Pork Was Job One!
And a job well done. Allowing a Democratic Congress to gorge on a multi-billion-$$$ Porkulus was Obama’s greatest first-year accomplishment. OK, that’s not exactly how Obama and the Washington Post put it, though WaPo did somewhat irreverently require the president of the United States to deny that he has “turned over too much authority to congressional leaders.” This part’s also good:
… some of Obama’s signature initiatives, including cap-and-trade legislation and financial regulatory reform, remain unfulfilled heading into an election year likely to be shaped by what he achieved in Congress this year. Obama personally made the case for his legislative record at a time when his approval ratings are among the lowest of his presidency and as even some of his most ardent supporters are questioning the results of his congressional strategy.
“Overall, if you had a checklist of promises made, a lot of those promises have been kept,” Obama said. “When those things are complete, and I think they will be, we will have achieved a fundamental shift in health care, energy, education and our financial regulatory system that will put this economy on a firmer footing to grow over the long term.”
You can hardly blame the 2009 Nobel Peace laureate if he thinks he can take credit for wishful thinking and count unhatched chickens as accomplishments.
Meanwhile, his insufficently reverential left flank doesn’t count an unfinished sellout of the public option as an accomplishment. He claims he “didn’t campaign on the public option.” Digby, ThinkProgress: But you promised! FireDogLake (now out of the weird-name morass and streamlined as FDL): Bald-faced liar! Here’s a good one. Washington Monthly: It depends what the meaning of “campaign” is.
The WaPo article unfortunately has a very tight legislative focus, with no foreign policy, no Afghan war, and no indication of whether that was addressed in the interview. Also, no general discussion of walking on water, and no post-racialism, beyond a brief mention of Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s appointment. It would be interesting to see a more thorough self-assessment in that department, his advocacy of a wise Latina woman and the backfired bashing of a racially sensitive white cop. The accomplishment in post-racialism has been mainly that the American public has shown it doesn’t give a damn what race the president is. They just want results, and recent polling shows they are holding him to the same standard all presidents are held. But that’s the American public’s accomplishment, not his.
In foreign policy, of course, the president has more concrete and extensive accomplishments to point to. In less than a year, he apologized extensively for the hurtful misdeeds of the United States, ignored Iranian protests, threw Eastern European allies under the bus, administered embarrassing snubs on our staunchest ally, kowtowed to China on human rights, shunned the 20th anniversary of the death of communism, painstakingly nickel-and-dimed his generals in mid-war, and committed the United States to a massive Third World shakedown and economically destructive restrictions in furtherance of what increasingly appears to be rigged junk science. All of which has helped craft a new image of the United States in the world as an unreliable patsy.
Topics: Obama
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:23 am Comments (1) on Wednesday, December 23, 2009
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December 23rd, 2009 at 11:38 am
[...] 23, 2009 Posted by taoist in Obama. Tags: Corruption, Democrats, Pork, Spending trackback Not looking too good. And they don’t even mention the amazing corruption and radicalism of all of his czars and [...]