With a Failing Economy, we’re saddled with a Flailing President. Obama

We knew he couldn’t HIT the ground running. We knew experience was needed to bring this dire Economy to heel. We knew the DNC was making a CO$TLY mistake. We knew it and they shoved an erstwhile “Party Animal” down our throats, when we needed the Presidential gravitas of Hillary R. Clinton.

Posted here is a salient, comprehensive rundown of 20 Reasons WHY Obama is ill suited for the US Presidency:

# wbboei Says:

March 14th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

Host Chris Wallace asked on “Fox News Sunday” this month, “Can this now fairly be called the Obama bear market?”

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) said, “I want to take the president at his word that he wants to work on these problems plaguing American families,” adding that “people are looking for leadership.” “It is the Obama economy and the Obama stock market,” Cantor said. “This is about today, and he’s assumed his post.”
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For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on the current economic crisis, and its political implications.

1. It is clear that Mr. Obama inherited a recession, plus something far worse– an impending collapse of banking, mortgage, and consumer markets. This dire scenario was created by a number of factors, but to my mind the following are salient. First, a lack of regulatory oversight by the Democratic controlled congress. Second, laissez faire capitalism run riot as championed by the Republican Party. Third, an excess of liquidity caused by the overheated Asian economy and failure to develop consumer economies of their own to keep pace with it. And fourth, the adoption of financial practices on Wall Street which were fundamentally unsound and/or illegal.

2. By the end of 2008, it was obvious that the macro challenge of the next president would be as follows: first, to restore public confidence (domestic and abroad); second, to formulate an economic plan to address the situation in concert with our global partners based on the right incentives; and third to establish an effective system of oversight sorely lacking in recent years. (Note: this is the same problem Hillary would have faced if she had become president. However she would have known how to handle it. In fact her campaign anticipated these problems and offered solutions to the American People, which were drowned out by the shrill tones of big media screeds in service of Obama and their own selfish interests.)

3. Enter Barack Hussein Obama, aka The Messiah, aka Precious, aka Party Animal, grinning like a possum eating shit out of a hairbrush. We are told is the People’s Choice. . and he is, if the people you mean are big business, big media and the bamboozled element of the population who believed that hope and change were more important than solutions. I shall not scruple to call them fools for lest we forget it was Hillary who offered solutions and it was Obama who promised them only “Hope and Change”. A friend of mine pointed out to me that those same words wafted through the air of political discourse on the eve of the last three depressions–1870, 1907, 1929 ).

4. When some people look at Mr. Obama they see the hope and fulfillment of all their childhood dreams, and perhaps the vindication of an ancient wrong. Those sentiments are legitimate, but they never stopped to ask whether they were investing them in the right candidate for the right reasons. It was impulse buying at its worst and they projected properties and virtues on him which do not exist. He is the political equivalent of the “Pet Rock” craze which swept over the country a generation ago. Any attempt to convince them otherwise however would be a lifetime exercise in futility.

5. For people like us it is a little different. When we look at him, we see a grown man riding the choo-choo train and pretending to be Lincoln, strutting across the world stage behaving like Julius Caesar, throwing gala white house parties with media whores and acting as if he has done something of substance in his entire life to merit this irrational outpouring of adulation. We see his mug gracing the pages of every periodical, teleprompter in hand preaching hope, change and deliverance. It is disgusting, and at some point it begins to resemble Triumph of the Will–sans Lenie Reifenstahl. There are paths in political life which lead to tragedy and despair. We worry this may turn out to be one of them.

6. The problem we have is we cannot suspend disbelief as others have blissfully done. We have met our fair share of Snake Oil Salesmen along the way and know one when we see one.

And when we pull back the curtain on this burlesque show what we see is not a leader but a schmoozer. We see someone who is there because he has convinced the moneyed interests that he is their man, as he did with Rezko, GE and Wall Street. Someone who will do their bidding and fire on his own people if it comes to that—as they once said of Generalissimo Franco. Someone who will disenfranchise voters to win elections. Someone who appears to be the diametric opposite of Bush, but is in fact his evil twin.

7. We are fine with his race, but we are deeply troubled by the immoral way he has used it it to achieve his career objectives. Indeed, the record is clear that Mr. Obama has played the race card both offensively and defensively. Who can forget the slanderous lies he perpetrated in South Carolina against Bill and Hillary? See Professor Wilentz. And can forget when he paced back and forth on stage and proclaimed: ” he does not look like those other presidents”. That little shtick lasted until McCain at least had the good sense to call him on it. It is tragic that Hillary and Bill did not do the same. To paraphrase Menken false claims of racism are the last bastion of scoundrels.

8. Far be it from me to deny that Mr. Obama is different from other presidents. On the contrary, I agree with it wholeheartedly. I believe he is fundamentally different from those who proved themselves equal to the task of rescuing the nation from catastrophe. And the difference has nothing whatsoever to do with skin color. If you compare Mr. Obama with Presidents who succeeded in crises of this magnitude you find profound differences which are outcome determinative.

Those presidents had three things that Mr. Obama appears to lack: EXPERIENCE, JUDGMENT and MORAL COURAGE. Without those, it is hard to imagine how he is capable of solving a crisis of this magnitude.

9. But there is one more critical factor that successful presidents have had which Mr. Obama conspicuously lacks and that is the ability to immerse himself in a crisis and to focus his attention upon it for an extended period of time. For example, think of Lincoln in the Civil War reeling from crushing military defeats, seizing his army back from McClellan, taking a chance on Grant and picture him fixating over a map of the battlefield of Cold Harbor, Spotsylvania and Petersburg where the tide began to turn from defeat to victory. In Lincoln we see a leader immersed in the problem, making hard calls without half measures. In Hillary Clinton we find those same problem solving crisis management competencies. The woman the people wanted and benighted elites refused to accept to lead our nation.

10. Compare Barack Obama who practiced law in Illinois, and consider him as he was described to me by the attorneys who litigated against him in that venue: He (Obama) delivered powerful opening statements (speeches) and moved well around the courtroom. However, when it came to the details of the case he was not interested. He looked at those details and his eyes glazed over and he was anxious to hit the road. The goal of the opposing attorney was to get him into a settlement posture where within reason he was willing to sign whatever was placed in front of him. A show horse yes, a workhorse no. In no way shape or form a problem solver.

11. If that is true, then it is hardly surprising that in the midst of an economic crisis of significant magnitude we would find Mr. Obama similarly disengaged and disinterested. When he should be pouring over the battle plans for our economy we find him instead running around the country campaigning, entertaining the Chicago Bulls and carrying on in such a way that they are starting to call him The Party Animal. Granted, he can sign laws repudiating past policies on Stem Cell research, but if you examine the record, what you find is an unambiguous pattern of reneging on promises made to supporters in favor of Bush Redux.

12. What would a leader do to seize the initiative? The first thing a leader would do is Restore Confidence. The way to do that is to cultivate what has been accurately described as “tough minded optimism”. Obama however has done the exact opposite. Instead of projecting confidence he quickly became a repository of Gloom and Doom, until Bill Clinton advised him otherwise. Part of the reason he did this was to extricate himself from the lavish promises he made during the election process and part of it was because he believed it.

Meanwhile Republicans recognizing his profound error adopted the self serving mantra that he inherited a Recession and is talking us into a Depression. This was a self inflicted wound by someone whom big media told us was a thoughtful man with impeccable judgment.

13. Another thing a leader would do to restore confidence is to show others that his actions are consistent with his words. Once again, Mr. Obama has proven himself unequal to the task. Too often what he says is not what he does. He promised Campaign Finance Reform and he RENEGED. He promised to PROTECT Civil Liberties and he RENEGED. He promised to revisit NAFTA as Hillary did, and then he RENEGED. He promised to get us out of Iraq within 180 days and he RENEGED. He promised to close Gitmo and he RENEGED.

Sometimes he does this blatantly, sometimes secretly and sometimes through weasel words. But regardless of how he does it, he does it, and when that is the case, how can anyone place confidence in his judgments?  Simply put, he speaks with a FORKED TONGUE. You can see it in foreign affairs as well,  as he RENEGES on promises made to Poland on Missile Defense, etc. and calls it a simple misunderstanding. The French President has figured him out and so have other Europeans. It is fortunate that Kissinger has chaperoned him on his trip to Russia, or someone besides him might be pushing the wrong button.

Hope, Change etc are not enough.

14. Yet another thing a leader would do to restore confidence would be to be wary of what he promises. In that respect I am reminded of one of the forgotten people of the Republican primary—Rudy. Once thought to be the inevitable candidate he flamed out rather quickly. He has written a book on leadership, as he wants us to believe he has practiced it. A million words and one sentence stands out: “Under Promise and Over Deliver”–never ever the reverse. I asked a friend of mine yesterday how the Chinese press is reporting the progress made to date by Mr. Obama. They say, “he promised too much and will not be able to deliver”. The world sees it even if we don’t.

15. The second thing a leader would do is formulate a sound economic plan which is responsive to the economic crisis we are facing. Unfortunately, the wrong die has been cast.

When Obama sent Emanuel to see Pelosi and she gave him the bums rush,  Barack failed to back up his man. At the moment of truth, when the question of leadership was presented to him in high relief, he knuckled under—and not to Putin,  but to . . . Pelosi???

COURAGE—thy name is not Barack. Instead of merely standing his ground, he caved in completely and outsourced his economic plan to Congress, and to a woman who by virtue of seniority as opposed to sanity was Speaker of the House.  Now that’s what I call unity. And she gave him a Bill which was designed to perpetuate the Democratic party in the next election cycle, rather than one that address the deepening economic crisis. And what did Mr. Obama—the sworn enemy of pork do with that do that fine piece of legislation?   Why he embraced it with open arms of course.

16. Big Media followed suit and embraced his program with open arms as well. But markets reacted differently to all this misbegotten largesses. The DOW dropped 20% when it should have experienced an uptick at the departure of Bush. The reason for this was clear. Mr. Obama proved to them by his actions, as opposed to his rhetoric, that his administration would pursue political spending over fiscal responsibility. As a result, we will be forced to borrow more money, which will increase our national debt and burden the capacity of global capital market upon which others besides ourselves routinely rely. Finally, Madam Speaker included a protectionist measure to make it even more appealing to our global partners. (last line sarcasm)

17. The problem is compounded by the lack of realistic economic forecasting by his youthful budget director, whom big media assures us is a fine family man,   as if that has any relevance to the analytical task at hand. But the fact remains, he is as far off the mark as home plate from the left field fence in Yankee Stadium. He claims our GDP will contract by a mere 1.2% this year, while the Congressional Budget Office says 2.2% and Wall Street says 2.8% per Merrill Lynch.  Even more surrealistically, he claims the GDP next year will grow at robust 3.2% while Wall Street predicts a break even 0.5% result. The game here is obvious. He has backed into those numbers to mask the impact of the Pelosi politically driven budget on the deficit.

18. The recent article in the Wall Street Journal giving him an “F”  is an affirmation of what markets already know. Dick Armey pinned the tail on the donkey when he said: “the investor class does not want to be a part of the Obama program”. Meanwhile, China looking at the same set of facts is saying the same thing–they are worried about their investments in the United States and encourage Mr. Obama to honor our financial commitments. In other words they too are saying do we want to be a part of this and what other options do we have?

19. This will make for an intriguing discussion when Mr. Obama travels to the G-20 Conference for the ostensible purpose of inspiring the world and for the subrosa purpose of getting his instructions from the countries that now hold the key to our economic future as well as their own.

20. The propaganda coming out of this conclave as reported by idiots like Matt Lee will be meaningless. The real task will be to read between the lines.

(ht/wbboei) For more enlightening commentary from Big Pink, see this link:

http://www.hillaryis44.org/2009/03/14/glimmers-of-hope-part-ii/#comment-240870

Also, the author has given his permission for re-publication to all of interest.