About a month ago, I laid out my theory that Obama didn’t really want to be president:
In the realm of pure speculation, let’s try to figure out his mindset if Obama, understanding that he wasn’t really ready for the presidency but wanting some practice, ran in 2008 thinking that he wouldn’t win the nomination. So his plan would be that 2008 was supposed to be a dress rehearsal for the real event in 2012. Winning the nomination would put him in the position of a dog who suddenly caught the Honda Civic. He hadn’t planned for this, and on some psychological level didn’t want to abandon his original plan of coming up short in 2008.
But an intelligent person, which Obama surely is, would try his best to adapt. He’s brought in a small army of consultants. For all his intelligence, Obama didn’t anticipate winning, and that’s scared him somewhat, made him trust his judgment less. It was one thing for him to luck into his Senate seat, where his primary and general election opponents self-destructed; it is quite another for him to luck into the White House. Expecting, quite reasonably, to lose, and then winning, would make anyone question his judgment and look for someone with a sounder grasp of affairs. Unfortunately for Obama, he’s surrounded by true believers, whose judgment is (almost by definition) lacking. My hunch is that Obama doesn’t have anybody in his inner circle who tells him the bad news, not because they’re afraid of his reaction, but because they’ve all drunk the Kool-aid.
So we have an intelligent but unsure man, isolated from dissenting opinions, who perhaps doesn’t want to do what everyone around him wants him to do. His advisers, convinced of his inevitability, probably wanted someone who could plausibly take charge of the presidency if, God forbid, something should happen to Obama. Meanwhile, Obama himself probably wanted someone intelligent and experienced, who has Washington insider knowledge and foreign policy background that he himself lacks, and who is independent of the true believers. Picking Biden—chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a senator for 36 of his 66 years on earth, a former sharp critic and rival for the presidency—fits the bill. It also satisfies Obama’s subconscious desire to lose.
Now I see (H/T) that Christopher Hitchens thinks like I do (but writes much better, curse him):
By the end of that grueling campaign season, a lot of us had got the idea that Dukakis actually wanted to lose—or was at the very least scared of winning. Why do I sometimes get the same idea about Obama? To put it a touch more precisely, what I suspect in his case is that he had no idea of winning this time around. He was running in Iowa and New Hampshire to seed the ground for 2012, not 2008, and then the enthusiasm of his supporters (and the weird coincidence of a strong John Edwards showing in Iowa) put him at the front of the pack. Yet, having suddenly got the leadership position, he hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with it or what to do about it.
Look at the record, and at Obama’s replies to essential and pressing questions. The surge in Iraq? I’ll answer that only if you insist. The credit crunch? Please may I be photographed with Bill Clinton’s economic team? Georgia? After you, please, Sen. McCain. A vice-presidential nominee? What about a guy who, despite his various qualities, is picked because he has almost no enemies among Democratic interest groups?
Ah well. We’ve still got about 6 weeks to go. If Obama really wants to blow it, he’ll do something screwy in the debates.
Posted by Hubbard in Audacity of Hype, Hitch-slapped!