California lawmaker blasts Obama as a ‘professor’

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Atwater), who is retiring at the end of his term, has published a sort of goodbye note to his president, a blistering critique in which Cardoza blasts President Obama as an arrogant “professor” who has alienated himself from his fellow Democrats and the American public.

Writing in the Washington newspaper the Hill, Cardoza called Obama an out-of-touch elitist, given to lectures but uninterested in the struggles of real people.

He spoke of the early days of Obama’s presidency, when the White House, he charges, suffered from “idea disease.”

“Every week, and sometimes almost every day, the administration rolled out a new program for the country,” Cardoza wrote. “This rampant ‘idea disease’ squandered the tremendous goodwill generated by the Obama campaign’s message of ‘hope,’ tainting the president’s personal appeal.”

In the op-ed, Cardoza painted Obama as a lecturer who continually believed he was right and would admonish his staff and members of Congress about “what they could learn from him.”

“President Obama projected an arrogant ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ demeanor that alienated many potential allies,” Cardoza wrote, saying the White House was uninterested in the affairs of ordinary Americans or in how members of Congress from moderate states can help him win reelection.

The White House had no comment on Cardoza’s criticism. The Californian has been at odds with the administration for a while. In announcing his retirement on the House floor, he slammed the White House’s handling of the housing crisis. Cardoza’s Central Valley district, which runs from Stockton to Fresno, has been hammered by foreclosures.

Moreover, the former co-chairman of the Democratic Blue Dog coalition in the House saw his colleagues in the caucus eviscerated in the 2010 midterm election, many undone they believed because of Obama administration’s policies on healthcare and greenhouse gas emissions.

In his column, Cardoza maintains he prefers Obama in 2012 over all the candidates in the GOP presidential field, whom he derided as “goat rodeo clowns,” but his endorsement is halfhearted at best.

“Many on the Democratic side wish Hillary Clinton, Gov. Jerry Brown (Calif.), Gov. Martin O’Malley (Md.) or Gov. Andrew Cuomo (N.Y.) were running instead, but the president still has time to learn a thing or two from these skilled politicians,” Cardoza wrote. “But I fear the overall student body — American voters — will give him a failing grade next November if he doesn’t improve his performance.”