Monday, February 09, 2009

I rest my case

My man, Drew Westen, on Obama's naivity and mishandling of the stimulus package.

"...a failure to distinguish alternative meanings of bipartisanship, an apparent miscalculation about the political and ideological extremism of the Republicans left in Washington in the wake of the Democratic landslides of the last two electoral cycles, and an unwillingness to fight back when attacked led the Obama administration unwittingly to participate in a setback to both change and bipartisanship, as they urged Democratic lawmakers to cut and paste elements of the conservative ideology that has unhinged our economy into a package designed to resuscitate it and emboldened the Republican leadership in a way that has sown the seeds of renewed partisan polarization."

Click on the Image to read more.

One thing Obama is good at is counter-punching. So... he may pull through this. But the one thing Obama must learn is how to throw the first punch and how to avoid getting bitch-slapped in the first place. And when Republicans bitch-slap him, he can't wait for weeks on end to respond, as though he were above it all. He's not. He's the President of the United States and he needs get his act together. We're all, most of us, rooting for him.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29136678/

Yippee!! At least it's a start. Let's see if it works....

Anonymous said...

I should help...

But I bet we'll see another even larger one within the year. The Republicans are in denial about just how bad this economy is - deficits be damned.

Anonymous said...

Pat,

What's your assessment of just how bad the economy is? Specifically, what is your forecast for unemployment over the coming two years? Do you think that the 10% threshold will be crossed?

Although I, myself, am in a very fortunate situation, I'm very concerned that things could get worse at a moment's notice. It's a dangerous time to be a consultant (but also highly profitable if one finds oneself in a unique situation such as mine).

I don't believe that the economy is bad as the imaginary world of CNN.com depicts, but the economy is certainly driven largely by emotion. Big bankers let us down, necessitating government intervention. This is a big blow to those who believe that an unregulated capitalistic economy is the be all, end all.

Steve