Ernie : You said--
Most of Obama's problems aren't his fault. But
they *are* his responsibility,
and so far he hasn't truly stepped up.
Does he know how to "step up" to dealing with the
problems ? Seems to me--
and a lot of others-- that he is essentially clueless.
Reason for his cluelessness
is his ideology. When all is said, his idea of "centrism"
is that the standard
Left-wing views of the urban Democratic Party are the
actual "middle" and his
only Left consists of de facto neo-Communists
( the high dudgeon "Progressives" )
with moderate Republicans the only legitimate Right, and
conservatives so many
extremist Rightists, as if they are all little better
than neo-Nazis. Hence his
demonization of Fox News and the more-or-less
"libertarian" Tea Party,
which he doesn't really understand at all.
That is, politically he is naive and not well informed.
And apparently he has
no real desire to become well informed.
His political inexperience, combined with his ideology,
and you got the formula
for a "perfect storm." The debacle has two main parts,
maybe three.
First, the need should have been clear from day # 1 that
all else had to be FAR down
on the totem pole in terms of priorities, to the extent
that before moving on any other
major legislation the economy had to be fixed, really
fixed, not just "hope for change"
after passing a couple of bailouts.
Instead, because of his urban ideology, think South Side
of Chicago, BHO's big concern
was what he could do for his former social worker
constituents that might matter the most
to them, hence Health Care Reform. But instead of
adopting a pragmatic approach,
some now, the rest later, he chose to go for a grand
package.
But, as in 1993 under Bubba, all Republican ideas ( OK a
few minor exceptions )
were denied on principle, and generally in Congress no
GOP rep or senator
could even offer amendments. So, as Halperin did not say,
the Republicans
had good reason to become outright obstructionists, they
were being handed
a take it or leave it set of proposals, and their tough
luck. This pixxed them off.
Motivated to find fault with the Health care bill, they
found MANY, not a suprise
since Obama turned the drafting over to the Congress with
little WH leadership
and, as a result, the bill was a mish-mash that satisfied
almost no-one. Politically
it was very poorly received, with the Democratic Left
just about as unhappy
as the Republican Right, and average voters disillusioned
with the next to nothing
they got, since many major provisions don't even take
effect until 2014. Worse, as the
Republicans pointed out, insurance costs for most folks
would inevitably go up,
not down, when insurance companies readjusted rates.
I think, too, a good slice of the electorate was not at
all happy with the provision
to insure not all of the uninsured, but the habitual
welfare class, those who,
in many eyes, don't deserve any such thing and are a drag
on the system
in 100 different ways and ought to stop breeding. I think
this summarizes
this attitude well enough.
Anyway, as the unemployment picture went from bad to
worse, although there
eventually was a decline from 10 and a half to 9 and a
half, news of billions of dollars
in bonus payouts to rich bankers had an impact,
especially galling since TARP money
was given with no strings attached as far as bank
responsibility to the "real economy."
NONE, and therefore cash hoarding on Wall Street ( now 2
or 3 trillion ) and
almost no new job creation.
All of this while BHO was spending almost a full year
seeking Health Care to accommodate
welfare parasites, at least so a lot of people viewed it.
So the voters sent a message --in New Jersey, Virginia
and stunningly in Massachusetts,
and it was completely ignored. Hence perceived arrogance
on the part of the WH.
Then came more pushing to homosexualize the military, the
appointment of two hard Left
Supreme Court justices, and perceived ineptitude when the
Gulf oil spill crisis hit, the
equivalent for Obama of Katrina for George W. The
backdrop was daily speech making
by the prez, waaaay to much speech making, 32 rounds of
golf, and a dozen vacations
to Martha's Vinyard. Followed by a series of Islamic
incidents, the Ft Hood murderer,
the GZ mosque, etc, in all cases which left the clear
impression that Obama is pro-Muslim
and not much ( if at all ) of a Christian.
In short, I'd put the emphasis on Halperin's opening
statement about BHO caught
between elite opinion to the effect that he is
incompetent ( now an Absolute Truism )
and working class opinion ( another truism beyond debate
) that Obama is
complete poison for the economy.
We got what he is, not what he led people to believe they
were voting for.
We got a lawyer from an Ivy League school with
pretensions of superiority,
a social worker with a social worker's worldview, and
an ideological Leftist.
Speaking of selling the public a bill of goods, 2008 was
the biggest con job
of American history, at a minimum, the biggest con job
since Nixon in 1972.
Now a lot of people wonder how it all went wrong ? Hell,
what did anyone
really expect when the elected someone who can be thought
of as the
political equivalent of Bernie Madoff ? For which, at the
end of the day,
the man most responsible for how this all came about was
George W Bush.
Alas, it never is a good idea to replace one screw-up
with another screw-up.
My most humble and self-effacing Radical Centrist opinion
Billy
In a message dated 10/14/2010 2:17:10 P.M. Pacific
Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
Most of Obama's
private (and sometimes public) rebuttals to the
voices slamming him on all sides are justified
or spot on. He did inherit a lot of problems
from the Bush Administration. He did act quickly
in the initial weeks of his Administration to
stave off a worldwide depression. His efforts at
job creation have been obstructed by Republicans
(even the proposals based on policies supported
by the GOP in the past). His opponents haven't
put forth specifics of their own, nor offered
genuine compromise, while the media have allowed
the right's activists and gabbers to run wild
with criticism without furnishing legitimate
alternative solutions. (See
Barack Obama's top 10 sound bites.)
But Obama has
exacerbated his political problems not just by
failing to enact policies that would have
actually turned the economy around, but also by
authorizing a series of tactical moves intended
to demonize Republicans and distract from the
problems at hand. He has wasted time lambasting
his foes when he should have been putting forth
his agenda in a clear, optimistic fashion,
defending the benefits of his key decisions
during the past two years (health care and the
Troubled Asset Relief Program, for example) and
explaining what he would do with a re-elected
Democratic majority to spur growth.
Nice analysis; very Radical Centrist.
Most of Obama's problems aren't his fault. But they
*are* his responsibility, and so far he hasn't truly
stepped up.
-- Ernie P.
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