Frank Rich Is Right (This Time)
The times that I agree with NYTimes supercolumnsists Mo Dowd, Paul Krugman and Frank Rich can be counted on one hand. Actually, they can be counted on one finger. Mr. Rich’s column in this morning’s edition of the Times is that first time. Here’s what I’m agreeing with:
A CHARMING visit with Jay Leno won’t fix it. A 90 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses won’t fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner won’t fix it. Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans’ anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed. It would be foolish to dismiss as hyperbole the stark warning delivered by Paulette Altmaier of Cupertino, Calif., in a letter to the editor published by The Times last week: “President Obama may not realize it yet, but his Katrina moment has arrived.”
Six weeks ago I wrote in this space that the country’s surge of populist rage could devour the president’s best-laid plans, including the essential Act II of the bank rescue, if he didn’t get in front of it. The occasion then was the Tom Daschle firestorm. The White House seemed utterly blindsided by the public’s revulsion at the moneyed insiders’ culture illuminated by Daschle’s post-Senate career. Yet last week’s events suggest that the administration learned nothing from that brush with disaster.
It’s time that President Obama stopped walking around in the fantasy/rock star world that he’s currently in. People are noticing that his administration hasn’t produced any solutions to the nation’s biggest problems. That’s the biggest reason why his poll ratings are dropping.
Instead of going on Leno and ESPN, he should be working overtime to put a plan together that deals with the troubled assets on financial instituion’s book. Because he isn’t doing that, people are getting the perception that he’s more interested in maintaining a high profile than he’s interested in doing the hard work of returning the United States to being a prosperous nation.
Another major factor in the American voter’s loss of confidence in him is his irresponsible budget. It’s an ideology-driven budget. It isn’t a statement of the nation’s priorities.
I suspect that Paulette Altmaier speaks for most people in this paragraph of her LTE:
We are not interested in the level of outrage the administration is feeling, but in the effectiveness of its response. So far, it has come across as hapless and completely ineffectual. This Obama voter would like to be spared the speeches and the posturing on the Sunday morning shows; action is what is needed.
Democrats expressed outrage over the AIG bonuses was their attempt to minimize the PR hit they took for not paying attention.
Within 24 hours, Summers’s stand was discarded by Obama, who tardily (and impotently) vowed to “pursue every single legal avenue” to block the bonuses. The question is not just why the White House was the last to learn about bonuses that Democratic congressmen had sought hearings about back in December, but why it was so slow to realize that the public’s anger couldn’t be sated by Summers’s legalese or by constant reiteration of the word outrage. By the time Obama acted, even the G.O.P. leader Mitch McConnell was ahead of him in full (if hypocritical) fulmination.
President Obama’s promise to “pursue every single legal avenue” to retrieve the AIG bonuses is meaningless because the bill that the House passed isn’t constitutional. That’s becoming President Obama’s trademark.
The more President Obama dons his Ordinary Joe personality, the more people will wonder if he’s all showhorse instead of him being a workhorse. Right now, we need a workhorse president who’ll “focus like a laser beam” on our economic troubles instead of giving puffpiece interviews. Those interviews might keep him popular as a person but they won’t make his irresponsible policies popular.
If President Obama’s deer-in-the-headlights act doesn’t disappear soon, he’ll suffer a big hit PR-wise. We need a leader, a substantive person with coherent policies.
In short, we don’t need a showhorse president. We don’t need another Katrina moment.
Technorati Tags: Frank Rich, NY Times, President Obama, Katrina, AIG Bonuses, Outrage, Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Jay Leno, ESPN, Tim Geithner, TARP II, Spin, Polling
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Why should His Hollowness be concerned about the “crises” he so studiously ignores until outrage is the proper response? That’s why he has toadies like Geithner and Napolitano, so he can throw them under the bus to show us common folk how much in tune with us he is, and how concerned he is with our plights.
I doubt if he’ll ever be concerned enough to try to let people who work hard for their paychecks keep them, instead of redistributing them to “po’ folk” whose lot in life is to be victims.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 am
Its not him so much as the smart ass flunkies he’s surrounded himself with,
I wasnt that enamoured with Ari Fleischer, but this clown of a press secretary he has now is a personification of the know it all arrogance of the whole bunch.
But your right Mr. Carlos, theres a definate chip on Obama’s shoulder for the sucessfull, hard work working people, who would rather solve there own problems rather than let him (the government) do it for them.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:06 am
But we CAN solve our problems because we’ve learned and have had practice. What about all the “victims”? They can’t do anything ‘cept whine and spend our money.
‘Course, that says a lot about their learning capabilities, too.
March 24th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Everyone has a learning curve. THATS NOT THE PROBLEMN,
March 24th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Everyone has a learning curve. THATS NOT THE PROBLEMN,
March 24th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Everyone has a learning curve. THATS NOT THE PROBLEMN,
March 24th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Everyone has a learning curve. THATS NOT THE PROBLEMN,
March 24th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Everyone has a learning curve. THATS NOT THE PROBLEMN,
March 24th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Problem is getting them to use it.
Pardon the double entries, I’ve stimulated the economy by buying a new laptop, and the buttons are in slightly different locations.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Gosh, USN R, I used to think everyone had a learning curve, too, until I realized that, when it comes to socialism, some people just can’t understand that there has not been a successful socialist government (i.e., one that improved the lives of its citizens AND gave them more personal freedom than they had previously). In other words, their “learning curve” flatlines when it comes to understanding the basics of freedoms and responsibilities.
March 25th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Well, democrtacy depends on 3 things;
economic potential, the freedom for personal entreprenurial abilities to create wealth and industry.
A general concensus for democracy, that the general population is willing to take the risks involved, accept responsibility for te government gtey create, and simultaneously elect like trhinking leaders.
and third and most inportant, an intelligent population, that can read, write, do everyday math, and understand all the above. Given the last election, and the kind of people we elcted, one has to wonder if maybe we arent suited for a democracy anymore.