I have a piece in the London Times today assessing the presidency on the anniversary of the 2008 election. Excerpt:
In the year since his election, the President and the huge Democratic majority in Congress have done some substantial things. Obama did enact a huge fiscal stimulus at the beginning of his presidency. He continued the Bush policy of extending huge credits to troubled financial companies. He bailed out Chrysler and General Motors. (On Wall Street, the latter now carries the cruel nickname, “American Leyland”.) The trouble is that most of Mr. Obama’s main accomplishments are things that he and his party never wanted to do. Worse (from the liberal point of view), they have consumed the political capital that he needed to accomplish the things he and his party did want to do.
The President hoped to pass a radical healthcare programme by the summer of 2009 and then move on to climate change and some kind of amnesty for illegal immigrants. Instead, the health care debate is staggering into 2010, climate change action remains stuck in committee and amnesty has dropped out of the discussion altogether.
6 responses so far
1 joemarier // Nov 6, 2009 at 10:40 am
I always have a great sympathy for the “one crushing defeat away from total victory” argument.
2 Reason60 // Nov 6, 2009 at 11:06 am
I don’t suppose the Blue Dogs or the Joe Liebermans or the Republicans have anything whatsoever to do with the inaction in Washington.
Nope, couldn’t be.
3 LFC // Nov 6, 2009 at 1:57 pm
This just reflects reality. Obama was handed the biggest pile of s**t that any incoming President has been stuck with in my lifetime. We can’t ignore or avoid the need to clean up after the disastrous George W. years.
What’s it take to choke out all of the growth in your garden? Just one Bush.
4 joemarier // Nov 6, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Two, actually! Kidding, kidding…
I’m missing the days when Democrats like Al Gore would run around saying crisis=opportunity. Now it’s more like crisis=that guy (Bush, Deeds, Boehner, Snowe, Lieberman…)
5 sinz54 // Nov 7, 2009 at 9:22 am
Reason60:
The Republicans have absolutely nothing to do with it.
The Dems have a commanding majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. If they were unified, they could steamroll anything they wanted past the GOP, and the GOP couldn’t do anything to stop it.
The lack of progress is due to the trap the Dems put themselves in. To win those majorities, they had to run moderate or even center-right Dem candidates in center-right districts and states. They won. But now those moderates and center-rightists are fighting with Pelosi’s liberals. They know they can’t win re-election if they morph into liberals, so many of them are sticking with the stances they took originally.
6 sinz54 // Nov 7, 2009 at 9:30 am
lfc:
That argument won’t wash anymore.
Because Obama and his spokespersons had said repeatedly over this past year that they had a handle on these problems. They were wrong.
This chart was put out by the Obama Administration during the debate over the stimulus package. It claimed that with the stimulus package, unemployment would peak in September and start going down from there:
http://i36.tinypic.com/1075l4x.gif
As you know, the unemployment rate has continued to rise, now hitting 10.2%. Some analysts believe it could go as high as 11% in 2010.
In March, Obama gave a major policy speech in which he laid out what he called his comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan. Now, he’s scuttling away from it after he learned what it would cost in blood and treasure.
We did not elect Obama to whine about how hard the job is, or what a mess his predecessor left him. If he felt that Bush had messed things up so badly that he couldn’t deal with it, then he shouldn’t have run for President.
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