MAKING DECISIONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE

John Fund has written an article about Democrats holding office avoiding President Obama at fundraisers because of his presumed unpopularity.  Criticism is rising in Democrat circles regarding his leadership and his "detached" presidency.

What struck me most was a quote from Bob Beckel, a strong Democrat presence on Fox News.  When I have listened to him he has never said a negative word about the president or Democrats, but Fund quotes him as saying:

Bob Beckel, a former Democratic campaign consultant, said on Fox News this week that he spoke with a Democrat “intimately involved in [Obama’s] campaigns, both of them.” The message was sobering: “He said you have to know what it’s like to get through [presidential counselor] Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama, and I think that’s a tough deal for anybody on a staff to do. . . . [Obama] lives in a zone that nobody else goes to.”

So if you want to get through to the president you have to go through Valerie Jarrett or Michelle Obama!  But this does become an increasing concern with the multiple international crises the United States is facing.  Who and how are decisions being made?

One presidential historian says that if the president’s bizarre behavior deepens, people will start making jokes comparing Obama to President Woodrow Wilson, who was debilitated by illness during his last two years in office, with decisions increasingly made by his aides and his wife, Edith. “The comparisons of course wouldn’t be fair, but they don’t have to be to have elements of truth to them.”