Obama's in over his head

Tuesday, 04 May 2010

Whatever your beliefs about the president's intentions toward this country, I think we can all agree that he's in way over his head.

Peter Wehner contends that:

It’s hard to tell if we’re watching a man engaged in an elaborate political shell game or a victim of an extraordinary, and nearly clinical, case of self-delusion. Perhaps there is some of both at play. Regardless, President Obama’s act became tiresome long ago. 

I am reminded of the line from Emerson: “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”

April may have seen "his best job approval rating since October," but 51% of likely voters disapprove, 40% strongly so. 

Politico says the House of Hussein is in a "P.R. panic" over the oil rig spill (see also "Spill leaves energy bill in trouble.")

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad got to launch a verbal attack on the U.S. from the podium at the United Nations, the morning after an attempted terrorist attack just blocks away at Times Square.

What a mess.  Even Ariana Huffington thinks so!

.... Perhaps we should start calling this the Age of "Much Worse Than We Thought It Would Be."

Our shortsighted thinking is still on full display in the Gulf of Mexico, even as the enormity of the crisis becomes undeniable. In a speech on Sunday in Louisiana, President Obama called it a "potentially unprecedented environmental disaster," and said the spill "is unique and unprecedented." And in downplaying BP's responsibility for the spill, a spokesman for the company also called it"unprecedented," saying "it's something that we have not experienced before."

That's the nature of unprecedented things -- they've never happened -- until they happen. But just because something is unprecedented doesn't mean it's unpredictable or that we're unable to plan for it. We can't see the future, but we can prepare for it.

In practically every sector of our society, the old order is exhausted. But we seem incapable of making fundamental changes without the loaded gun of a full-blown crisis pointed at our heads. For example, the financial crisis -- and what it has exposed about the behavior of Wall Street -- has caused us to rethink the relationship between Wall Street and rest of our economy. It's obvious the old way of doing things is no longer viable. But, absent the sense that everything is about to collapse, we are dragging our feet on deciding what will replace it.

And there are some other "unprecedented," "unique" -- and potentially catastrophic -- problems headed our way if we continue to accept the old order's lack of imagination about what is possible. I'm thinking, first and foremost, of our debt problem....

By 2020, interest on the debt alone will reach $900 billion per year.

That same year, five segments of government spending -- Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, net interest and defense spending -- will account for an estimated 77 percent of all government expenditures. All other federal spending will have to come out of the remaining 23 percent...

.... in Greece, the problem child of the moment everyone is looking at with horror, government debt could reach 130 percent of GDP next year. But Greece is far from alone. In the UK, it will hit 94 percent, and continue to go up 10 percent per year. And in the U.S., we could approach nearly 100 percent.

There's no doubt that Huffington and I would disagree on the way forward - she wants more CHANGE and I've had way too much CHANGE already - but at least she's not asleep, or swooning over The Won.  This is a Good Change.

And what else?  The President is on tv again. Right now. Speaking to the Business Council, whatever that is (it's not the Chamber of Commerce, of that we can be sure). Afterwards, The Won will continue his "Charm the Jews Offensive" by having lunch with Elie Wiesel (yesterday, he actually called Bibi). 

For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics.  It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture—and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.  

[....]

Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, “Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart.” 

Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.

For the sake of Zion, let him not be silent, and for the sake of Jerusalem, let him not rest... when he meets with Obama. Moments away...

Posted by Yael at 11:57 AM

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