With Obama, we were supposed to be getting both a first-rate intellect to go with a first-rate temperament, but it is increasingly obvious that Obama has neither.

I go into considerable detail about the 1982 budget deal in chapter 5 of The Age of Reagan (which in retrospect shows Reagan had much more patience, foresight, bargaining skill, and statesmanship than Obama is showing), but suffice it to say this episode is an anti-precedent for Obama. Not that you would expect him to have any appreciation for this. Increasingly it is apparent that Obama is not the second-coming of FDR, as he hoped, but the second-coming of Woodrow Wilson (Jimmy Carter also fits for multiple reasons), chiefly his arrogance toward Congress and condescension of the American people. I think it was Felix Frankfurter who said of FDR that he had “a second-rate intellect, but a first-rate temperament.” With Obama, we were supposed to be getting both a first-rate intellect to go with a first-rate temperament, but it is increasingly obvious that Obama has neither. Jennifer Rubin dilates this point more fully in her Washington Post blog yesterday.