Some of you might wonder why there hasn’t been much content lately on Obama Pundit. 

Besides the obvious answers (laziness, life), there is another. 

Ennui.

To put it plainly, Obama is boring.  He has been a failure, to be sure, but he has been a boring failure.  How many times can we come on here and post about Obama screwing something up?  It gets old for reader and writer alike.  Carter was boring and bumbling, but at least he was bold in his boringness.

Obama is the black Gray Davis.  You remember the former governor of California, don’t you?  Like Davis, Obama is an empty suit, a Democratic party apparatchik.  They even have similiar builds.  Both Davis and Obama appear to lack a sense of sturdiness or gravity.  It appears you could knock them over with a slight nudge.  But no one wants to come off feeling like a bully.

The only explanation for Obama being such an intense bore is that he hopes to lull sites like this into a coma.  In that sense, I feel like Obama Pundit is under attack thanks to the steady, hypnotic ineptitude pulsating forth from the White House.  Who wants to write about failure all the time?

I will say this:  the latest fiasco with the Olympics is mildly interesting, but I’d have more to write about if Chicago had actually won.  Instead, we get to choose between bad Olympic news and a bad job report.  Aargh!  

Something positive has to happen soon, right?  Must we continue to be nattering nabobs?  It can’t be like this for four years, can it? 

Even Carter had Camp David.

With Obama plummeting in the polls, his agenda in danger and the center abandoning him, the Left has come up with an explanation:  It’s all because of racism!

Jimmy Carter cites protesters calling Obama a Nazi as an example of racial politics.  Of course, Obama isn’t the first President to be called such, nor will he be the last.

Didn’t we know this was all coming?  The racism charge has been kept in the back pocket of the Left just in case Obama turned out to be a complete failure.  Well, now that they have played that card, can there be any doubt that this is an indication that the Left is increasingly desperate and worried about his prospects?

I just don’t get this new strategy by the Democrats to attack the health care protestors head on.  If they are correct that the people showing up angry at these town hall meetings are just a fringe group organized by the Right, then this is hardly the kind of exciting information that’s going to inspire the rest of the electorate to suddenly say “Aha!” and decide to blindly support Obama’s plan.  Rather, all this noise and back and forth just looks–at best–like bickering to most people. 

But what if there really is a genuine grass roots element to all this?  This seems to be reflected by the polls, which show Obama’s health care plan floundering.  If the protestors were a fringe group, wouldn’t the polls show that?

So if the Democrats are going up against a legitimate populist wave, then they are, in effect, pouring gasoline on the fire by besmirching these people as ‘the mob’ or ‘the fringe.’   It’s an absolutely crazy strategy with very little upside.  As Peggy Noonan writes, the Democrats look increasingly desperate.

Finally, I find it hilarious that the Obama White House is complaining about the other side organizing.  Wasn’t Obama a community organizer?  When I used to work for a labor union, all we did was turn out rank and file members to show up at protests with prepared chants, speeches and signs.  It’s a process perfected by the Left and its allies.

I think the Democrats doth protest too much.  And I think it’s because they are scared that they have backed themselves into a corner on this issue.

…are out.

Clearly, the new strategy on the Left is to equate opposition to Obama to racism.  Do you think it is a coincidence that there is suddenly a flurry of opinion pieces on Birthers and racists and how it relates to Obama’s policies?

First, we had the Yglesias piece, which I discussed below.  Then Bill Maher weighed in.  Now, there is this column by Harold Meyerson which hits upon the same irrelevant points–Birthers, racists, etc.  It includes gems like this to explain the sudden lack of support for Obama’s wonderful health care reforms:

When future historians look back at this passage in our nation’s history, I suspect they’ll conclude that this Obama-isn’t-American nuttiness refracted the insecurities and, in some cases, the hatred that a portion of conservative white America felt about having a black president and about the transformation of what many thought of as their white nation into a genuinely multiracial republic. But whatever the reasons, a mobilized minority is making a very plausible play to thwart a demobilized majority.

Right.  It’s the GOP’s fault.  The Democrats can’t even bring a vote on health care to the House floor and it’s the fault of the Senate GOP and their filibuster, which, uh, they are one vote short to implement anyway.  So, when that fails, just say they are all racist nuts who think Obama isn’t an American.  How desperate are they getting? And what is the origin of all this?

Well, the Democratic National Committee for starters.  Here’s part of a recent statement by their communications director:

Republicans and their allied groups – desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill – are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.

However, much like we saw at the McCain-Palin rallies last year where crowds were baited with cries of ’socialist,’ ‘communist,’ and where the birthers movement was born – these mobs of extremists are not interested in having a thoughtful discussion about the issues – but like some Republican leaders have said – they are interested in ‘breaking’ the President and destroying his Presidency.

Well, let’s get back to reality.  The fact is that most Americans–not a noisy minority–are in some sort of opposition to Obama’s plans.  From Gallup:

• Although the majority of Americans believe the U.S. healthcare system has major problems, less than 20% perceive that the U.S. healthcare system is in a state of crisis. This has not shifted significantly in 15 years.
• More Americans now mention healthcare as the nation’s most important problem than was the case a few months ago. It is unlikely that the quality of healthcare deteriorated in four months, but rather that its salience has increased for the average American with the increased focus on the topic from politicians and the news media. This follows the pattern seen in 1993 and 1994; concern about healthcare shot up as the problem was being addressed in Washington, D.C., but dropped thereafter. The current percentage of Americans naming healthcare as the country’s biggest problem is significantly lower than in 1994.
• At this point, almost 7 out of 10 Americans say economic-related issues are the nation’s top problem; 16% say healthcare is the top problem.
• One in 10 Americans say healthcare is the most important financial problem facing their family.

2. Americans are not convinced that healthcare reform will benefit them personally. This is, in part, because most Americans are satisfied with their current medical care and access to healthcare. Seniors in particular are not convinced that healthcare reform will benefit them.

• Most Americans do not see a direct personal benefit for themselves if healthcare legislation is passed.
• Eighty-four percent of Americans are insured and most say they are satisfied with their insurance and healthcare.
• Americans are more likely to be convinced that new healthcare legislation will have a negative effect personally rather than a positive one, although a substantial minority falls in the middle, saying it will have no effect on them either way.
• Most Americans rate the quality of healthcare they receive and their healthcare coverage as excellent or good. These views have been stable in recent years.
• While younger adults (those 18 to 49) are as likely to believe reform could help them as say it could hurt them, older Americans, particularly those 65 years and older, are far less likely to perceive that their medical care or access to healthcare would improve under new healthcare legislation.

3. Americans agree that healthcare costs are a major problem for the country. Americans do not, however, believe that healthcare reform would lessen costs — neither for the system as a whole nor for individuals.

• An overwhelming 79% of Americans say that they are dissatisfied with the total cost of healthcare in this country.
• Forty-five percent say that healthcare costs would increase overall with a new healthcare reform law, compared to 30% who say they would decrease.
• Personally, 34% say their healthcare costs would increase under a new law; 18% say they would be reduced.

4. The push for healthcare reform is occurring in an environment characterized by high levels of concern about fiscal responsibility, government spending, and the growing federal deficit. Americans are being asked to approve major new healthcare expenditures at a time when they are not yet convinced that the last massive outlay of government money — the stimulus — has made an impact.

• Americans are worried about their country’s budget deficit.
• President Obama gets his lowest marks on handling the federal deficit.
• Those who disapprove of Obama’s job performance are most likely to say it is because of the high levels of spending introduced in his administration.
• A Pew Research poll released this week shows that those who are worried about new healthcare legislation are most likely to say it is because it involves too much spending and would increase the deficit.
• Less than a third of Americans perceive that the stimulus plan has made the U.S. economy better, although about half hold out hope that it will eventually.
• Americans, on balance, perceive that the stimulus plan has, thus far, had no effect or made their own financial situation worse (64% and 22%, respectively). Looking ahead, Americans are just as likely to say the stimulus’ long-term effect will make their situation worse as make it better.

5. Americans have relatively little confidence in Congress and thus, by inference, little confidence that Congress can effectively and efficiently reform the country’s massive healthcare system.

• Two-thirds of Americans say members of Congress do not have a good understanding of the issues involved in healthcare reform.
• Just 17% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress, near the bottom of a list of institutions Gallup measures each year.

6. Americans continue to have more confidence in President Obama on healthcare issues than in either the Democrats or Republicans in Congress. Obama’s political capital, however, is waning. This leads to a circularity in which Obama’s hard push for healthcare reform may hurt his approval ratings, and his falling approval ratings may hurt his credibility on healthcare reform. One inevitable byproduct of Obama’s strong push on reform is the politicalization of healthcare. Most Democrats support it, Republicans oppose it, and independents are in the middle.

• President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen from an average of 66% in early May to 56% for the week of July 20-26.
• Given a list of sources for recommendations for healthcare guidance, Americans say they are more confident in Obama than in either Democratic or Republican leaders in Congress — although doctors, researchers, and hospitals are rated higher than Obama.
• Twenty-two percent of Republicans want a new healthcare law passed this year, compared to 63% of Democrats.

7. Americans have mixed or ambivalent views of the role government should have in healthcare. They favor some government involvement, but not a government-run healthcare system.

• Less than half of Americans favor replacing the current system with a government-run healthcare system.
• Americans responding to questions asked by various polling organizations in recent weeks indicate that they do favor a public option plan (run by the government) that would compete with private plans.
• Americans believe that it is the government’s role to help see that all Americans have access to healthcare, although this sentiment was waning as of November 2008.

8. On a case-by-case basis, Americans favor many specific proposals that have been put forth as ways of reforming healthcare.

• Polls from several polling organizations released this week show that Americans favor a public option government plan to compete with employer plans, requiring insurance companies to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions, tax credits to help some people pay for health insurance, and expansion of government plans to cover low-income Americans.
• Americans also appear to agree with a number of different ways of paying for healthcare reform, including taxes on the rich and requiring employers to pay a fee if they don’t provide health insurance.

9. Despite positive views of many specific reform proposals, Americans appear ambivalent at this juncture on the overall merits of passing a broad healthcare plan.

• In mid-July a majority of Americans favored passing a major healthcare reform bill (described without reference to who is supporting it).
• By later in July, several organizations’ surveys show a plurality of Americans opposed to passage of plans variously labeled as Obama’s plan, the plan proposed by President Obama and the Congressional Democrats, healthcare proposals being discussed in Congress, or healthcare reform legislation being considered right now.
• Other recent poll questions, which describe the plan in great detail, continue to show plurality of majority support.
• A plurality, but not a majority, of Americans say that a new healthcare plan would improve the overall level of medical care and improve access to healthcare in the U.S.

10. All in all, while the majority of Americans ultimately favor passage of healthcare reform, many are willing to wait until next year to see it happen.

This is the facts.  The marching orders are there to convince Americans otherwise.  It won’t work.

I think it’s worthwhile to highlight liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias’ rather extraordinary column today called ‘Here Come the Racists‘ as a great example of how the Left operates these days.  Call it a ‘teachable moment’.  

I hope that wasn’t too condescending.  If so, I’m only repeating one of the President’s favorite phrases.

Let’s start with how Yglesias distorts what happened last week with the Gates Affair. 

How else to explain the firestorm of controversy set off by the president of the United States offering the banal observation that there is “a long history” of “African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately,” and that a police department that arrests a man inside his own home and winds up dropping the charges has acted “stupidly”? But as soon as the president spoke, the right wing pounced, smelling blood.

This might work as a rhetorical question if it actually bore some relation to what actually happened.  Indeed, there was zero controversey over his ‘banal’ statement about disproportionate treatment of blacks and latinos.  The real controversey was over him saying that police acted ’stupidly’ while at the same time admitting he didn’t have all the facts about the case.  The buzz was over the President of the United States inserting himself into a local matter during a press conference on health care.  This was why there was a firestorm, not because Obama said anything about how minorities are treated.

And since when are the Cambridge Police the right wing?  All of them–regardless of race or political affiliation–supported Officer Crowley.

But the reason for Yglesias’ distortion quickly becomes apparent in the next graph:

Since the campaign ended, we’ve been seeing the extreme racial paranoia that has characterized the American right for decades.

Got that?  Making a fuss over the President of the United States blurting out a snap judgement when he admits he didn’t have the facts is a sign of rising racial paranoia by the right wing. 

Well, he might be right that there is extreme racial paranoia out there, except it seems to be coming primarily from people like Yglesias.  How else to explain the title of his column (Here Come the Racists!).  Does that sound appropriate for a column claiming to decry paranoia?  Yglesias clearly insinuates that the Grand Wizard himself, Britt Hume, is one of these racists for having the nerve to point out those occasions when non-whites make racially insensitive statements. 

What’s Yglesias’ motivation here? Is he merely adhering to the old left-wing saw that minorities, by dint of their lack of political power, can’t be racist and therefore to accuse them of racism is itself a racist act?  But if the President doesn’t have power, who does?  Is it wrong to hold him accountable for the content of his statements?  Should we have just laughed off Sonia Sotomayor’s racially-tinged words?

After glossing over that whole issue, Yglesias then goes on to hit all the Lefty talking points of late:  something about Michael Savage (is he even on the radio?), the Birthers (naturally) and, in order to appear serious and high minded, he also voices a faux concern for the future of the GOP for associating with such bigots. 

For good measure, he throws in a poll that says that 23 percent of the public is uncertain whether Obama was born in the U.S. (clearly because they are all racists).   Of course, he rather approvingly assumes that this group is all right wing, too, except that at least one-fourth are either independents or Democrats. 

Let’s not forget that 61 percent of Democrats are uncertain over whether Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand or not, so when it comes to kooky conspiracy-theorist types, neither party is clean.

But Yglesias won’t let all that stuff get in the way of his column’s ultimate goal:  To bludgeon people he disagrees with politically with the ‘racist’ label. 

Much more fun to do that than talk about how Obama’s health care plan might create more racists–er, Republicans–in 2010.

One of Barack Obama’s favorite methods for defending embarrassing or politically awkward statements he or others have made is to claim that they are merely ’snippets’ that were ‘taken out of context’. 

Then, after pointing this out, he goes on to attack those who would dare hold him or others accountable for such statements.  The result is that attention is temporarily diverted away from the statements, usually so they can be weakly disowned later when fewer people are paying attention.

Some examples:

—On his wife, Michelle, after her speech declaring herself to be proud of her country for the first time in her life: 

“..to try to distort or to play snippets of her remarks in ways that are unflattering to her I think is just low class … and especially for people who purport to be promoters of family values, who claim that they are protectors of the values and ideals and the decency of the American people to start attacking my wife in a political campaign I think is detestable.”

—On his spiritual mentor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright:

And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

—Obama on his Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s racially insensitive remarks:

“There are, of course, some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor’s record,” said Mr. Obama.

Those are just three examples.  Of course, in each of the three cases, the statements or the subjects of the statements were all eventually disavowed, rendering much of the early criticism by Obama over ‘context’ moot.

And now we come to the latest example.  Here is the President clearly advocating for a single-payer health care system that will eventually phase out private insurance:

The text reads thus: 

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

I’m not sure how this segment can be construed as anything other than a strong endorsement of a single-payer health care system. 

But hold the phone!  Here is the response from the Obama administration on the words spoken by the President on that video:

“Well, nothing can be farther from the truth. You know the people who always try to SCARE people whenever you try to bring them health-insurance reform are at it again. And they’re taking sentences and phrases out of context, and they’re cobbling them together to leave a VERY false impression. The truth is that the president has been talking to the American people a LOT about health-insurance reform and what is at stake for them.

“So what happens is that because he’s talking to the American people so much, there are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time, and they take a phrase here and there — they simply cherry-pick and put it together, and make it sound like he’s saying something that he didn’t really say.”

WHERE was anything ‘cobbled together?’  It’s a straightforward video of a statement.  It’s not re-edited or re-looped or cut differently.  It’s straight from a YouTube video originally made by a member of SEIU!

This disavowal is simply amazing and takes us for a bunch of fools.  A perfectly acceptable response would be:  “The President at one time favored a single-payer system but no longer does.  Next issue.”  I’m sure many people not on the Progressive side of the spectrum would have no problem with him changing his mind to a more moderate position.

But to claim that it is taken out of context does nothing but increase the suspicion of the President’s intentions when it comes to this bill.  Which Obama are we supposed to believe and why?  Is everything he said in the past now inoperable if it is politically inexpedient? 

He once said that ‘words matter.’  Maybe it was just another cobbled-together snippet that we should all disregard.

Note how the markets dove in the early Obama presidency and have risen sharply since early March:

This trend closely aligns with Rasmussen’s approval ratings of Obama.  In the early going, Obama garnered strong approval ratings and appeared to have control of the agenda in Washington.  When his stimulus bill passed on Feb. 17, his net approval was +15 and his overall rating was a healthy 61 percent. 

However, around late February and early March is when Obama starting charting below 60 percent approval rating in Rasmussen.  That’s also exactly when the Dow started to climb.  It took off when, on March 6, Obama plunged from a +15 approval gap to a +8.  He hasn’t been above +10 for more than a day at a time since. 

Even more revealing, the steepest climb in the Dow which occurred starting in early July also coincided with Obama sinking to a net negative approval rating on Rasmussen’s tracker.  On June 30, Obama went into negative territory for the first time.  The Dow began its steep climb right after the 4th of July weekend and went up sharply for the next two weeks, just as Obama’s negatives rose to a net -12 in Rasmussen.

What to make of all this?  I think it’s pretty simple:  The markets see the stimulus as a political failure, the budget deficits are scaring people (thus creating an impetus for future reduction in said deficits), the Climate Bill is dead on arrival and the proposed health care plan is wildly unpopular.  

So the markets are rising because they see Obama turning into a weak President.  They are betting that as Obama’s approval ratings go down, the prospects for the American economy will go up.  

At this point, it looks like a safe bet.

I guess it’s okay to meddle in a country’s affairs when it doesn’t hold some sort of strategic value and also makes your left-wing friends happy.

Right now it appears that Obama’s Presidency is mired in a descending spiral that could get much, much worse.  Not only are his approval ratings steadily falling, but his oratory appears to be faltering, with gaffes and improperly calibrated statements the order of the day.

So, things look bleak.  Unless, of course, something happens.

Past Presidential first years weren’t always smooth, but there was almost always some sort of galvanizing event that knocked the mis-steps and errors off the front page, while setting a tone for the rest of the term.

George W. Bush, of course, had 9/11, the ultimate game changer.  Much of the acrimony of the 2000 election was temporarily buried.  Bill Clinton had a rough first six months, but then got some good news when it was revealed that the economy was humming in the fourth quarter of 1993.  While he lost Congress, he survived to win reelection because the GDP was growing rapidly.  Bush I kicked Noriega out of power, making him appear strong and resolute.  Ronald Reagan got shot, which provided tremendous impetus to pass his economic program.

The problem with Obama is that he has taken on so much, so soon, he is sucking the air out of the news cycle.  Despite what he claims, it really is all about him ane his legislative agenda, which at this moment is sorely lacking in clear-cut victories.  No one expects a booming economic report any time soon.  Any news out of the foreign policy sphere is likely to be bad.  That leaves all-Obama, all the time. 

Or so we think.  We don’t know yet if Obama is one of those Presidents–like Carter and both Bushes–who will be cursed by bad luck, or one of those–Reagan, Clinton–who will be constantly saved from themselves by unforeseen good fortune.

I think we’ll see Obama’s approval ratings hit 40 percent by November and it will be largely the result of the legislative morass he has created.  Whether he can dig his way out is the great unknown.

The way things are going, Obama is on his way to a major defeat on health care.  However, it is not yet a fait accompli.

How can he turn things around?

I think the smartest thing he can do right now is to pivot into a populist position.  He has been spending much of the time talking about cost and deficits and this is not capturing anyone’s imagination right now.

So, if I’m Obama, the FIRST thing I do is make one thing very loud and clear with the following statement:

I am so confident in the effectiveness of this bill, I pledge to you that every member of the government–Congress, the Supreme Court and the Federal Bureaucracy, plus myself and my family–will be covered under this health care plan. 

Obama has been reticent when asked to make this pledge and, of course, Congress has exempted itself from the bill as well.  This exemption will end up being a major issue if it ever comes to a vote and could end up killing the bill all by itself.

However, if Obama gets on the right side of the issue now, he will show he is personally invested in the fight and this will pay dividends politically.  It might piss off Congress, but it could also pressure them into action.  Maybe a little triangulation is needed in this case. 

To me, this is a no-brainer and a great way to get back to his populist roots.  Will he do it?

Why Does Obama Keep Siding With His Party’s Left?  asks Clive Crook of the Atlantic.

Um, this should only be perplexing to those who do not yet realize that Obama is a man of the left, full bore.  During the campaign, there were plenty of signs:  his 97 percent liberal National Journal rating;  his rhetoric in favor of immediate withdrawal from Iraq; his relationships with left-wing bomb throwers (literally).

Not to worry, he’s a centrist, said many commentators.  These same commentators are now befuddled at why Obama is pissing off his party’s centrist wing. 

If only they had listened.

UPDATE:  Sean Trende of RCP echoes my sentiment.

Turns out the surtax on the rich proposed by the Democrats as a way to fund health care will have the perverse effect of affecting doctors the most.

The top eight highest-paid professions in the U.S. are–you guessed it–in the medical or dental fields.

Medical and dental specialists top the list of the highest paid professions, as they hold numbers one through eight of the 25 highest earning jobs as well as five other rankings on the 2004 list. Anesthesiologists are number one, internists number two and obstetricians and gynecologists number three of the top professional earners in the United States. Oral surgeons take the fourth spot, orthodontists the fifth and prosthodontists the sixth. Psychiatrists are listed as the seventh of the highest paid professions, while surgeons are ranked as the eighth. The average 2004 income for these eight professions is more than $145,600 US dollars (USD).

Mind you, these are average salaries–the average anethesiologist makes $314,000 per year, for instance.  So a healthy portion of the medical field will be affected by the proposed surtax on wealthy individuals.  

This type of punishment will serve as a disincentive for some who would otherwise enter the medical field.  The result will be fewer doctors and, thus, more expensive health care.   

Of course, it could also happen that future generations of doctors will work for the government as civil servants and will not be paid as much as they are now.  In which case, where will the money to fund health care come from?

You know the Left is worried when a liberal like Robert Reich calls on all Democrats to unite to pass health care. 

This bill is dead…

I opined a few weeks ago that Obama and the Democrats are headed for a health care disaster on par with 1994 and, amazingly, all the pieces are falling into place.

As in 1994, the GOP has come out with a chart to depict the madness of the pending health care bureaucracy that will be created by the new reform bill.  All we need now is a new ’Harry and Louise’ ad and the circle will be complete.

The only difference is that this time the Dems appear to be willing to bite the bullet and get some kind of bill passed.  The result will be a major disruption of the economy and the daily lives of Americans and it will be very unpopular with a wide swath of the country. 

This could be the ‘Hurricane Katrina’ of the Democratic Party and, unless the GOP can capitalize, might even signal the beginning of the end of the current two-party power structure.

Only in Newsweek–which has devolved into nothing more than an echo chamber for the Obama administration–can you see a headline that asks:  Is Obama More Catholic Than The Pope?

When Obama meets the pope tomorrow, they’ll politely disagree about reproductive freedoms and homosexuality, but Catholics back home won’t care, because they know Obama’s on their side. In fact, Obama’s agenda is closer to their views than even the pope’s.

The piece, written by that paragon of Catholicism, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, is a major stretch.  So, because American Catholics agree (supposedly) with Obama on a few issues unrelated to faith, that makes Obama more Catholic than the Pope?  Nonsense!

Anyway, this notion is not supported by recent polls.  Let’s just take the issue of abortion.  According to Gallup, 52 percent of American Catholics call themselves ‘Pro Life’.  So how is Obama really ‘on their side’ on this matter?  Is Kennedy-Townsend stuck in a time warp? 

In fact, the majority of Americans overall now call themselves Pro Life, which means that if you take Newsweek’s obtuse reasoning, Obama is actually less American than the Pope because more Americans agree with the Church on the issue of abortion than they do with the President. 

The other alternative being that he’s just more German than the Pope…

Apparently, it’s okay if you are Barack Obama.

George W. Bush was lambasted for his entire presidency for the way he would doggedly stick to a decision, even when things didn’t appear to be going his way.

Now, Obama has said that there is ‘nothing’ he ‘would have done differently’ about his stimulus plan.

Really?  Nothing?  Nothing at all, Obama?

You wouldn’t go back and make sure it was spent quicker?  You wouldn’t have funneled the money into more shovel-ready projects?  You wouldn’t have considered more fast-acting ways to get money into consumers’ hands?

The stimulus has been a disaster and Obama’s party is starting to worry.  I wonder how long this stubborness will last?

I don’t think I agree with the U.S./Argentina comparison as a whole.  There are some cautionary tales to be learned from the Argentinian experience, but few real parallels, in my opinion.

As for Singapore, I have actually been there myself and found it to be an extraordinarily clean city, if a bit boring.  But then, when you ship in thousands of Filipino maids and South Indian day laborers to do your dirty work for dollars a day, it’s understandable why things are so spic and span. 

Also helps to have a semi-autocratic, though mostly-benevolent government in place that can get things done.  Give Singapore our political system and chaos would quickly ensue!

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times today perfectly–though unintentionally–encapsulated the modus operandi of the current administration, Congress and their political allies

Regarding the just-passed Cap and Trade Bill in the House, the supposedly serious thinker Friedman writes:

It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.

Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.

Of course, it doesn’t matter if anyone has actually read the bill. It doesn’t matter if it works. It doesn’t even matter if it is detrimental to the U.S. economy.

Just shut up and pass it.

Do something, anything, to give the appearance of bold action.

Looking back on the first six months of Obama, the same kind of logic was applied to the stimulus bill, the budget, GM, the bailouts and the closing of Gitmo.

If only Friedman, Obama and Congress abided by John Wooden’s great dictum:

Never mistake activity for achievement.

Oh, but we’re getting lots of activity, aren’t we?

There was a point in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Democrats changed their nomenclature and started using the term ‘investment’ as a substitute for almost any kind of proposed spending.

Democrats had been successfully tarred and feathered with the ‘big spender’ label for quite a while and needed a way avoid being pigeonholed.  A decade of successful real investment by the private sector meant the free enterprise system was back in vogue and so ‘investment’ was adopted to sound much more appealing to the average voter.

For example, ultra-liberal Robert Reich is a huge supporter of ‘investments’ in public infrastructure, education and other government initiatives and he has used the term as much as possible since serving under Bill Clinton.  Really, any kind of government outlay is an ‘investment’ in Reich’s world.

But now, there is a new approach being taken by Barack Obama, which is to label every possible piece of legislation as a ‘jobs’ bill.

Obviously, there is the stimulus package, which he said would ’save or create’ 3 million jobs.  Putting aside the absurdity of the ’save’ portion of the bill, it is reasonable enough–in the political sense–for him to claim that his bill will create jobs.

Then there is his budget bill, which he also said would create jobs.  He never really spelled out how his spending priorities would actually do this, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt here, too, as all Presidents make such claims.

But moving beyond the realm of fiscal policy and economic pump-priming, he has gone on to claim his health care plan would also create jobs.  From his health care speech on June 15, he promised:

…a system that gives Americans the best care at the lowest cost; a system that eases up the pressure on businesses and unleashes the promise of our economy, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

But wait, he’s not done!

The House just passed a Cap and Trade energy bill that by most accounts will exact a huge price on the American economy.  But guess what?  Despite raising the cost of energy on already worn-out businesses and consumers, Obama says this bill will…you guessed it, create jobs:

And most importantly, (the bill) will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs. Now, make no mistake — this is a jobs bill.

Even Obama’s Cairo speech contained a paean to the job-creating powers of his policies:

On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create jobs. We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new Science Envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops.

I’m sure destitute Muslims in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are going ga-ga over the prospect of green jobs.  Having their, uh, personnel files digitized by their autocratic regimes is equally exciting! 

Anyway, it’s obvious that the White House strategy now is to couch every major initiative as a way to create jobs.  It makes one wonder how, exactly, Obama thinks jobs are created.

Surely, an energy bill that puts thousands out of work in one area of the energy economy–say, coal mining–but then pushes mere hundreds into a different sector–say, building wind mills–can’t legitimately be considered a ‘jobs’ bill.  Jobs are destroyed and created in the overall economy every single day.  The goal is for there to be net job creation, right?

Evidence that health care reform or cap and trade will produce a net gain in jobs is spurious at best.  Yet Obama keeps repeating the claim. 

Will anyone ever call him on it?

Granted, we are only halfway through Barack Obama’s first year as President, but what, exactly, does he have to point to as a big success?

Mind you, a President usually can’t sprinkle pixie dust in the air and make things happen–although this was the impression Obama gave during the campaign–but given his relatively solid electoral majority and control of both houses of Congress, you’d think there’d be a clear victory somewhere along the line.

Now, I am not talking about a political win in the sense that he endorsed or pushed a policy and it then become law.   That has happened and he has accrued an enormous amount of power in the meantime.  What I’m talking about are the bragging points of his presidency.  What are they?  What is objectively seen as a clear, positive triumph for the Obama team?  What policies have actually borne fruit, either political or otherwise?

Is it the stimulus?  Has that been either a political or policy success?  Too soon to tell on the latter count  and entirely debatable on the first (which will probably depend, in the end, on the latter).  Meanwhile, accounts are trickling in of wasted money and various other boondoggles.  Also, unemployment is higher than what was predicted without a stimulus.

Was his budget a hit?  Hardly.  The soaring deficits are making moderate Democrats and independent voters quite nervous.

His stance on Iran?  It has see-sawed between coddling of the Mullahs to taking a more forceful tone.  One gets the sense he is trying to muddle through while incurring as little political damage as possible.  The result has been the lowest approval ratings of his Presidency. 

Health care?  That’s still in the works, but the early indications aren’t exactly encouraging.

Cap ‘n Trade?  The House just passed it–narrowly–and the close margin is a sign that the Senate is going to have a really tough time passing it in the fall.

Gitmo and torture policy?  He lost that debate to a former Vice President with a low approval rating. 

The GM takeover?  That’s not exactly a popular policy. 

I’m not trying to be a nattering nabob here.  I just want to know what, after almost six months, does Obama have to hang his hat on?  Where is his slam dunk win?

Perhaps Afghanistan.  Maybe his financial reform bill.  Uh….Sotomayor?

So far, it’s pretty thin gruel for what was supposed to be a transformational presidency.  About all he has going for him right now is that he is still in power and, while he’s not super popular, he’s not exactly unpopular either.

But with the world spinning more and more out of control and the economy not behaving as hoped for, that could soon change.

Indeed, I think it is only a matter of time before the public sees there no there there when it comes to Obama.