Obama isn’t evil—he’s just bad at his job

last updated 8 January 2015

Kevin Williamson

NationalReview.com

Is Barack Obama evil—or just incompetent? asked Kevin Williamson. That question now divides the Republican Party. Mitt Romney is drawing his support mostly from people like me, who view Obama as a rather conventional, John Kerry liberal who’s in over his head. We think his policies are mistaken, but we don’t hate him. But many conservatives have convinced themselves that Obama is a radical Bolshevik who “is trying to destroy America,” and they despise him as much as the Left loathed George W. Bush.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

This faction of the Right wants a candidate who’ll turn the 2012 election into “a national repudiation” of Obama, the Democratic Party, and progressivism itself. To these Republicans, I say beware. Romney may be “Mr. Plain Vanilla,” but he’s acceptable to the broad middle of the political spectrum, who care mostly about the economy and jobs—not a grand ideological confrontation. An über-partisan firebrand like Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum might frighten them away. Romney’s supporters may not love him, but we’d be “happy merely to win the presidential election.”

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox