Leaving Political Capital on the Table

A politically savvy, relatively non-partisan friend and I were discussing the Osama bin Laden killing's affect on the polls and my friend assured me that whatever gain Obama would garner would soon be mitigated ("pissed away" were his exact words) by small, unecessary PR fumbles deriving from the very nature of Obama's urban, elitist leftism. The PR handing of bin Laden's death was the first evidence that my friend was right. The overt pander to Muslim sensitivity in the news of bin Laden's proper Muslim burial was both annoying in its obviousness, open to attack on a logical basis (was OBL a super-duper Muslim worthy of respectful Muslim protocol?), and open to ridicule (did we shoot him in the head according to Islamic tradition?). Now come the additional fumbles and gaffes to remind the nation just who occupies the Oval Office. One of the latest comes from Michelle Obama. Reminiscent of her over the top Spanish vacation amid both our economic doldrums as well as her call for "sacrifice", FLOTUS invites a rapper who has laudatory gushings for cop-killers to a poetry confab at the White House. I can't get worked up about this (I don't like it, but it's a "life is too short" kinda thing for me), but it is such an obvious PR gaffe it leaves me scratching my head. After the Gates/Cambridge/"Acted Stupidly" thing, you would think the professional, all-powerful political team within the Administration could avoid another stick in law enforcement's eye, but no. New Jersey State Troopers. I'd say that's a pretty solid Democratic group. Maybe they won't take such offense as to vote against Obama come 2012, maybe they will. Why tempt fate? Answer, these people don't feel that they are tempting fate or taking any risk whatsoever; in fact it is more likely that they feel these are positive moves, pro-active enhancements both to the world and their role in it. That's fine, but reality is often contrary. This is classic Reagan wisdom about liberals knowing so much of what isn't so. Anyway, between, the PR gaffes, the genuine neophyte failures and the well-intentioned urban elitist gestures, it's pretty clear my friend was right and that Obama is not going to get as much juice from the bin Laden killing as he could have (no matter how much the MSM puts its fingers on the scale!!)