President Obama started out so strong. He was bright, calm and a strong leader. Over the last 8 weeks he has started to give the impression that he is in over his head. To begin he adopted the idea that a time of crisis was to be used to secure his politcal program instead of solving the crisis. He let the democratic leadership in Congress carry the ball for him giving himself deniabily. He then fell in love with their actions even though many thought he had gone too far.
He has ignored the economic impact of his program and the inflationary risks faced by the economy. Heaven help all of us two years from now if the laws of economics demonstrate that they haven't been amended by the Congress.
What in the world caused him to come out so emotionally against the AIG bonus program? We all agree that what AIG did was dumb but the President's reaction was dumber. A President is supposed to support the rule of law. He is not supposed to follow and stimulate the mob. His reaction should have been similar to that of Larry Sommers who objected to the bonuses but stated that we could not deviate from our established legal system. A President is supposed to lead our society - not the mob.
What an embarrassment Congress is! What in the world are those crazed folks up to? Throw out 200 plus years of our rule of law. Create custom designed laws to show how tough they are and to cover themselves from accusations that they created this mess by approving these new programs without any serious thought. What in the world is Senator Dodd up to in sneaking a provision into another law permitting the bonuses and then going crazy against the bonuseswhen it becomes politically opportune to do so? One would think that Bank of America had cancelled his Countrywide mortgage!
What in the world is Barney Frank thinking when he demonstrates that he has no idea what a retention bonus is? It was embarrassing to watch him interview Mr. Liddy who tried on multiple occassions to clue him in.
What in the world in President Obama doing in California for citizen meetings and Jay Leno when he should be sitting in his office guiding our government in both domestic and international matters? Is he so worriied about his declining approval ratings that he is going back on the campaign trail? His ratings will go up when the American people start seeing improved results. He obviously does not understand how it works for a President to succeed. Many of us were worried during the campaign that he did not have sufficient experience to run a country as large as the USA. His magnificent ability to communicate eased a lot of minds. His performance over the last 8 weeks is raising the question again - is he in over his head? Would appreciate hearing your views.
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Marty, congrats on the new blog - and it's a very strong first entry!
ReplyDeleteTo me, his approval ratings had nowhere to go but down - I think that's the sound of people who weren't truly on the Obama bandwagon to begin with jumping off. That being said, he's not inspiring the kind of leadership he promised, and the inmates in Congress continue to run the asylum.
If this keeps us for a significant period of time, mid-term elections could get interesting.
We can only hope that maybe, just maybe our president will come to his senses and veto the bonus tax and use his "magnifant ability to communicate" to deliver the anti-anger message.
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