderland. It's all aspirations, like saying let's close Guantanamo Bay. But you get in and, gosh, it requires a lot of things that are hard. ...They've learned some things about the basic strategies of governing."
"He was the 'Yes, I can' president confronting a 'No, you can't' world. He's learned a lot from that," said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department adviser and the author of the soon-to-be-published book "Can America Have Another Great President?"
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/80973.html