Will He Compromise?

There are a couple of interesting reviews of Obama's post-election speech out today.

The first comes from Victor Davis Hanson:

In clingers fashion, he once more is talking down to us, explaining that we confused his necessary solutions with a bogeyman increase in big government, and so typically, in fright and ignorance, lashed out at his party. He is claiming the outrage grew from the same frustration that elected him, rather than arising precisely because of him and his agenda. In short, we are angry because his EU-socialist agenda is progressing too slowly and hasn’t delivered as promised — as it will in time. Perhaps then we will thank him for his proper big-government, big-spending solution.

Obama had a truly befuddled and confused look on his face which is understandable given the fact the he truly doesn't understand why he took the "shellacking" that he did.  He can't get his narcissistic head around the fact that it was his policies that were rejected Tuesday night and his agenda.  The public was not rejecting George W. Bush Tuesday; they did that already.  They were rejecting ObamaCare, the stimulus, and the anti-business policies of this administration.

George Neumayr, writing for American Spectator, has a similar take:

Obama couldn't bring himself to admit the obvious, that his liberalism leaves the American people unafraid of alternatives, so instead we got the usual self-serving nonsense about how the American people like the content of liberalism but just resist it in times of distress when Democrats fall down at salesmanship and implementation. In one answer, he even had the audacity to suggest that the American people were too dumb to realize that his bailout-style socialism was only temporary and not a permanent policy. Where could they have possibly gotten that idea?

One other thing that I noted was Obama's nice little story about the tree farmer who asked him if civility in discourse is now dead and Obama  lamented the fact as well.  Yet just 48 hours before Obama himself had called Republicans "the enemy" who needed to "sit in the back" of the bus.  Obama said the time to re-legislate and look back has passed yet four minutes later he was blaming Bush again for his troubles.  


Everything has an expiration date.  Obama might have been reflective and might have promised to "compromise" but I don't expect him to stick with that.  This is the man that also said he'd rather have one strong, good term as president than two mediocre ones.  


I hope I'm wrong; I hope he comes to the center as others who've been "shellacked" before him have done, and try to work to enact the will of the American people, but I'd be surprised.