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President Obama the scold
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By CAROL E. LEE
2/8/10 4:46 AM EST

For a president who ran on uplifting themes like change and hope, Barack Obama spends an awful lot of time scolding Americans about how he hopes they’ll change.

He has advised parents to “replace that video game with a book and make sure that homework gets done.” He has urged members of Congress not to read blogs or watch 24-hour cable news. And he’s challenged lobbyists, lawmakers, bankers, journalists, insurance companies and other heads of state to do a better job.

He’s prodded people to get off the couch, eat healthier and exercise more. He’s even suggested Americans buy stocks, U.S.-made cars and energy-efficient light bulbs, while cautioning them not to max out their credit cards.

At times, having Obama in the Oval Office is like having a really powerful Dr. Phil around.

But lately, Obama’s tsk-tsking has gotten him into some trouble. At the very moment he’s trying to recover his declining popularity and revive his party heading into the November elections, even some Democrats worry that he risks coming off not as the inspirational figure who galvanized the electorate in 2008 but as the embodiment of a dour Democrat that turns off some voters.

Dee Dee Myers, a former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, pointed out that, while Obama has long promised to tell people the truth even when it hurts, he needs to strike a balance.

“Part of what people liked about him during the campaign is that he talks to the American people like they’re grown-ups — you don’t have to pretend that you can eat ice cream and lose weight in order to be president,” Myers said. “He did that during the campaign by appealing to hope. … I think little of that has been lost.”

Added Democratic strategist Paul Begala, another Clinton veteran, “You got to be careful about that stuff, or you become a scold.”

Obama drew criticism for his unusual finger-wagging at Supreme Court justices as they sat in the House chamber during his State of the Union address. He also used the speech to once again press Congress to go public with its earmarks. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Obama’s fellow Democrat, recently told him to “lay off Las Vegas” when Obama urged fiscal restraint by explaining, “You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

The White House says Obama’s admonitions, whether to the Supreme Court about campaign finance law or to Congress about pork-barrel spending, are simply part of his drive to change the ways of the capital.

“A central part of the president’s vision for bringing change to Washington is fulfilling one of his earliest campaign promises: telling people not just want they want to hear but what they need to hear,” said Josh Earnest, White House deputy press secretary.

“That may ruffle the feathers of some entrenched Washington, D.C., insiders, but it’s critical to the president’s pursuit of the priorities of the American people that have been ignored inside the Beltway for too long,” Earnest said.

Still, Democrats have begun to suggest Obama curb the public lectures about his agenda and focus more on private wrangling, with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) recently insisting the president “needs to press harder” if he wants to get health care done.

And Republicans predictably roll their eyes at the steady flow of advice coming from the top of the country’s organizational chart.

“Nobody wants a national nanny,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “It’s really annoying, and people don’t want to hear it.”

Rep. Tom Price, a Georgia Republican, thinks Obama has just taken a Democratic trait to a new level. “They want to tell you exactly how to eat, where to live, what light bulbs to purchase, what car to purchase, what house to purchase — down to the minute detail,” Price said.

But to some extent, it’s an approach that comes naturally to the former University of Chicago law professor, even if it might not always be effective. “The fatherly scold doesn’t work well, at least in part because he’s one of our youngest presidents,” said presidential scholar Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.

Age hasn’t stopped the president, who, at 48, is at ease urging the Obama way — on a range of issues — onto those a lot more experienced than he is. He is at once Americans’ president and their additional dad, teacher, preacher, nutritionist, life coach and financial adviser.

“What you’re now seeing is profit-and-earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it,” Obama told a CNBC interviewer last March.

“If you are considering buying a car, I hope it will be an American car,” Obama said last May.

Americans expect some of this from Obama. During the campaign he talked of the need to make sacrifices for the environment, including turning down the thermostat, and promised to “lead by example.”

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times,” he said at one point.

Obama’s comments often include a heavy dose of “we” and a side of empathy. In a Father’s Day essay in Parade Magazine last year, Obama wrote, “We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids and listening to them and understanding what’s going on in their lives.”

Later, at a White House event, he used his relationship with his daughters to explain that sometimes dads have to give up things they enjoy, like sitting around watching ESPN.

“I like watching the highlights,” Obama said. “But sometimes instead of watching the third, fourth, fifth time, ‘SportsCenter,’ I just watch it once so that I can then spend time with the girls.”

When it comes to the ways of Washington, Obama is full of scolding. He shames members of Congress for partisanship. He maligns lobbyists for their influence. He shuns politics even as he advises Democrats how to keep their jobs.

“I think if everybody here — excuse all the members of the press who are here — if everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, your — just turn off the TV — MSNBC, blogs — and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics,” Obama told Senate Democrats last week.

One of Obama’s favorite roles is playing the nation’s public editor. His criticism of cable news “chatter” is now routine. But, recently, he widened his media critique to include “our friends with the pads and the pencils.”

As his chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, recently told The New Yorker, Obama is on a mission “not just to change politics in Washington but to change the culture of Washington, and the media is part of it.”

Still, Obama’s technique has an impact.

After Obama told Senate Democrats to turn off the computer and the TV, Reid said he took the president’s advice.

“Mr. President, you’ve told me, suggested: Don’t pay any attention to the blogs, don’t listen to talk radio, don’t watch cable TV,” said Reid. “And I follow that advice pretty good.”

BTW, Murtha was a Hillary backer.

I cover several school districts as well as the county legislature and the expected cuts are mind-numbing.

Parents are outraged that programs will be cut, residents are afraid their property taxes are going up and school staff are terrified they’re going to lose their jobs.

It’s getting so bad that in one district an employee who was riffed (reduction in forces) threatened his direct supervisor and the entire district was put in lockout for the whole day coz the employee had access to all buildings.

On another note, two of the county’s weekly newspapers went out of business over the past few days and one that I’m working for, which has been published for over 100 years, is skating close to the edge.

Things are bad out there.

BTW – RIP John Murtha.