John McGuirk

Such is what passes for criticism at the Irish Times these days. You know what? Let’s just go through today’s editorial bit by bit. It is a study in arrogance and bias.

A YEAR into his term, notwithstanding the utopian hopes of his admirers that he could in Tom Paine’s words “begin the world again”, it must be conceded that Barack Obama does not walk on water.

Even the messiah himself is imperfect.

As anniversaries go, it could not have been much worse. In Massachusetts, which he took in the presidential election with a 26-point majority, a humiliating Senate byelection defeat on Tuesday night put in doubt his flagship healthcare reform package. It was all the more galling for being the seat held for more than four decades by that package’s greatest proponent, the late Ted Kennedy who called it “the cause of my life”.

OK,  I admit it, I quite very much enjoyed the anguish coming from that bit.

It would be illusory to believe that the loss of the Democrats’ filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate compounds perceptions that Mr Obama was a naive newcomer, unable to complete any of his great projects. But, it presages ill for the autumn’s mid-term elections where the most vulnerable seats are almost all Democratic, notably in the Senate.

FACT CHECK: The most vulnerable seats are actually evenly split between the parties, but polls show Democrats having more trouble holding their swing seats than are the Republicans.

BIAS CHECK: Why, exactly, would it be illusory to believe that yet another failure by this President to deliver a result in his own favour yet again compounds the perception many of us had that the guy is an amateur? Because you say so?  He went to Copenhagen and lost the Olympics, went back and failed to get a Climate Change deal, went to Virginia and New Jersey and lost both State Houses, and now went to Massachussetts to campaign and managed to lose the Democrats safest Senate seat.

It is easy to depict the candidate who had thrived on perceptions that he would usher in a transformational agenda – his presidency, he said, would be “the moment when … our planet began to heal” – as a prisoner of what one writer calls “voracious pragmatism”.

You see that bit there? That bit where he declared himself a planet-healer? That’s where your warning signal was, folks.

The constant management of expectations, the brokering of compromise after compromise in Congress over health, the recommitment to the war in Afghanistan, the deferral of action on jobs while bankers were “rescued”, and delays in closing Guantánamo, have contributed to his gradual alienation from his Democratic base.

NOW we’re getting to the good stuff. The President still has 90% ratings from Democrats. He got thumped in Massachusetts because Republicans and Independents turned against him. Obviously, that cannot be a satisfactory explanation, because it would require admitting that his agenda was far too leftist. This way, if he wins, you get to say “see? pushing hard to the left works!”, and as an added bonus when you lose, you get to say “see! we need to push harder to the left”. It’s an old Irish Times trick – nearly gets me every time.

He is taking fire from left and a reinvigorated though often incoherent Republican right, while independent voters – a majority in Massachusetts – desert him in droves.

BLATANT DISGUSTING BIAS, CHECK – Any examples of Republican incoherence? Any at all? Nah. They’re just crrraaazzzyyy. At least, that’s an easier explanation than you, know, thinking. Or reporting. Or doing anything the “Newspaper of Record” is supposed to do.

Some of it relates to middle-class concern about the costs of his health plan. Much of it is about what Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution sees as a more generalised national “inchoate fear and anger and unhappiness”.

OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK, CHECK: Tell me, dear reader, this: Do you ever notice that when the left wins, it is because voters are voting with “hope” and “energy” and “rainbows” and “kittens”, but when the right wins, voters are FURIOUS and MEAN and RACIST and SCARED and ANGRY?

Oldest trick in the book, and a better example of the Irish Time’s political bias you will never find.

Polls show Mr Obama’s approval rating averaging about 49-50 per cent, down from the 75 per cent at the time of his inauguration, and pundits are already beginning to write his political obituary … “this failed presidency”.

Those would be the better polls.

Yet such impatient verdicts are utterly premature both in terms of his electoral prospects in 2012 and delivery on his political agenda. A decline in public support for first-year presidents is normal and by no means terminal – he can look back to Bill Clintons remarkable comeback to win a second term after the 1994 mid-terms when the Democrats lost control of both houses.

STATING THE OBVIOUS, CHECK.

Any judgment on his delivery must take account of the horrendous Bush legacy he inherited and the ludicrous expectation that his programme of work could be done in a year. He has restored America as a player with respect on the world stage. The US is seen in a different light internationally. He moved on healthcare in his first year when his mandate was strong. There are now the first signs of shoots of economic recovery.

TOTAL SPIN, CHECK. First, we say that any achievements must be measured against a guy who we have decided is dreadful – thus setting the bar pretty low, on your own terms. Second, we set up a straw man, attacking an idea (that Obama had a year to achieve everything) that nobody, anywhere, ever, has supported. Third, we make a broad and subjective assertion about something pretty intangible like “standing on the world stage” but make sure not to give an example of a single achievement to back the assertion up. Can you think of one? Madam clearly couldn’t. Fourth, you give him credit for “moving on healthcare” as if that was an accomplishment. The fact is, nothing has been accomplished, and his mandate has been frittered away pushing it. The line that takes the biscuit, however, is right at the end:

The long view of history will view him more kindly than the voters of Massachusetts.

WHAT??? What?? You just said that judging the man negatively after one year was wrong. You just said that! Right there! But in Madam-world, it’s PERFECTLY OK to bestow not only a positive view, but the glowing judgement of history on him after one year??

I rest my case. The newspaper is a joke.