Team Obama: Starting Jr. Varsity

Team Obama: Starting Jr. Varsity

Great article here... some highlights(lowlights)

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Clearly, it is way too early for any of the new stabilization and stimulus programs to have taken effect. Why then is the consensus so pessimistic? Certainly the political wrangling of the past month has dispelled optimism that President Obama can change the contentious nature of American politics. Both Democrats and Republicans have spurned Obama’s leadership. The free-for-all over the stimulus bill portrayed Congress in the worst possible light — no surprise there — and led Americans to view not only the process but the bill with utter skepticism. Delivering a 1000-page bill to our legislators just two hours before the signing deadline (and then going on a long-weekend holiday before signing it) was outrageous. The mortgage relief plan hasn’t been received much better. Most Americans (ninety two percent, by some estimates) pay their mortgages on time; they’re darned if they know why they should bail out their neighbors.

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The White House scramble has led to creeping fear that we’re dealing with the Junior Varsity. I’ve even heard people pining for former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson — hard to imagine, right? (No one quite misses Bush yet; let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.)

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Now we need President Obama to quit the campaign trail and start looking presidential. He needs to take ownership of the country’s problems and solutions. We all get that he inherited this mess, but as a candidate he had a lot of answers on how he would manage the clean-up; it’s time to get on with it. 

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My concern is that recent events have squelched that optimism among consumers, and that the nation’s mood is even darker than it was a few months ago. Remember how Obama derided the “politics of fear?” He’s become its greatest champion.

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The same thing is being echoed by Democrat and Republican alike. Team Obama is playing fast and loose with this crisis. It freakin amateur hour at the Treasury and Obama is sitting on the sidelines. He has not been directly involved with Porkulus or the housing bailout. He doesn't have a clue what was in the 1,000 page Porkulus Bill. He is leaving things to Harry and Nancy and Little Timmy Geithner (who is still hiding under his desk after the banking collapse of the past 5 days).  When Obama does speak and attempt to lead he does it as Dr. Doom and Mr. Blame-the-other-guy. All I have heard from the Savior is how he inherited a problem and its everyone elses fault causing it and not solving it. He has also been the master of sidestepping questions and giving half answers and Wall Street is getting pissed (not to mention Europe and China). 

What Barack should have said...

Commentary: Obama should have told us the whole sad truth

What Barack should have said...

"Friends: This thing is a lot worse then I thought. Just like many of you, we are way over our budget. Some of you bought houses you couldn't afford. Many of you spent more money than you made and put the stuff you couldn't afford on your credit cards. The banks were irresponsible, and Wall Street was greedy, but I have to admit to you, the guys and gals over in the Congress have been spending at record rates, too. And they still have a bunch of pet projects they want to spend on, too. That's why this bill got bloated.

"And, oh, by the way, the $800 billion that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to spend is money we don't have. The U.S. is broke just like you are, and the banks that I have to borrow from are thousands of miles away in China. We are going to spend $1 trillion-plus more than we take in this year in revenue, and next year it will be $2 trillion. That's on top of the $10.8 trillion that we owe in national debt.

"And if you don't think the banks have any money, the Federal Reserve is loaning them trillions."

"Together, we are going to get out of this thing!"

Instead this is what we got:

He was glib, rambling, a little long-winded and very defensive. But he is a talent and very likeable even when he is being serious. And he had plenty to be serious about.

On numerous occasions, he made sure reporters and the millions tuning in knew that he had inherited a mess, the Republicans weren't helping him at all, and things were tough.

After spending hundreds of millions of dollars and traveling thousands of miles over the past two years running for this office, did he think he was going to get the big plane, the big house, the box at the Kennedy Center and Camp David without the heavy lifting? Well, maybe not this heavy a load.

Barack is back on the campaign trial

Barack is back on the campaign trial

Barack is “campaigning” to rally support for Porkulus.

Does he really think he is back on the campaign trail? 

Last I checked the House and Senate propose bills and the President 

signs them into law. So what the hell is Obama doing campaigning for

legislation? Shouldn’t he be doing presidential things like having 

negotiations with Iran, ending the war  in Iraq, fixing social security… 

and giving us “hope”?   

Its like Barack has been in campaign-mode for so long that he doesn’t know how to stop.   

This is exactly why you need someone with executive experience 

as President. The executive is the leader and is used to forming 

coalitions and reaching consensus. For all of Bush’s faults at least 

the man had bi-partisan support (tax cuts, Afghanistan, Iraq, the surge etc etc)  

Giving credit where it is due...

Mr Obama is expected to name Republican Senator Judd Gregg as commerce secretary.

Mr Obama will hope that Mr Gregg's nomination can help secure approval for the stimulus package, our Washington correspondent says.

Mr Gregg would be the third Republican in Mr Obama's cabinet.

Leaders from both parties worked to make this deal. Basically Judd Gregg wasn't going to accept the cabinet post if the Democratic Gov of New Hampshire replaced him with a Democrat. But they all (The Gov, the state senate, Obama and Gregg) agreed he should be replaced with another Republican. 

Everyone is happy ... yeaaaaa!!

It looks like a win but feels like a loss.

It looks like a win but feels like a loss.

President Obama could have made big history here. Instead he just got a win. It's a missed opportunity.

do you know anyone, Democrat or Republican, dancing in the street over this? You don't. Because most everyone knows it isn't a good bill, and knows that its failure to receive a single Republican vote, not one, suggests the old battle lines are hardening. Back to the Crips versus the Bloods. Not very inspiring.

Consider the moment. House Republicans had conceded that dramatic action was needed and had grown utterly supportive of the idea of federal jobs creation on a large scale. All that was needed was a sober, seriously focused piece of legislation that honestly tried to meet the need, one that everyone could tinker with a little and claim as their own. Instead, as Rep. Mike Pence is reported to have said to the president, "Know that we're praying for you. . . . But know that there has been no negotiation [with Republicans] on the bill—we had absolutely no say." 

What was needed? Not pork, not payoffs, not eccentric base-pleasing, group-greasing forays into birth control as stimulus, as the speaker of the House dizzily put it before being told to remove it.

"Business as usual." "That's Washington." 

But in 2008 the public rejected business as usual. That rejection is part of what got Obama elected.

Obama lowers himself to Rush

Because Obama directly took on Rush he has opened himself to the petty party politcs that he has claimed to be against. The example he has set has given a green light to liberal groups to attack anyone who is against the President. The President's statements have also given Democrats to feel entitled to anything they want because "they won". 

Because of Obama's actions he has reduced this to "Are you with me or Rush?"

Americans United for Change, a liberal group, will begin airing radio ads in three states Obama won — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada — with a tough question aimed at the GOP senators there: Will you side with Obama or Rush Limbaugh?

“Every Republican member of the House chose to take Rush Limbaugh’s advice,” says the narrator after playing the conservative talk radio giant’s declaration that he hopes Obama “fails.” 

“Every Republican voted with Limbaugh — and against creating 4 million new American jobs. We can understand why a extreme partisan like Rush Limbaugh wants President Obama’s Jobs program to fail — but the members of Congress elected to represent the citizens in their districts? That’s another matter. Now the Obama plan goes to the Senate, and the question is: Will our Senator"—here the ad is tailored by state to name George Voinovich in Ohio, Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, and John Ensign in Nevada—"side with Rush Limbaugh too?”

Partisan Obama getting off on the wrong foot

Bi-partisanism is not just an ideal... it needs to be the result as well. You can't say you are being bi-paritsan (or non-partisan as Nancy Pelosi says) when the result is dramatic division. You can't strut around saying "we won" and that is is my way or the highway and ever expect to get anything constuctive done. Obama has not offered one olive branch to Republicans, he does not seem to want to work in a united front on this, quite the opposite really.  As of yesterday only 42% of Americans think this is a good idea and the bill in the House didn't even get 100% Democratic support.  "This isn't about playing the game, this is about doing something good for the American people," Republican Jon Kyl said at a briefing with several of his Senate colleagues, accusing the Democrats of ignoring their objections. "It doesn't seem they were interested in the same kind of bipartisan outreach that the president was," Kyl said. "We are too often met with this response: 'we won.'" Senator Roger Wicker echoed his colleagues in calling for more time for debate, highlighting a full-page ad by more than 300 free-market economists in the Washington Post against the stimulus package. "Ladies and gentlemen, a trillion dollars is a terrible thing to waste," he said. "Let's be careful we're not making the situation worse in an attempt to make it better." "We've reached out to Republicans all along the way and they know it," she told reporters, citing the inclusion of Republican tax-cutting proposals and the party's participation in an open House debate. "They just didn't have the ideas that had the support of the majority of the people in the Congress," Pelosi said. "We need to act and we need to act now," she said, highlighting the latest news of job losses, adding she looked forward to marrying the House bill with the version eventually passed by the Senate. But Republican Senator Jeff Sessions said the US public was only just realizing the enormity of the stimulus bill. "I don't think the American people like this. I think after the ground shifts with public opinion, hopefully we'll be able to make some changes," he said.