Hope For Hope
My pals Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie from reason write in the WaPo that Obama is going all Carter Country on us in his popularity, with every major initiative of his "meeting not just with failure but with scorn from political allies and foes alike":
The key to understanding Obama's predicament is to realize that while he ran convincingly as a repudiation of Bush, he is in fact doubling down on his predecessor's big-government policies and perpetual crisis-mongering. From the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists to gays in the military to bailing out industries large and small, Obama has been little more than the keeper of the Bush flame. Indeed, it took the two of them to create the disaster that is the 2009 budget, racking up a deficit that has already crossed the historic $1 trillion mark with almost three months left in the fiscal year.Beyond pushing the "emergency" $787 billion stimulus package (even while acknowledging that the vast majority of funds would be released in 2010 and beyond), Obama signed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill and a $106 billion supplemental spending bill to cover "emergency" expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan (and, improbably, a "cash for clunkers" program). Despite pledges to achieve a "net spending cut" by targeting earmarks and wasteful spending, Obama rubber-stamped more than 9,000 earmarks and asked government agencies to trim a paltry $100 million in spending this year, 0.003 percent of the federal budget.
In the same way that Bush claimed to be cutting government even while increasing real spending by more than 70 percent, Obama seems to believe that saying one thing, while doing another, somehow makes it so. His first budget was titled "A New Era of Fiscal Responsibility," even as his own projections showed a decade's worth of historically high deficits. He vowed no new taxes on 95 percent of Americans, then jacked up cigarette taxes and indicated a willingness to consider new health-care taxes as part of his reform package. He said he didn't want to take over General Motors on the day that he took over General Motors.
Such is the extent of Obama's magical realism that he can promise to post all bills on the Internet five days before signing them, serially break that promise and then, when announcing that he wouldn't even try anymore, have a spokesman present the move as yet another example of "providing the American people more transparency in government."
...What are his options? First, stop doing harm. Throwing money all over the economy (and especially to sectors that match up with Democratic interests) is the shortest path to what Margaret Thatcher described as the inherent flaw in socialism: Eventually you run out of other people's money.
No matter how many fantastical multipliers Obama ascribes to government spending, with each day comes refutation of the administration's promises on jobs and economic growth. Even his chief source on the topic, economic adviser Christina Romer, now grants that calculating jobs "created or saved" by Team Obama is simply impossible.
Which leads to the second point: Stop it with the magical realism already.
Save terms such as "fiscal responsibility" for policies that at least minimally resemble that notion. Don't pretend that a budget that doubles the national debt in five years and triples it in 10 is the work of politicians tackling "the difficult choices." Americans have a pretty good (if slow-to-activate) B.S. detector, and the more you mislead them now, the worse they'll punish you later. Toward that end, producing real transparency instead of broken promises is the first step toward building credibility.
That the administration is now spending millions of dollars to revamp its useless stimulus-tracking site Recovery.gov is one more indication that, post-Bush, the White House still thinks of citizens as marks to be rolled.
The amazing thing, to me, is that people who never knew what the President stood for before he was elected defend their own poor choice without realizing it.
Want to see all manner of irrationality? Show an Obama voter something that Obama does that is identical to Bush policy.
"The people vote for the lizards, and the lizards rule the people." - Douglas Adams
Radwaste at July 19, 2009 8:24 AM
Those 2 guys sound like Douchebags.
Carter=Bad, Bush=Horrible,Clinton=Bad,Obama=Bad.
After complaining that Obama is continuing Bush policies like locking up people who have sworn to destroy us, this is my favorite part of the piece:
"But contrary to the dreams of dystopians and paranoiacs everywhere, there simply is no outside threat to the American way of life. No country can challenge us militarily; no economic system stands to dislodge capitalism; no terrorist group can do anything more than land the occasional (if horrendous) blow."
Yah, who cares if every few years 3,000 Americans leave for work in the morning and end up getting incinerated at their desks.
Nothing to be too concerned about. Just close Gitmo now!!!!!
Pay not attention to those Mullah's in Iran developing Nukes or the certified whack job in North Korea doing the same.
Move along, nothing to see here.
sean at July 19, 2009 9:25 AM
I've made the Carter comparison myself, and there is a very 70's feel to Obama's policy agenda. He's like someone who's emerged from a time capsule buried in 1976.
But the critical difference between O and C seems to be that while Carter concerned himself with the minutia of legislation and policy, Obama apparently does not. By his own description, he's not a 'details person'.
The story that's emerging of his administration presents him as a sort of Promoter in Chief who uses his popularity, and the deference of the national press, to sell an agenda that he's had little influence in crafting.
An obvious risk to this approach is that if things start going badly and this arrangement becomes apparent, he's going to look like a stuffed shirt. It'll confirm the early concerns regarding his executive ability and lack of experience.
Jack at July 19, 2009 9:33 AM
It comes down to my pet theory: A lot of the people who voted for Obama did so solely because they wanted to be one of the cool kids. Bush = old fogey, Obama = young hipster. Under Obama, America was promised a non-stop party. Who pays the bills? Don't worry, your parents the Bush voters will take care of it. It's a political version of Groundhog Day: Obama promised that every day would be September 10 from now on. Only a joyless buzz-kill wouldn't vote for that!
Cousin Dave at July 19, 2009 9:48 AM
Sean, your critique is inane.
Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 19, 2009 10:11 AM
Crid, your critique of my critique is fatuous.
But I appreciate your effort.
sean at July 19, 2009 4:32 PM
Just wanted to make sure you're into it...
> who cares if every few years 3,000
> Americans leave for work in the
> morning and end up getting
> incinerated
Why the bitterness? Do you seriously contend that Welch & Gillespie meant to belittle the attacks of 9/11?
I mean, y'know, isn't that a little nutty? Their implication is perfectly clear: Americans are killed occasionally, but the American way of life is not likely to be suddenly threatened. Re-read the paragraph and get back to us, because your sarcasm isn't clear: Exactly which part of the cited passage do you have a problem with?
Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 19, 2009 7:55 PM
OK, "their implication is perfectly clear" was a clumsy thing to say.
But I mean, golly, they said what they meant and they didn't belittle the importance of national security. So why five exclamation marks?
Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 19, 2009 11:09 PM
Crid, I hear you, but I understand sean's point too -- we don't want to adopt the lackadasial attitude towards terrorism that Europe has had since the '70s. A lot of the problems that Europe is facing now can be traced back to that attitude that terrorism is like the weather: it happens and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
Cousin Dave at July 20, 2009 6:35 AM
"not likely to be suddenly threatened"
Well, that depends on what Iran and N Korea get around to doing while the rest of the world dithers about what they should be allowed to do, and how to enforce it.
Slowly threatened-now that's already happening. Europe is merely a decade or so ahead of us in this slow take-over, but Obama seems to want to fast-track us and catch up.
Either way, O is an idiot or a traitor or both, and the people who voted for him are at least idiots.
momof4 at July 20, 2009 6:38 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/07/19/hope_for_hope.html#comment-1659157">comment from Cousin Davewe don't want to adopt the lackadasial attitude towards terrorism that Europe has had since the '70s
Or immigration, and of people who will never assimilate, and who will eventually overtake Europe in population and install Sharia law.
Amy Alkon at July 20, 2009 6:54 AM
"Crid, I hear you, but I understand sean's point too -- we don't want to adopt the lackadasial attitude towards terrorism that Europe has had since the '70s. A lot of the problems that Europe is facing now can be traced back to that attitude that terrorism is like the weather: it happens and there's nothing anyone can do about it."
Just what part of this post is true?
Do you really not know about the Red Brigade? Does the term, "Northern Ireland" mean anything to you? Can you name the year the Munich Olympics included hostage-killing as an event? Do you really think the Germans and Jews have forgotten that?
Have you stepped into the train stations at Brest and Montparnasse and marveled at the SMGs the police carry? Have you stepped into a market in Israel and watched the schoolteacher packing her Galil, leaving the café?
Did you not notice that Spain removed their forces from the Middle East after their bombing? Do you notice that that effective response was not in any way lackadaisical?
Do you have some strange idea as to how terrorism is "preventable"? Clue: strip-searching your own public is not an effective countermeasure. The much slower process of recognizing motivation and removing it is.
Radwaste at July 20, 2009 12:02 PM
I was harshing Gail about this earlier: "Removing motivation" is intimate work, and I'm not sure government's up to it. I'm not sure it ought to be.
Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 20, 2009 11:47 PM
Great what an idea!. Super post! My day maybe hectic. My sked may be tight. But I would never let d day end w/o me saying good night. Have sweet dreams.
Bridging at February 10, 2010 11:09 AM
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