Obama Opts For Retreat Over Leading

I've read some recent press reports wrongly suggesting that Obama somehow returned to the fanciful end of his campaign with his recent speech to Democrats. But Obama didn't again become the visionary leader who was going to bring everyone together and get all things done.

He retreated back to the primaries where he was able to "feel the love" of those most ideologically aligned with him after getting his ears pinned back by both the press and Republicans because he experienced so many self-inflicted wounds coming out of the gate.

To be fair and more accurate, he did bounce back and forth erratically between Mr. Hope and Change versus I'm the guy who kicked your butt in the span of two days, so it'll be interesting to see which Obama shows up on Monday night. Or maybe he'll change again a couple of times in between.

Big picture without dropping down into the weeds on it because there's a lot of brush, he made two major mistakes. First, Mr. bi-partisanship handed off the job of producing a stimulus package to the highly-partisan Pelosi and didn't knopw what to make of it when she produced just what he should have expected. Also, his vetting effort left him looking like the manager of an illegal lawn care service who sent a crew just plucked off a street corner to mow a lawn the size of a football field with old hand mowers that couldn't quite cut it.

This isn't some fired up, strong leader we're seeing in the, for today at least, highly-partisan Obama. It's someone just realizing how far in over his head he is looking for the best friends he can find.

Hopefully he'll grow, and perhaps even grow up a little in office and do it quickly. Otherwise, the Republicans, the media, and eventually the public is going to have a beautiful lawn ornament for a president we can look at and admire and think, "Now if it could only cut grass."

Comments

[mark l.]

"$540 billion of the one trillion will be spent on infrastructure as defined by President Obama and the Democrats. The remaining $460 billion, or 46% that voted for Senator McCain, will be directed towards tax cuts, as determined by me."
limbaugh stimulus plan.

"Stimulus deal 42 percent tax cut and the rest spending"
reuters headline.

The actual bill is probably nowhere close to 42% tax cuts, and definitely not targetted as Limbaugh would have them, but the democrats are actually providing the argument that the limbaugh plan was followed by Obama.

[Lala]

But Rush wanted only the 46 percent who voted for McCain to get the tax cuts.

[mark l.]

maybe...

not sure how one would go about divy-ing up the loot.

[mark l.]

Biden noted that history suggests many of the smart decisions made to aid the nation were unpopular, and that Congress will have to take tough votes. “There were very few decisions that were made [back then] that were popular,” he said. “That’s the bad news folks.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/02/06/biden-urges-passage-of-stimulus-despite-voter-backlash/

The irony of having a democrat veep advising his troops not to focus on popularity, after running on a populist ticket for a party obsessed with approval ratings for Bush.

[Mark Turner]

I see big gains in the House for the GOP in 2010, and possibly the Senate, if Obama continues on this track -- making a lot of the same type of mistakes Bill Clinton did when he had a Democrat-controlled congress in his first 2 years. Campaign promises of "change we need, change we can believe in" and the politics of hope are getting slapped hard in the face by the hand of reality...and the voters will eventually get wise to this.

[mark l.]

"It's someone just realizing how far in over his head he is looking for the best friends he can find."

does he have any friends? rezko is in jail and I don't think he is too anxious too roll out Bernadine and Bill for the public.

seriously...who has his back? rahm was supposed to handle the house. Instead they give him a hand grenade without the pin.

I'm looking at some of the moderate dems...at least 20, who, privately, are furious that they were given the biggest load of shit to sell to the public, ever, without having any oversight of the initial package. This weekend they are going to barry and telling him that the bills should start from the Senate for the rest of his term.

[PATRICIA]

The GOP has spent Billions on a WAR of Choice in Iraq and never gave Bush ZERO votes, Then the Republicans were so GIDDY AND HAPPY LIKE they had just came from a KKK LYNCHING OF A BLACK MAN with Racist Southern Senators leading the laughter, I guess they have a lot of experience leading being in LYNCH MOB.

NO you Repugs will lose big time in 2010 and 2012. McCain lost and YES he is Bush.

You Republicans CRASHED OUR ECONOMY ON YOUR WATCH JUST LIKE 9/11 HAPPENED ON YOUR WATCH.

The American People are a different breed of People now. They are not bigots and can see through Newt Gingrich Jealous, he wished he could give a Speech like a President Obama.

You Republicans are so JEALOUS OF President Obama, you are going completely INSANE WITH RACIST HATE. The World is watching.

THE REPUBLICANS LOST THE ELECTION AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DID NOT WANT YOU IN... President Obama extended his open hand and you fools took that as a weAkness AND you Republicans tried to lynch him. But it will not work. WE ARE BACK IN BUSINESS

Now his HUGE BASE IS BACK IN CAMPAIGN MODE AND THE REPUBLICANS WILL NEVER WIN ANOTHER ELECTION. YOU WILL HAVE JUST YOUR 5 RED STATES. What a SAD bunch of people you are. So Hateful.

[mark l.]

pharp?

[Mark Turner]

Patricia:

Subprime lending, a major root cause of our current economic troubles, was championed by Democratic politicians. Obama's current actions are wildly at odds with his own campaign rhetoric of "change we need, change we can believe in" and the "politics of hope". There is little in Obama for conservatives, and the GOP as a whole, to be jealous about. If you would like a forum for rants about racism past and present, and to vent your own insecurities, I would suggest looking in a mirror.

[Chris]

No, I don't think Patricia is Harpie. There are similarities in style and (lack of) substance but Patricia strikes me as having gone completely off her meds. Harp just gets the dosage wrong as there's usually a hint of coherence. It is stunning for someone to roll out racist charges against anyone who dares disagree with Obama. While I wouldn't call Obama racist, I would say the president has some racial issues of his own that he hasn't come to terms with. And he certainly has been comfortable in the presence of racists over the years.

Disagreement is not the equivalent of lynching as far as I was aware. We've got a lot to learn I guess.

[Anonymous]

Patricia, you are the racist. You think that no one can oppose Obama's tactics and goals without race somehow being involved.

I am not a Republican and was not at all pleased by the choice between Obama and McCain. So I'm not partisan when I say that Obama is acting like the inexperienced dream weaver that he showed himself to be on the campaign trail.

You may like the dream long enough to cling to it and believe that he doesn't need to grow up and learn the job fast. He's looking bad so far.

And remember that 48% of the voters did not choose Obama.

You need to get some counseling for your racism, Patricia.

[ET]

Being LOUD doesn't make you RIGHT. PATRICIA

[LOL]

Again the economic meltdown was not caused by the mortgage crisis. Something real needed to fail, that's true, but the bad mortgages would never have hurt the economy so badly if two things had not occurred.

1. Rating agencies did their jobs. I suppose you can't really point the finger at any pol or party over this. It was just plain old Wall Street negligence.

2. CDS industry was not allowed to develop into the bloated Ponzi scheme/casino that it became. Phil Gramm helped to create this industry, which, worldwide was worth about $60 trillion!!! That's about 5 times the size of the NYSE before its collapse!!! Think about the scale involved here. Phil Gramm and Republican allies actually made it illegal to even regulate this industry.

If investors had been allowed to know the risk involved in the mortgages they were buying (1) and if they had not built this house of cards on top of those mortgages (2), there would not be the huge recession that we now see.

Blaming this on Democrats, is just beyond absurd. Could they have done more? Sure. But to blame Democrats before Republicans or Wall Street is to ignore the realities of our recent history.

[MarkJ]

LOL,

I'm sure Barney "Let's cap everybody's salaries except mine!" Frank and Chris "Countrywide Loan" Dodd agree with you completely.

[James]

Both parties are at fault. If we pass around blame, it is wrong not to include Democrats.

Stanley Kurtz researched and described how ACORN blackmailed banks to provide risky loans after Jimmy Carter pushed legislation to stop red lining. The effect was benign at first, but over the years its effect was to pollute the market with assets of questionable value. Mainly Republicans moved out of character to call for greater regulation of Fanny and Freddy while Democrats who usually favored regulation switched sides. Obama was one who believed the housing market was fine as it was.

The world economy was over valued with bubbles ready to burst and some had already broken. The housing market happened to be the one to take us over the cliff, and liberal Democrats' finger prints are all over this one.

[xerocky]

"President Obama extended his open hand and you fools took that as a weAkness AND you Republicans tried to lynch him. But it will not work. WE ARE BACK IN BUSINESS"

When were the race and grievance mongers out of business? Obama extended his hand? How? He said in so many words that we have to pass this bill now or we'll have a depression, no doubt. That's the same exact type of fear mongering that he ran against. What is our system of checks and balances supposed to do, suddenly realize that god has told them that they have to borrow a trillion + dollars nomatter what and not even question it?

F.U.

The USS Cole and the WTC were both bombed on Clinton's watch. Over 100k children starved in Iraq on his watch as well.

But I get the feeling that were going to hear a lot of this type of bullshit, any time Obama doesn’t get what he wants his robots will start chanting “RACISIM RACISIM RACISIM!!!” and they’ll think that they sound good while they’re doing it. I’ve got news for you Pat, in doing so you’re the one lynching Obama.

[bl]

Can we all agree that the CRA(community reinvestment act), a Democratic legislation from the 1970s (Carter) has resulted in community activists being able to blackmail banks to make loans to people who don't qualify for that loan, based on income, not racial discrimination? Today, after countless laws passed to enhance access to information, these community activists have gotten what they wanted, and the unintentional consequences as well.

By demanding banks to give sub-prime borrowers loans, the banks were allowed to merge, or expand their branches, with the blessings of the community organizers(ACORN). But the price/supply/demand equation cannot forever increase. So as more houses were built, and demand increased prices, everything was swell. But as soon as the top was hit in 2006 or so, homeowners realized that their high payments could not be justified by their shrinking equity. For many, with their 0% down, adjustable mortgages, defaulting was an easy way out, as home prices declined. But the irony is, is that these bad loans have come back to haunt the investment houses and banks, have shut out low income borrowers, crippled the construction industry, dried up credit across the board, but have made the DEMOCRATS stronger. Go figure!!!

[James]

The whole thing stinks. That none of the moderate Republicans wanted to be recorded as casting the deciding vote speaks volumes. Obama's administration worked with the wise strategy of making the bill bi- partisan to share the blame if it failed and to enhance his hope and change credentials. He failed and now the bill hangs around Democrats' necks for better or worse. Providing aid in the bill to the freezing people in Kentucky and elsewhere would have been a nice gesture since Brownie seems to be running FEMA again.

If Democratic ineptitude seeps into national security, we had better pray often or drink heavily.

[Mark_0454]

Banks were required by the CRA to make risky loans. The fuel to the fire was Fannie and Freddie removing that risk to the banks. The banks could make their loans, collect commissions, and then sell the loans to Fannie and Freddie. The banks got a short term profit, satisfied CRA, and got rid of the long term risk. Fannie and Freddie repackaged these loans by combining them and selling them as securities. That explains why so many of these bad loans have no real owners. Fannie and Freddie were telling the world they had calculated the risk into the cost of the securities.

In looking for college for my kids, my first imaginary question was always, "how much does this cost?" I have become convinced that the imaginary answer from the college is, "...how much can you get?" It is not a matter of what I can afford or how much this is worth in the future. The price is dictated by how much I can borrow. Fannie and Freddie did the same thing to the housing market. Prices were driven not by "how much does this cost/how much is it worth." But rather the prices were driven by, "how much can you get?"

[Greg]

Dan,
I've told you before, you cross the line. You did again with the lawn ornament comment.

My issues with Obama have nothing to do with race. It's all in the fact that I don't want a corrupt, socialist, incompetant who wants to rewrite the constitution as President. Focus on the real issues, leave the color commentary out of it.

Greg