Obama: "I said change is hard. And big change is harder." WH Addresses SNL-Blogger "Do Nothing/Weak" Theme

Published December 24, 2015

It started, in a mainstream sense, with the Oct. 3 open to Saturday Night Live where "skit" President Obama admits he's a do-nothing president.

"It's very clear what I've done so far and that is..nothing," fake Obama says to swells of laughter. "Nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it."

In the comedic cycle of things, Obama was an easy Saturday Night target. One day earlier, the International Olympic Committee tossed he's adopted home town, Chicago, out of the 2016 Summer Olympics derby like a slippery sack of medical waste.

"How do you think the left feels," fake Obama asks the SNL studio audience as he inspects his list of accomplishments. "They are the ones that should be mad. Now I'm sure they thought I would have addressed one of the following things by now: global warming, no; immigration reform, no; gays in the military, nuh-uh; limits on executive powers, nope; torture prosecutions, no. So looking at this list I'm seeing two big accomplishments, jack and squat."

See full skit here:

A skit, right? An errant comedic blast, a gimme after the IOC smack-down. right? Yes and no. In its over-the-top way, the bit spoke to rising angst among liberals that Obama's failed to translate campaign slogans of "Change" and "Hope" into concrete action.

Now, it appears SNL was the proverbial canary in the cognoscenti coal mine. Since then, Obama has faced criticism from Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen as a president who inspires "a lot of affection but not a lot of awe," from a blog post in The Nation that labeled Obama "Whiner-in-Chief," and, finally, to Wednesday's blast from Arianna Huffington that Vice President Joe Biden should resign in protest of Obama's clear intention to keep current US troop levels or boost them in year eight of the Afghan war.

Huffington's column drove the White House to distraction. One senior official lamented that "crazies on the right and crazies on the left aren't helping anybody."

Another senior White House official said "there's a division between the electorate and the Washington-blogger-editorial faction."

"Voters are smarter than the cognoscenti," the official said. "Obama has a lot of progressive viewpoints, but he's not an ideologue. I've looked at the data and the president is just as popular with Democrats as he was months ago."

This official called the SNL skit "a canary in the coal mine of an emerging but meaningless cable television narrative."

"We've already accomplished a lot and if we pass health care reform then this we will be judged as a year for the ages," the official said. "If we don't pass health care, it will be judged as less so."

Obama addressed this emerging do-nothing "narrative" today in New Orleans.

"You know, I listen to sometimes these reporters on the news and, "Well, why haven't you solved world hunger yet," Obama said to sympathetic laughter and an occasional "yes" from the town-hall audience. "Why? Why hasn't everybody done it? It's been nine months. Why? I never said it was going to be easy. What did I say during the campaign? I said change is hard. And big change is harder. And after the last nine months, you know I -- I wasn't kidding. I wasn't kidding about it being hard. I don't quit. We get this stuff done. We keep on going until we get it done. I'm not tired. I'm just getting started."

A new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll showed 43 percent of voters would vote re-elect Obama if the 2012 election were held today. That's down from 52 percent in Fox's April 22-23 poll. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats said they would back Obama's re-election, down from 87 percent in April. Among voters who in 2008 supported Obama, 81 percent favor his re-election, up slightly from the 79 percent who said so in April. See page 5 of 7 here

"There is a restlessness, if you will, on the part of the left," said liberal talk radio host Bill Press. "Liberals tend to be more more impatient and liberals tend to be more critical of the people they work to get in office. Expectations for Obama were so high that he was going to get in and he was going to be perfect and accomplish everything, like, in year one. Which was impossible."

Press said the left credits Obama's handling of the economy and moving to quickly close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But, he says, the left frets Obama has dragged his feet on repealing or, at minimum, not enforcing the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy for gays in the military.

"He doesn't have to wait for legislation," Press says of the president. "He can just pick up the phone and call (Defense Secretary) Robert Gates."

The other point of irritation is a government-financed move into private insurance through the so-called public option.

"He hasn't been tough enough and forceful enough and direct enough on what he wants in terms of a public option and telling the Senate: This is what I want, you deliver it," Press said.

Michael Gerson, former chief speech writer to President George W. Bush, said Obama's has only himself to blame.

"Obama has invited some of this criticism by raising expectations so high, rhetorically, in many of these areas," Gerson said. "The promises that seemed inspirational six months ago to various liberal groups now seem rather empty. He's managed to convince a lot of Americans that he's more liberal than they thought he was. At the same time, he's disappointed his liberal base. That's an accomplishment, of sorts."

Does this ill wind threaten the White House agenda or the mid-term elections? Press doubts it.

"These are bumps on the road," he says. "I'm not too worried about 2010. I'm not certainly worried about Obama's re-election. If we come in to the midterms and the president has the economy moving again, jobs are starting to come back, he's really closed Guantanamo Bay and he's delivered on universal health care -- Bing-Go! What's to worry about?"

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-i-said-change-is-hard-and-big-change-is-harder-wh-addresses-snl-blogger-do-nothing-weak-theme