Reagan leadership vs. Obama leadership

By Tom Quiner

What characterizes Barack Obama?

Some suggest it is his eloquence and charm.

Some say he’s just plain cool.

What strikes me about him is this: he’s a blamer.

Every problem in the country is either George W. Bush’s fault, Republicans’ fault, or God’s fault.

He can’t work with the other team, because his goal appears to be to crush them.

That’s not how leaders lead. Obama supporters suggest that the political climate has changed. They support the contention that it is Republicans who poisoned the well. The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan suggests otherwise:

“When Reagan came in they vowed to take him down, and it was personal. Speaker Tip O’Neill called him “ignorant” and a “disgrace” and said it was “sinful” that he was president. He called Reagan “a man who has no care and no concern for the working class of America” and said: “He’s cold. He’s mean. He’s got ice water for blood.” Chris Matthews, an O’Neill staffer, says he once greeted Reagan in the Capitol with the words: “Mr. President, welcome to the room where we plot against you.”

Reagan had thick skin.

Unlike O’Neill’s assertion that Reagan was “ignorant,” Reagan was in fact brilliant. He knew people.

He knew how work with people, to really “reach across the aisle” and hammer out compromise. He got 37 Democratic Senators to vote with him on his historic tax cut legislation along with 48 Democrats in the House. Contrast that with Obama who couldn’t get a single Republican to vote with him on Obamacare, since he excluded them from the conversation.

Reagan overcame very stiff political opposition in his day and galvanized enough Democrat support to change not just our country for the better, but the world.

The difference between Reagan and Obama? Reagan was a leader. Obama isn’t.