Why Are People So Surprised About Obama ?

being an ultra-liberal ideologue and woefully unqualified to be President ?


Missing the point [Mark Steyn]

The Economist is the latest of the smart guys to notice that President Obama is proving strangely unlike the guy they told us he was back in late October:

His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped. Many of his strongest supporters—liberal columnists, prominent donors, Democratic Party stalwarts—have started to question him. As for those not so beholden, polls show that independent voters again prefer Republicans to Democrats, a startling reversal of fortune in just a few weeks. Mr Obama’s once-celestial approval ratings are about where George Bush’s were at this stage in his awful presidency. Despite his resounding electoral victory, his solid majorities in both chambers of Congress and the obvious goodwill of the bulk of the electorate, Mr Obama has seemed curiously feeble.

The geniuses then go on to explain why this is: first, he hasn't "grappled" with the economy as singlemindedly as he should; second, he hasn't managed his relations with Congress very well. Jennifer Rubin gently explains what the smart guys have missed:

The Economist had Obama pegged wrong. Yes, there is an element of managerial incompetence, but the real issue is that the Right was correct about Obama: he’s an ultra-liberal at least on domestic policy, not a pragmatic centrist either on policy or in style. His mode of governance — denigrate the opposition, engage in ad hominem attacks, refuse to compromise on substantive policy, disguise radical policy intentions with a haze of meaningless rhetoric — bespeaks someone supremely confident in his ideological views...

This is the point: The nuancey boys were wrong on Obama, and the knuckledragging morons were right. There is no post-partisan centrist "grappling" with the economy, only a transformative radical willing to make Americans poorer in the cause of massive government expansion. At some point, The Economist, Messrs Brooks, Buckley & Co are going to have to acknowledge this. If they're planning on spending the rest of his term tutting that his management style is obstructing the effective implementation of his centrist agenda, it's going to be a long four years.

And how about this?

In an accomplished press conference this week, Mr Obama reminded the world what an impressive politician he can be. He has a capacity to inspire that is unmatched abroad or at home.

Oh, dear. That's so January 20th it makes these toffee-nosed Brits sound like straw-sucking hayseeds. Here's Gail Collins in The New York Times:

National Consensus Update...

Barack Obama — Kinda boring. Did you see the news conference? Same thing over and over again. Not that we mind. In these troubled times, we like stability. Thank God we didn’t elect somebody who was all charisma and exciting speeches...

Obama & The Bankers - Kumbaya, Baby !

And we'll all go down together .....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/business/economy/28bank.html?_r=1&partner=MYWAY&ei=5065


“I’m of the feeling that we’re all in this together,” said Vikram S. Pandit, the chief executive of Citigroup, shortly after leaving the White House.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, used the same phrase to characterize the president’s message: “Everybody has to pitch in,” Mr. Gibbs said. “We’re all in this together.”

Competence; Transparency; Ethics -- All Woefully Lacking !

This is really, really sad ..... (otherwise it would be hilarious)


Instability [John J. Miller]

More than a month ago, Tim Geithner announced a new website: financialstability.gov. “The website will give Americans the transparency they deserve," he promised. As of today, however, the website is still under construction.

Are you feeling more confident about the adminstration now?Hat tip: Adam Paul at American.com.

My Sentiments Exactly ....

VDH almost always hits the nail right on the head:

I Just Don't Believe . . . [Victor Davis Hanson]

For some reason, I don’t believe that eventually halving the now-tripled budget deficit means either a better net yearly financial picture or less accumulated aggregate debt. And for some reason, I don’t believe that promises of the most ethical cabinet in history result in anything different from what we’ve seen in the past. And, for some reason, I don’t believe that talking about government waste and financial sobriety means reduced government expenditure. And for some reason, I don’t believe that much publicized outreach to the Russians, Syrians, Iranians, and Hamas will result in either in a safer world or an enhanced reputation of the United States. And, for some reason, I don’t believe that “Bush did it” and “We inherited [fill in the blanks]” is either “bipartisanship” or will ever really cease. And, for some reason, I just don’t believe that teleprompted eloquence is the same thing as either impromptu mastery of issues, candor and modesty, or good-faith governance.

Media Amplifies Anti-Israel Slanders .... We Refute Them

Especially the New York Times, that willfully prints any anti-Israel big lies that they can find, but never the corrections:

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=35&x_article=1647

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=6&x_article=760

These speak for themselves.

Good work CAMERA !

Rahm Emmanuel, Freddie Mac board member, $ 320,000

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story

The beat goes on IN ObamaNation. Emmanuel is Obama's Rove. He and David Axelrod run the country, while Obama goes on TV with his Teleprompter and plays President.

This is simply outrageous.

Fannie and Freddie were stuffed full of Democratic movers and shakers raking in tens of millions of dollars (Jim Johnson, Jamie Gorelick, Franklin Raines) to name a few, while politicians like Dodd, Frank and Obama raked in the donations and protected them from scrutiny, accountability and change.

WHY ARE THESE CROOKS IN STILL IN POSITIONS OF POWER (NOTABLY DODD AND FRANK).

AND NOW RAHM EMMANUEL.

Oh yeah, this must be all George Bush's fault and a crisis that was "inherited".

As if Congressman Emmanuel and Frank, and Senators Dodd and Obama, had nothing to do with it.

A brief excerpt:

Because of Freddie Mac's federal charter, the board in Emanuel's day was a hybrid of directors elected by shareholders and those appointed by the president.

In his final year in office, Clinton tapped three close pals: Emanuel, Washington lobbyist and golfing partner James Free, and Harold Ickes, a former White House aide instrumental in securing the election of Hillary Clinton to the U.S. Senate. Free's appointment was good for four months, and Ickes' only three months.

Falcon, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, found that presidential appointees played no "meaningful role" in overseeing the company and recommended that their positions be eliminated.

John Coffee, a law professor and expert on corporate governance at Columbia University, said the financial crisis at Freddie Mac was years in the making and fueled by chronically weak oversight by the firm's directors. The presence of presidential appointees on the board didn't help, he added.

"You know there was a patronage system and these people were only going to serve a short time," Coffee said. "That's why [they] get the stock upfront."

Obama: Straw Man Arguments Galore ("my way or the highway")

Obama, the Solver [David Freddoso]


Rep. Scott Garrett (R, N.J.) spoke to NRO late last night about Obama's performance in the presser. Among the things he pointed out was a classical rhetorical device that Obama uses well, even if its origins go back millennia.

I think he gave, on a couple of occasions, a false choice — "Either we do this," he said, and laid out his plan, "or the alternative is, we do nothing at all." I heard that a couple of times, and I thought, that's not a very accurate assessment of the situation. He's assuming that either you do it his way or the highway, because there's no alternative. And we know — or I know, as a member of the Republican Study Committee and as a Republican — that there have been a slew of alternatives proposed, not just by the Republican Party but from I'll say half of America, in the sense of outside groups. There are a number of alternatives, but he just seems to reject them immediately them out of hand.

I thought of a few of Obama's statements along these lines. We choose either his entire program of massive deficit spending or we choose "an economy built on reckless speculation, inflated home prices, and maxed-out credit cards." We either choose his budget, which is "inseparable from this recovery," or we go back to "the very same policies that have led us to a narrow prosperity and massive debt."

Obama frames himself as the man with all of the solutions. Even if America has experienced noteworthy bubbles and busts of some kind in nearly every decade of its existence, we've never had a leader like Barack Obama before. Maybe we can prevent it from ever happening again:

[T]he most critical part of our strategy is to ensure that we do not return to an economic cycle of bubble and bust in this country...The budget I submitted to Congress will build our economic recovery on a stronger foundation so that we don't face another crisis like this 10 or 20 years from now.

Those who have other ideas, who worry about nationalization of the economy, the doubling of the national debt in six years, and who fear that they are watching the nation collectively drink Drano to fix its stomach-ache — we call them "nay-sayers." This is a large part of the Democratic Party message these days — for example, I received this fundraising e-mail from Rep. Claire McCaskill (D, Mo.) the other day:

Dear David,

The people want action. Period.

Senate Democrats are ready to turn President Obama's bold prescription for the country into the law of the land. But Republicans just keep standing in our way.

This does not resemble the bipartisan tone upon which President Obama campaigned. But if you were naive enough to buy any of that in the first place, you're just getting what you deserve now. The more important question is what happens if Obama's historically unique insights and solutions prove disastrously wrong? Where will that leave us?

Obama to nominate Israeli-hater Scowcroft to replace Israeli-hater Freeman for NIC ?? Oy Vey

Brent Scowcroft, a Republican "realist" re-tread from the Bush I administration would be almost as bad as Chas Freeman when it comes to Israel. This would be a terrible pick overall. Obama would probably get hosannas for his "bipartisan" pick; but when it comes to defense issues, Scowcroft is more aligned with Obama than with George W. Bush.

Scowcroft = terrible, terrible choice for NIC, or anything else.



There's Realism For You [Andy McCarthy]


March 13, 2009 — Brent Scowcroft: "I see no reason not to talk to Hamas."

March 21, 2009 — Israeli police thwart a massive bombing attack by Hamas in Haifa. Some details, courtesy of the Jerusalem Post:

Had the terrorist plot gone according to plan, Saturday would have been a black day in the country's history. Hidden in the trunk of a stolen Subaru, parked near columns holding up part of Haifa's Lev Hamifratz mall, were 100 kg. of explosives. The explosives were packed into a number of bombs and mixed with ball bearings to make the blast even more deadly. The terrorists had hoped to detonate all 100 kg. simultaneously.

Nearby, blissfully unaware shoppers and moviegoers were exiting parked vehicles and entering the shopping center, located just north of the Checkpoint intersection.

A chilling scenario was sketched out by a police source on Sunday, who said the attackers could have been aiming to use their car bomb to set other parked vehicles on fire and trigger a chain reaction of exploding fuel tanks. "Had the car bomb exploded, the majority of the cars in the parking lot would have gone up in flames. The gasoline in them could have exploded. This would have been a major terrorist attack," the source said....

The recent spate of terrorist attacks, including Saturday night's averted attack in Haifa and last week's slaying of two traffic policemen in the Jordan Valley, seems an indication Hamas is concerned about paying too heavy a price for rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, and is trying now to stage attacks from the West Bank instead, government sources said on Sunday. "If Hamas now believes that it is not convenient for them to shoot rockets from the Gaza Strip, they might activate cells in the West Bank," the source said.

The source's comments dovetailed with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's message to the cabinet on Sunday, that Hamas was trying to bolster its positions, infrastructure and ability to carry out attacks from the West Bank. "Initial findings indicate that we are talking about a very serious terrorist infrastructure, which operated with great sophistication to [try to] perpetrate a large-scale attack with multiple casualties," the prime minister said of Saturday night's incident in Haifa. "We should not delude ourselves. Terrorist organizations' attempts to perpetrate attacks within Israel's borders and in the heart of the country are an ongoing affair, in which one of the main jumping off points is in Judea and Samaria."

As Caroline Glick observes, "Congressional sources claim that Obama has selected Scowcroft to replace Chas Freeman as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council."

Obama Bashing Du Jour

So much to choose from regarding this target rich Presidency ....


Krauthaumer On Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview:

He has an easy laugh and one of the great presidential smiles of all time, so why not deploy it. I found that OK.

What I found interesting is when he asked about governing, how he likes to govern. He says he likes it and it comes naturally to him.

Well, I'm glad he thinks so. There are 299 million other Americans who aren't quite sure yet eight weeks in. I hope it's natural, because he has no experience at all. He has never managed a candy store.

But it tells you a bit about him. He is the man who does not lack for self-confidence. There is always the issue of hubris. That was always an issue in the campaign, and it remains so.

In the interview, he tried to offload a lot of his problems onto George Bush, but after you pass a stimulus budget and a Geithner plan of over $2 trillion, you now own the economy, so that's not going to work.

And despite all the foibles and the gaffes and the missteps, everything is going to hinge on the Geithner plan. If it succeeds, he succeeds. If it doesn't, he fails.


Sen. Judd Gregg:

Yesterday, Sen. Judd Gregg gave a scary-yet-accurate picture of what America’s fiscal outlook will look like if President Obama gets his budget adopted. The president’s plan means:

Seventeen trillion dollars worth of debt at the end of 10 years, $11 trillion at the end of five years. This translates into a debt-to-GDP ratio which we have not seen in this country since the end of World War II when we were trying to pay off the war debt. Basically, you take national debt up to about 80 percent of gross national product. That's the public debt. Historically, it's been about 40 percent.

Gregg explains the implications: “When you get up to an 80 percent ratio, where your public debt is 80 percent of your gross national product, and you maintain that ratio for years to come, you're basically running your country into the ground.”


Obama's Cap & Trade Regulation:

A new report by Moody's Investors Services finds that electricity rates will increase by 30% as a result. No wonder that Big Steel, as well as arguing for carbon tariffs, is also arguing that it should be given free permits to emit. Energy policy in this country has finally left sanity behind in the dark, which is where the rest of us will be soon.


Rep. John Boehner on the Budget:

In a presser on Capitol Hill this afternoon, Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) denounced President Obama's budget, using charts to illustrate its multi-trillion dollar contribution to the national debt.

Setting the stage for Obama's presser tonight, Boehner said that the president's budget "includes irresponsible levels of spending...It doubles the debt on our kids and grandkids over the next six years...I just think that this may be the most irresponsible piece of legislation that I've seen in my legislative career."

Boehner also bristled at White House claims that Republicans were nay-sayers, simply obstructing his agenda. "Eric Cantor (R, Va.) and I personally delivered our stimulus proposal to the President in January," he said. "The White House pretended they never even saw it."


Yet Another Bad Appointment / Nomination:

Transnational Progressive Nominated as Legal Advisor for State [John Fonte]


The Transnational Progressive assault on the sovereignty of the American liberal democratic nation-state has just kicked into high gear with the nomination by the Obama administration of Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh to be the Legal Advisor to the U.S. State Department. Dean Koh wants to “trigger a transnational legal process” that will “generate legal interpretations that in turn can be internalized into domestic law.” Put simply, he favors opening a transnational legal space beyond the Constitution and the democratic decision-making process of our liberal democracy. My comments on Koh’s theories below are excerpted from my Bradley Symposium essay of June 2008, “Global Governance vs. the Liberal Democratic Nation State: What is the Best Regime?”

Harold Koh, the dean of Yale University Law School, served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor during the Clinton Administration. In a detailed article in the Stanford Law Review responding to the Bush foreign policy, Koh articulates the central viewpoint of the American governing left.

Koh chastises the US for failing to “obey global norms.”America, Koh tells us, “promotes double standards” by refusing to ratify the International Criminal Court treaty; “claiming a Second Amendment exclusion from a proposed global ban on the illicit transfer of small arms and light weapons”; and “declining to implement the orders of the International Court of Justice with regard to the death penalty.”Indeed, Koh complains: “The World Court finally found that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention” (on the death penalty), but “American courts have essentially ignored” the ruling of the ICJ.

Koh’s proposed remedy to American exceptionalism is for “American lawyers, scholars and activists” to “trigger a transnational legal process,” of “transnational interactions” that will “generate legal interpretations that can in turn be internalized into the domestic law of even resistant nation-states.”For example, Koh suggests that, “human rights advocates” should litigate “not just in domestic courts, but simultaneously before foreign and international arenas.”Moreover, they should encourage foreign governments (such as Mexico) and transnational NGOs to challenge the US on the death penalty and other human rights issues.

Supporters of the International Criminal Court should, Koh recommends, “provoke interactions between the United States government and the ICC” that might lead to the US becoming enmeshed in the ICC process (by, for example, having the US provide evidence in ICC trials). These interactions with the ICC would show cooperation with the tribunal and therefore “could be used to undermine” the official US “unsigning” of the treaty because it might “constitute a de-facto repudiation” of the “act of unsignature.”


Re: Transnational Progressive Nominated as Legal Advisor for State [Andy McCarthy]

To add to the sage observations of my friends John Fonte and Ed Whelan, I offer this from Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny (I think we're going to be saying that a lot):

Thomas Jefferson, in an 1803 letter to Senator Wilson Cary Nicholas of Virginia respecting the Louisiana Purchase, explained:

Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution. If it has bounds, they can be no others than the definitions of the powers which that instrument gives. It specifies & deliniates the operations permitted to the federal government, and gives all the powers necessary to carry these into execution....

This will be the battle ahead. Those John has brilliantly coined the transnational-progressives will attempt to impose unconstitutional, sovereignty-sapping arrangements by treaty and other international agreements. It will be up to the Republicans to block ratification by mustering 34 no votes. But an important bedrock principle must be: The Constitution cannot be changed by a treaty. A treaty is only "the supreme law of the land" in the same sense that a statute is, meaning: If it violates the Constitution, it is invalid.

Barney Rubble -- Frankly, he is a Disgrace

Barney Frank’s Name-Calling [Ed Whelan]

Barney Frank’s attack on Justice Scalia as a “homophobe” is inane at several levels:

First, the term “homophobe” is an ugly epithet designed to stigmatize (“he’s the sicko”) those who don’t embrace the homosexual agenda. It’s intended to cut off serious discussion, not to promote it. It doesn’t belong in public discourse.

Second, Frank uses his epithet in the course of expressing his concern that a Supreme Court that includes Scalia might not strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Defense of Marriage Act was approved by overwhelming majorities in each House of Congress (85-14 in the Senate, 342-67 in the House) in 1996 and signed into law by President Clinton. Senators in favor of DOMA included Biden, Bradley, Daschle, Kohl, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mikulski, Murray, Reid, Sarbanes, and Wellstone. Millions and millions of voters in state after state have acted to preserve traditional marriage. Does Frank regard all these Americans as “homophobes”?

Third, Scalia’s position is clear: The Constitution does not address the matter of same-sex marriage. Therefore, the political processes are free to decide whether or not to adopt it. He, as a justice, will defer to the political processes, whatever the result. In other words, on this matter as on so many more, Scalia will not indulge his own policy preferences (whatever they are) and will not write those preferences into the Constitution. Frank wants liberal activist justices who will indulge his and the Left’s own policy preferences on homosexual matters (and so much more). That’s his real beef with Scalia, and he’s masquerading it under the “homophobe” label.

I’ll leave to others whether Frank’s name-calling is a tactic designed to distract attention from his role in causing the ongoing financial crisis.


Time To Start Holding Barney Frank Accountable [Mark Hemingway]

As Ed Whelan noted earlier today, Rep. Barney Frank has caused something of a kerfuffle by going on a gay website's news show and calling Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a “homophobe.” Whelan's right in noting that the context of Frank's remarks seems to betray his casual slander of the man, but before he runs around calling anyone else intolerant, let me step forward and be the one to note for posterity that I wish Frank was personally more discriminating in his own relationships.

I don't know whether Frank is just running off at the mouth or whether he's somewhat desperate to shift the attention off of himself. Frank keeps getting reelected despite gross ethical lapses in part because he's a savvy legislator and in part because he represents Moscow-on-the-Charles, and his constituents are more scandalized by Republicans in the Harvard faculty lounge than Frank paying a man for sex who runs a prostitution ring out of his apartment.

But if Frank's considerable flaws are ever going to catch up to him, it seems about as likely now as ever. Despite his protestations, Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial mess – from living with the Fannie Mae exec in charge of dreaming up new mortgage products for seven years while being the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee in charge of overseeing Fannie Mae to his fierce opposition to the Bush administration's sensible plan to move Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac oversight away from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Treausury, where they actually have the financial expertise exercise proper oversight of runaway GSE behemoths. But Frank was in bed with Fannie Mae — literally — and was quite explicit that any close oversight of Fannie Mae was another example of how Republicans hate the poor or whatever.

The media has also been strangely silent about his relationship with OneUnited, a Boston based bank that Frank helped get federal bailout money for just before the bank was slapped with a cease-and-desist from the FDIC for among other things, paying for the CEO's Porsche and Beach House. Figuring out exactly what Frank knows about OneUnited is also of importance because Treasury officials later discovered that Congresswoman Maxine Waters also worked with Frank in arranging the bailout, despite the fact her husband once served on the bank's board of directors and may have profited off the bank receiving TARP funds. After the fact, Frank now claims he told Waters to “stay out of it.” However, the damage has already been done and forgive me if I don't trust Frank when he says he tried to get Waters to do the right thing, given his ethical track record.

Frank is about as smart as they come and is very good at dissembling, so I see why Congressional Republicans might be hesitant to go after him. Frank hardly bears sole responsibility for the current mess, but if he's going to run around demonizing others willy-nilly, it's high time Republicans make him answer some questions about his own behavior.

Obama on 60 Minutes: "Are You Punch Drunk" ? Holy Cow !

How Cow !


Obama Laughs Too Much, Kroft Asks: 'Are You Punch-Drunk?'
Politics | Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 5:08:56 pm PDT

Here’s a transcript from President Obama’s appearance on 60 Minutes tonight, in which Obama kept breaking into laughter so much while discussing the total collapse of the US economic system, Steve Kroft asked him if he was “punch-drunk:”

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

I just want to say that— the only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money (LAUGHS) into the auto industry. So—

STEVE KROFT:

18 percent are in favor.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

(LAUGHS) That’s—

STEVE KROFT:

Seventy-six percent against.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

It— it— it’s not a high number.

STEVE KROFT:

You’re sitting here. And you’re— you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, "I mean, he’s sitting there just making jokes about (LAUGHTER) money—” How do you deal with— I mean, wh— explain -

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

Well—

STEVE KROFT:

—the mood and your laughter.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

Yeah, I mean, there’s got to be—

STEVE KROFT:

Are you punch drunk?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

No, no. There’s gotta be a little gallows humor to (LAUGHS) get you through the day. You know, sometimes my team— talks about the fact that if— if you had said to us a year ago that— the least of my problems would be Iraq, which is still a pretty serious problem— I don’t think anybody would have believed it. But— but we’ve got a lot on our plate. And— a lot of difficult decisions that we’re going to have to make.

-----

This probably didn't look so bad on TV, but reading the transcript -- my goodness !

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.