Chris Matthews On Obama’s Leadership: ‘We Don’t Know What He Wants’

Chris Matthews contrasted President Obama’s dwindling poll numbers with the sudden invigoration of the Republican presidential campaign, and wondered why the president has not clearly laid out a plan for tackling the big economic issues like the national debt.

Howard Fineman said that while Obama has been generally popular among liberals and independents, many people in both groups are beginning to have doubts about their confidence in his effectiveness. The Washington Post‘s Nia-Malika Henderson emphasized the president, during his speech on the debt ceiling, telling the American people to call their members of Congress, and suggested that the tea party Republicans have “won by saying ‘no.'”

John Ignatius, also from the Washington Post, found Obama to be a “passive” leader who hasn’t given a clear idea of what he would do to improve the economy, which led Chris Matthews to pose the following hypothetical:

“If there was no Tea Party, what would the president want us to do? What would he want us to do in terms of debt reduction? What would he cut? Would he cut? What would he do to create jobs if there was no opposition? We don’t know what he wants.”

Watch the video below, courtesy of NBC:

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