Scott Brown's Victory means -- Obama hasn't given enough speeches

President Obama's State of the Union Address is coming up. The Scott Brown victory put a kink in his plans to celebrate the passage of the Democrats' healthcare reform bill. Apparently this bill meant to the Democrats in Washington "caring for the American people". But to a majority of the American people it seems to have brought to mind arrogance, corruption, the beginnings of a "benevolent tyranny" mindset (witness Harry Reid's language to prevent alteration of parts of the bill by future legislators) and greed for power.

Mark Steyn:

So what went wrong? According to Barack Obama, the problem is that he overestimated you dumb rubes' ability to appreciate what he's been doing for you. "That I do think is a mistake of mine," the president told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we're making a good rational decision here, then people will get it."

But you schlubs aren't that smart. You didn't get it. And Barack Obama is determined to see that you do. So the president has decided that he needs to start "speaking directly to the American people." . . . .

"The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," said Obama. "People are angry, and they're frustrated, not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years but what's happened over the last eight years."

Got it. People are so angry and frustrated at George W. Bush that they're voting for Republicans. In Massachusetts. . . .

Presumably, the president isn't stupid enough actually to believe what he said. But it's dispiriting to discover he's stupid enough to think we're stupid enough to believe it. . . .

The Barack Obama who showed up last Sunday to help out Martha Coakley was a sad and diminished figure from the colossus of a year ago. . .

The most striking aspect of his performance was how unhappy he looked, as if he doesn't enjoy the job. You can understand why. He ran as something he's not, and never has been: A post-partisan centrist transformative healer. That'd be a difficult trick to pull off even for somebody with any prior executive experience, someone who'd actually run something, like a state, or even a town, or even a commercial fishing operation, like that poor chillbilly boob Sarah Palin. At one point late in the 2008 campaign, when someone suggested that if Gov. Palin was "unqualified" then surely he was, too, Obama pointed to as evidence to the contrary his ability to run such an effective campaign. In other words, running for president was his main qualification for being president.

That was the story of his life: Wow! Look at this guy! Wouldn't it be great to have him ...as community organizer, as state representative, as state senator, as United States senator. He was wafted ever upwards, staying just long enough in each "job" to get another notch on the escutcheon, but never long enough to leave any trace.

Read the whole thing for some interesting observations on learning to do something real before entering into a life of writing or speaking.

Charles Krauthammer:

When Obama campaigned in Boston on Jan. 17 for Obamacare supporter Martha Coakley, not once did he mention the health-care bill. When your candidate is sinking, you don't throw her a millstone.

After Coakley's defeat, Obama pretended that the real cause was a generalized anger and frustration "not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."

Let's get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that . . . it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.

And the Democrats are delusional: Scott Brown won by running against Obama, not Bush. He won by brilliantly nationalizing the race, running hard against the Obama agenda, most notably Obamacare. Killing it was his No. 1 campaign promise.

Bull's-eye.

Krauthammer then describes in detail what the voters voted against, (see NYT's effort to soften the bad news) and how the Democrats failed to see this vote coming.

You would think lefties could discern a proletarian vanguard when they see one. . . . .

Krauthammer is a real writer. And he did something real before he became a writer - as a physician and a psychiatrist. Helps to make Mark Steyn's case about how to achieve depth in writing. This piece is worth your time.

Related: Obama doesn't have much experience with political rejection. Will this experience help him move to the center, as past presidents have done when facing such a rejection? Or will he double down and go back on campaign footing - since campaigning is apparently his foremost political talent?