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July 18, 2009
When even the WaPo clothes Obama in Carter's cardigan (Updated)
Topics: Political News and commentariesWhen even the WaPo clothes Obama in Carter's cardigan, that's when you know that Obama is, as the WaPo puts it, "... driving south into that political speed trap known as Carter Country":
... a sad-sack landscape in which every major initiative meets not just with failure but with scorn from political allies and foes alike.In other words, the American public is beginning to wake up out of their Obama-is-god illusions and has become wary of his agenda. And this is indeed good for America.[...] From a lousy cap-and-trade bill awaiting death in the Senate to a health-care reform agenda already weak in the knees to the failure of the stimulus to deliver promised jobs and economic activity, what once looked like a hope-tastic juggernaut is showing all the horsepower of a Chevy Cobalt. "Give it to me!" the president egged on a Michigan audience last week, pledging to "solve problems" and not "gripe" about the economic hand he was dealt.
Despite such bravura, Obama must be furtively reviewing the history of recent Democratic administrations for some kind of road map out of his post-100-days ditch.
So far, he seems to be skipping the chapter on Bill Clinton and his generally free-market economic policies and instead flipping back to the themes and comportment of Jimmy Carter. Like the 39th president, Obama has inherited an awful economy, dizzying budget deficits and a geopolitical situation as promising as Kim Jong Il's health. Like Carter, Obama is smart, moralistic and enamored of alternative energy schemes that were nonstarters back when America's best-known peanut farmer was installing solar panels at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Like Carter, Obama faces as much effective opposition from his own party's left wing as he does from an ardent but diminished GOP.
And perhaps most important, as with Carter, his specific policies are genuinely unpopular. The auto bailout -- which, incidentally, is illegal, springing as it has from a fund specifically earmarked for financial institutions -- has been reviled from the get-go, with opposition consistently polling north of 60 percent. Majorities have said no to bank bailouts and to cap and trade if it would make electricity significantly more expensive.
By the way, take the time to read the entire WaPo piece. It's the best deconstruction of Obama's agenda that I've seen come from the MSM.
Update: Jules Crittenden takes the authors of the WaPo article to task on their analysis and suggestions, and offers some of his own..
Related: Health Care Slow Fade Or, The Revolt Of The Headline Writers
Posted by Richard at July 18, 2009 9:27 AM
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