Obama tried to govern with campaign rhetoric. He spent the last few days taking his public plea to the people to pass his "stimulus" bill. Moments before the vote, he sent his Treasury Secretary out to calm the markets. The bill passed and the markets swooned;
It took moments for the
Financial Times to question whether the Obama presidency hasn't already failed;
Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much.
A
juvenile little putz in our own comment section cheered;
Hooray for democracy!
In your face assholes!! We won!!!
Won what? A vote? Just because the president won a vote doesn't mean he's off the hook. The plan has to work and apparently the experts don't think it will work. CBO warned last week that this plan would slow growth over the next ten years, and the campaign-like rhetoric was short on details that the experts need to plan the future of their companies. From the
Wall Street Journal;
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner promised forceful action to get credit flowing again in the economy, but the lack of detail in his much-anticipated speech helped drive stocks down nearly 5%, the worst selloff since President Barack Obama assumed office.
From the
Washington Times;
President Obama on Tuesday for the first time staked his fledgling presidency on pulling the country from its economic crisis, promising dispirited Floridians that his stimulus plan will produce tangible results such as jobs and tuition credits or he'll be ousted from office in 2012.
Mr. Obama -- who earned a small victory when the Senate passed his $838 billion plan but then was hit with a big drop in the stock market -- was on the campaign trail again, using a town-hall meeting and one of the best weapons in his arsenal: himself.
He'll always draw crowds of acolytes and ass-kissers, even Bill Clinton in his darkest days could do that - but now Obama has to produce, too.
Even the
Washington Post finally admitted their messiah wasn't wearing any clothes;
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner vowed yesterday to bring the "full force" of the U.S. government to battle the financial crisis, assembling an unprecedented coalition of agencies and mustering federal resources on a scale rarely seen except at wartime. But the lack of detail in his plan dismayed lawmakers and investors, triggering a steep sell-off on Wall Street.
The problem is; the average voter who responds to the pretty rhetoric of the campaign isn't the same person trying to map out a future for their business or their investments. The reality is that Obama and his staff have always been sparse on details for the purpose of shagging along voters, as long as he said what they wanted to hear, they supported him. However, the rest of us work, live and plan for our futures in the real world where we need details - but as we saw with the stimulus bill, the more details we hear, the less likely we're going to support Obama's plans for our money.
I mentioned a month ago that the campaign is over and it's time for Obama & Co. to produce results. The president must not have heard me.
Apparently, qualifying for the Nobel Prize in Physics just ain't what it used to be. If DoE Secretary Steven Chu's recent conversation with the Wall Street Journal is any inkling of his intelligence, he probably rides the short bus around D.C. Here's what he had to say on deals with OPEC (h/t Flopping Aces):
