Barack Hussein Obama has been compared to many politicians. He has been compared to Jimmy Carter, Papa Bush, Hugo Chavez, Idi Amin, Mao Zedong and Benito Mussolini, but Michael Barone has a different take. He compares Obama to Peter Seller’s character Chauncey Gardiner in the 1979 movie Being There. Like that character, Obama is aloof and acts like he is above it all. He has an aloof and nonchalant style to governing.
Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.
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But there is another comparison I think more appropriate for a president who, according to one of his foreign-policy staffers, prefers to “lead from behind.” The man I have in mind is Chauncey Gardiner, the character played by Peter Sellers in the 1979 movie “Being There.”
As you may remember, Gardiner is a clueless gardener who is mistaken for a Washington eminence and becomes a presidential adviser. Asked if you can stimulate growth through temporary incentives, Gardiner says, “As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well in the garden.” “First comes the spring and summer,” he explains, “but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.” The president is awed as Gardiner sums up, “There will be growth in the spring.”
Kind of reminds you of Obama’s approach to the federal budget, doesn’t it?
