The Wizard of Obama: There is No There, There

Goodwin's Perfect Thumb-Nail of Obama [Jack Fowler]

Boy oh boy does New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin ever nail it today. From "End of O's Cowardly Lyin'":

We the people of the United States owe Scott Brown's supporters a huge debt of gratitude. They didn't merely elect a senator. They ripped the façade off the Obama presidency.

Just as Dorothy and Toto exposed the ordinary man behind the curtain in "The Wizard of Oz," the voters in Massachusetts revealed that, in this White House, there is no there there.
It's all smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles, held together with glib talk, Chicago politics and an audacious sense of entitlement.

At the center is a young and talented celebrity whose worldview, we now know, is an incoherent jumble of poses and big-government instincts. His self-aggrandizing ambition exceeds his ability by so much that he is making a mess of everything he touches.

He never advances a practical idea. Every proposal overreaches and comes wrapped in ideology and a claim of moral superiority. He doesn't listen to anybody who doesn't agree with him.


Charles Krauthammer: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1263147967933&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


Delusion in the White House [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Via Robert Gibbs this morning on Fox News Sunday (rough transcript):

WALLACE: But, Robert, Scott Brown had a clear platform. Let's lay it out. Stop health care. Cut taxes. End backroom deals with special interest and don't give terrorists Miranda rights. It wasn't the same thing that swept Barack Obama into office. Scott Brown explicitly campaigned against the — campaigned against the Obama agenda.

GIBBS: That may be what he campaigned on but that's not why the voters of Massachusetts sent him to Washington. If you look at exit poll, done by the ""Washington Post"" —

WALLACE: It wasn't an exit poll. They did a poll.

GIBBS: Poll where voters participated to why they voted. More people voted to express support for Obama than to oppose him. His approval rating among the electorate was 61%. The enthusiasm for Republican policies among that electorate was for republicans 40% —

WALLACE: You're not suggesting this is a mandate for Barack Obama?

GIBBS: Of course not. I'm also not suggesting that what you said a minute ago meets the truth test either.

WALLACE: You don't think that —

GIBBS: Chris, hold on.

WALLACE: You don't think when they voted for Brown they were voting against Obama policies?

GIBBS: That's not what they told pollsters, no. People are angry in the country and angry in Massachusetts we haven't made more question on the economy. Talk about health care — this is something you said is stopping about health-care reform.

WALLACE: He said he was the 41st vote.

GIBBS: 70% of the voters in massachusetts want him to work with the Democrats on health-care reform. Only 28% want to stop health-care reform from happening. Chris, if Republicans want to assume that the outcome of what happened in Massachusetts is a big endorsement of their policies when 40% are enthusiastic about them and 58% are angry about them, I hope they misread that election as badly as anybody could. What people want in this country is they want to us focus on getting this economy moving again. They want us to work together. The president has tried and I hope that Republicans will try to work with the president. That kind of anger and dissatisfaction at the fact that Washington far too many times puts the special interest ahead of their interest, that anger still persists. That's what people said in Massachusetts.


Stubborn in the White House [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

And on Meet the Press:
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's senior adviser says the president isn't hitting the reset button as he begins his second year in office. The Senate's top Republican suggests that Obama should do just that.

Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett says the president's recent words on jobs and the economy reflect what he's been saying ever since he ran for president.

But Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says Obama should move from the left to the middle of the political spectrum if he wants to gain support from Republicans.

Jarrett also claims that "The recovery act saved thousands and thousands of jobs."


Mad Men [Robert Costa]

From George Will on ABC’s This Week:

I think it’s madness for them to spend another three months at least on health care when the country wants them to turn to other matters. The president's second sentence of his State of the Union address last year said we all know that the primary question is jobs and the economy. So they spent a year on health care, and they dare not surely do that again. And their votes are simply not there for the big bill . . . I don't think the country is angry so much today as it is sober and frightened. And it’s frightened by the deficits, the sense that there's no plausible economic assumption that will make this turn out well. So I expect the president on Wednesday night will come in with a plan — and it will be bogus and rejected — to have a commission that will recommend difficult choices on entitlements and taxes and all the rest.