The Me-Me President

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

During Monday night’s debate nearly 60 million of us got a good look at why Barack Obama has not been able to accomplish anything in four years.

It’s his patronizing, me-me personality.

Did you see how condescending he was toward Mitt Romney, not to mention downright rude at times?

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

Obama’s more-presidential-than-thou attitude, which he did little to hide or dial back at the debate, should have reminded us of what happened in the first two weeks of his administration.

Remember when he met with congressional leaders and said he wanted to come up with a bipartisan solution for the country’s economic mess?

It began with a spirit of compromise and mutual respect. But at one point, when Obama became displeased at the Republicans’ ideas for a recovery plan, he turned to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and arrogantly said, “Elections have consequences and Eric, I won.”

The president spoke condescendingly to Cantor, and guess what? Nothing got accomplished in Washington. For nearly four years.

But Obama’s arrogant, condescending attitude to those mere mortals who are not rock-star politicians (or “eye-candy” for the women who watch “The View”) didn’t start with his presidency. It’s how he acted when he was a community organizer and it’s how he’s acted at every stage of his political life since then.

He doesn’t look at people and speak with people. He speaks down to people. And when you do that, you rarely succeed in getting anything done in politics or anywhere else.

Even Obama’s friends in Congress won’t cooperate with him. They’re tired of being talked down to, too. Democrats have not given him one positive vote for any budget he has put forward.

Compare Barack Obama to Mitt Romney’s way of working with people. Mitt’s been successful at everything he’s tried. It’s because he speaks with people. He embraces people. He works with people. He doesn’t patronize or speak down to them.

Ronald Reagan, in order to get all the things done in Washington that he did, also knew how to treat people. He embraced people — both his friends and his enemies. He never talked down to anyone in his life.

My father also knew something about sharing credit that our Me-Me President clearly doesn’t understand.

My father had a plaque on his desk that read, “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

Ronald Reagan knew that when you’re in Washington everyone wants to take credit for anything and everything that gets done. Not being willing to share the credit is another reason you won’t be able to accomplish anything.

But this president has a real problem with giving credit. If he had a plaque on his desk, it’d read, “The credit begins and stops here — with me.”

Did you hear how many times the president said “I” or “me” during the last debate? Did anyone hear a single “we”?

I don’t know if anyone counted on Monday, but during a 25-minute stump speech in Ohio in July Obama said the “I” word 98 times and the “me” word 19 times. (A few weeks later first lady Michelle’s total was 83 times in 25 minutes, so maybe it runs in the family.)

As long as the president is going to use the words “I” and “me,” “we” are never going to accomplish anything in Washington if he’s in charge.

All I can say, America, is that “I” can’t vote Obama out of office on Nov. 6. But “we” sure can.

Copyright ©2012 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com or call 800-696-7561.