Honeymoon Over Already ? Obama being absolutely pummelled by all sides this weekend

Incoming !! Obama got the crap beaten out of him in the media this past weekend. And for good reason.

While he will retain his cadre of the true believers (aka "Kool Aid drinkers"), it is the independent middle and even media elites who are rapidly abandoning ship.

Even the NY Times is getting wise to Obama as a big mistake (even Hugo Chavez and Ayatollah Khameni are getting in on the act !).

Here are links to some stories worth reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/us/politics/22regulate.html?_r=2&hp

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20325.html



http://www.newser.com/off-the-grid/post/99/barack-obama-is-a-terrible-bore.html

http://www.openmarket.org/2009/03/20/herbert-w-obama/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/too_clever_by_half.html

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03192009/news/columnists/__226_treasury__226__trove_of_incompeten_160338.htm

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03222009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/so_sayeth_the_teleprompter_160695.htm

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03222009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obama_cracks_up_160752.htm

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03222009/business/mortgage_investors_slam_obama_mod_plan_160739.htm



This will be a long post with a sampling of opinion and commentary, and we are only scratching the surface here. Read thru the links above, well worth it:

1. Obama to Propose Government Oversight of Executive Pay [Andy McCarthy]

Welcome to the U.S.S.A.

"The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation," according to government officials who spoke to the New York Times (emphasis added). The paper's report is here. It elaborates:

The officials said that the administration was still debating the details of its plan, including how broadly it should be applied and how far it could go beyond simple reporting requirements. Depending on the outcome of the discussions, the administration could seek to put the changes into effect through regulations rather than through legislation.

One proposal could impose greater requirements on company boards to tie executive compensation more closely to corporate performance and to take other steps to ensure that compensation was aligned with the financial interest of the company.

Is there any evidence, since the government began nationalizing swaths of the economy last autumn, that Washington has a clue about what causes positive corporate performance or about what is in the financial interest of a business enterprise? Yet the more value the Obama administration and the Democrat Congress destroy — their demagoguery and fiscally insane policies eviscerating the very tax base needed to pay for their exploding liabilities — the more control they get.

In addition, and among other things, the Obama plan, in order "to protect consumers ... will call for federal standards for mortgage lenders beyond what the Federal Reserve adopted last year, as well as more aggressive enforcement of the mortgage rules." There appears to be not the slightest reflection, in the plan or the Times story, that federal standards for mortgage lenders, and the aggressive enforcement thereof, are what caused the meltdown in the first place.

And here's the best part: as the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, Treasury Secretary Geithner is going to try to turn the page tomorrow from his various misleading statements on the AIG bonuses by unveiling, at long last, his strategy for ridding the financial system of the so-called toxic assets responsible for seizing up the credit markets. Let's ignore for the moment that, at least based on the initial reports, the government still has not solved the problem of how these assets should be valued before yet another trillion or more taxpayer dollars are put at risk. To have the slightest prayer of succeeding, Geithner's program will require the close cooperation of private enterprise. But based on the last two months, what private business in its right mind would trust this government or willingly collaborate with it? Even now, relatively healthy financial institutions that took the TARP money are desperate to return it and get out from under Big Brother's thumb.

2. Herbert Obama? [Jonathan Adler]

CEI's Hans Bader suggests there is an eerie parallel between current and proposed policies and a Depression-era President:

In the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover raised marginal tax rates to 63%, and went on a deficit spending binge. He also signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which helped turn a recession into the Great Depression by triggering a trade war with other countries.

Under President Obama, we have a budding trade war with Mexico over the exclusion of Mexican trucks (in violation of NAFTA), a proposed budget that will explode the deficit and increase marginal tax rates, and new legislation to tax bonuses at AIG and other companies at 90 percent (which could actually cause some folks to receive negative pay). And, to top it off, the Administration is suggesting it wants to regulate executive compensation across the board.

3. I Guess It's Official [Mark Hemingway]

The honeymoon is over:

It's not unusual for Barack Obama to take a little friendly fire from the [New York] Times. But it's perhaps unprecedented for him to get hit on the same day by columnists Frank Rich, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd—and in the paper's lead editorial. Their critique punctuated a weekend that started with a widely circulated blog post by Paul Krugman that said the president’s yet to be announced bank rescue plan would almost certainly fail.


4. Re: I guess it's official [Mark Steyn]


Mark (Hemingway), let's not forget Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff - "Barack Obama Is A Terrible Bore":

Sheesh, the guy is Jimmy Carter.

That's very unfair. At this stage in 1977, even Jimmy Carter wasn't Jimmy Carter. But, 30 days in, the horror of what they'd wrought began to dawn on Brooks, Buckley and the Obamacons. And, after a mere 60, the A-list libs are starting to figure it out, too. Mr Wolff continues:

The hurt defensiveness (and bad script for it) that everybody in Washington "is Simon Cowell… Everybody's got an opinion," is pure I’m-in-over-my-head stuff. Even the idea of having to go on Jay Leno to rescue yourself from the AIG mess is lame. Be a man, man...

This guy is leaden and this show is in trouble.

Maybe it takes a foreigner to see it. The Ottawa Citizen's David Warren puts it this way:

As I mentioned during the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was seriously unqualified for the job of president. He had no practical experience in running anything, except political campaigns; but worse, his background was one-dimensional.

All his life, from childhood through university through "community organizing" and Chicago wardheel politics, through Sunday mornings listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to the left side of Democrat caucuses in Springfield and Washington, he has been surrounded almost exclusively by extremely liberal people, and moreover, by people who are quick and clever but intellectually narrow...

To a man like Obama, as he has let slip on too many occasions when away from his teleprompter, "Middle America" is not something to be compromised with, but rather, something that must be manipulated, because it is stupid. And the proof that it can be manipulated is that he is the president today.

Yes, but the manipulation of "Upper-Middle America" - the Dowds, Riches, etc - was key to that. They're the beneficiaries, ungrateful though they are, of the boom years. Politics is cyclical so in the fulness of time it may yet deliver up another Reagan. But, if you're Frank and Maureen's age, at the rate the Obama-Frank-Dodd crowd are vaporizing American wealth, the new Reagan may not arrive in time to enable you to make back everything Obama's costing you. But hey, that's "social justice", right?


5. Chavez ... well at least he didn't call O "El Diablo" !

Venezuelan thug-in-chief Hugo Chavez has called Barack Obama an “ignoramus.”

“He goes and accuses me of exporting terrorism: the least I can say is that he’s a poor ignoramus; he should read and study a little to understand reality,” said Chavez, who heads a group of left-wing Latin American leaders opposed to the U.S. influence in the region.

6. No Sign of Iranian Fist Unclenching
World | Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 10:33:04 am PDT

I don’t understand. Barack Obama reached out to Iran with all the force of his magnificent personality, and they’re still clenching their fists? How can this be?

Iran’s supreme leader dismisses Obama overtures.

In his most direct assessment of Obama and prospects for better ties, Khamenei said there will be no change between the two countries unless the American president puts an end to U.S. hostility toward Iran and brings “real changes” in foreign policy.

“They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in practice. We haven’t seen any change,” Khamenei said in a speech before a crowd of tens of thousands in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad. ...

Khamenei enumerated a long list of Iranian grievances against the United States over the past 30 years and said the U.S. was still interfering in Iranian affairs. ...

“Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? Even the language remains unchanged,” Khamenei said.

Khamenei, wearing a black turban and dark robes, said America was hated around the world for its arrogance, as the crowd chanted “Death to America.”

Obviously, our shiny new President just hasn’t found the right combination of words and appeasement yet. But I’m sure he’ll keep trying.


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What I find amusing is Khameni talking about how he hasn't seen any real change from Obama. Hey, neither have we ! And certainly no good change.