Is Barack Obama An Articulate George Bush? [UPDATED]
By Larry Johnson on February 12, 2009 at 6:24 PM in Current Affairs
While I strenuously opposed Barack Obama as candidate for President I made clear that I would support him for doing good and decent things. My attempt at being even handed cost me some friends. Patsy and Sugar, for example, walked away because I would not engage in Obama bashing. But the Golden Child’s performance to date is fueling concern that he is in deep water and barely knows how to tread water.
I still hope he succeeds–succeeds in the sense of changing how Washington works, holds office holders to a higher standard and pursues genuine bipartisan policies–but he apparently is intent on colossal failure. Consider the following:
He promises to hold his appointees to a higher standard but then bends the rules for several, most prominently Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who is a tax cheat. We could perhaps excuse this hypocrisy if Geithner had proven to be a genuine wunderkind of finance, but he appears in public with a deer-in-the-headlights gaze and has bombed in persuading the markets and the financial industry that he knows what the hell he is doing. His continued failure to offer details on his plans has been accompanied by a 6% decline in the stock market. Heck of a job Timmy.
Barack Obama has no sense about the power of his words. The other day while boosting the stimulus plan during a stop in Elkhart, Indiana Obama inserted foot into mouth:
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said Tuesday that he wants an apology from President Obama for saying companies shouldn’t visit Sin City on the taxpayer’s dime. The mayor was reacting after hearing remarks Obama made Monday during a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind., where the president traveled to muster public support for economic stimulus legislation.
“You can’t get corporate jets, you can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime,” Obama said. Goodman said Obama’s comments were unwarranted.
“That’s outrageous, and he owes us an apology,” Goodman said in an interview with KLAS-TV after attending a regularly scheduled meeting with Las Vegas tourism officials. “He owes us a retraction.”
Someone forgot to tell boy wonder that there are service workers in Las Vegas who voted for him and who depend on out of town visitors in order to help pay their salaries. There is potential good news, however. Enough democrats may lose their jobs in Vegas that Harry Reid might have a tough time getting re-elected. One can hope.
Then you have the Tony Zinni flap. General Zinni says he was asked to become the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq by NSC Director Jim Jones but then, without explanation or forewarning, the invitation was withdrawn. I am told that David Axlerod cut the floor out from under Zinni following a last minute intervention by some lower level Obama staffers. Professionals do not act this way. This is amateur hour.
You might want to cut Obama some slack and argue this was just one isolated event but it is not. We have the debacles of Bill Richardson and Tom Daschle having to renounce nominations because of inadequate vetting.
And today we saw Senator Judd Gregg pull out as the proposed Secretary of Commerce. Just after he was announced to be the nominee someone on the Obama team let slip that the U.S. Census, which is the major responsibility of the Secretary of Commerce, would be shifted to the White House.
In the same way that George Bush squandered an historic opportunity in the wake of 9-11 to forge a global strategy to combat terrorism by turning instead to partisan politics in a bid to shore up the Republican party, Barack Obama is making an epic mistake by telling Republicans to fuck off on the economy and throwing in with the petty partisan politics of Pelosi and Reid.
Despite calls for transparency he is hiding information about the waivers he is giving to former lobbyists. He denounced earmarks but is backing a stimulus bill filled with earmarks and hides behind the lame ass excuse that the earmarks are not what he defines as earmarks. He claims he wants to remove partisanship and then he engages in the same kind of fear mongering Bush used to fan the “war on terror,” only he warns of economic collapse if “something” is not done.
I am not arguing that the Republicans necessarily have a better vision. Frankly, I am fed up with the whole pathetic lot. Instead of a realistic, cooperative effort to tackle the economic crisis both sides are engaging in the same kind of partisan nonsense that has haunted us for the last eight years.
Given what I know about the current stimulus bill it is certain it will not work and the luster on Mr. Hope and Change will be tarnished by this time next year. Once you dramatically increase the U.S. debt and do not achieve any significant job growth or GDP revival the long knives will be out and members of Congress, who will stand for election in 2010, will start a stampede for the lifeboats.
Barack should have led the way in drafting the economic stimulus package. Instead he punted to Pelosi. He could have convened a genuine bipartisan group of House and Senate members–perhaps he could have asked John McCain to help. Instead, he acted like a petulant George Bush. He blamed Republicans for the economic mess, just like Bush blamed Democrats for putting America at risk from terrorists, and, like Bush, ignored the responsibility that Democrats who controlled Congress for the last two years may have shared for the problems. He could have risen above politics, but no. Why fulfill your promise?
Barack is to economics what Bush was to terrorism. Bush hurt America on the security front and it sure appears that Obama is following in his footsteps on the economic front.
UPDATE:
Here is Barack Obama demonstrating he is out of touch with Caterpillar’s executive.
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6866999
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