Is a Major Obama Administration Shake-Up Coming?
It was Obama who used his first meeting with Republicans to sound a bipartisan note: “I won.”
It was Obama who said of the difference between now and previous attempts to pass major Democratic-backed legislation: “You have me.”
It was Obama who said of the beer summit police officer that he “acted stupidly.”
It was Obama who called on Hispanics to “punish their enemies.”
It was Obama who appointed a Truther and Communist, Van Jones, to be “green czar.” And Mao-loving Anita Dunn to his Comms shop. And took the advice of socialists like Peter Dreier, Jeremiah Wright, and yes, Bill Ayers.
It was Obama who put a tax cheat atop Treasury, and it was Obama who outsourced his largest policy initiatives to the strident Reid and and the shrill Pelosi. And it was Obama who broke his own promise to post legislation days before votes, so the public could read them first.
It was Obama who said Republicans may get more votes but will still have to “sit in the back.” Presumably with the voters who empowered them. Who are his “enemies” (see above).
It was Obama who created the “bitter clingers” as a voting bloc.
I do expect that come Wednesday, during his 1 pm press conference, President Obama will announce some personnel shifts. He’ll announce his offer to work with the Republicans, by which he’ll actually mean that they will have to come his way or he will continue to dishonestly denounce them. He may publicly fire someone. Maybe Gibbs gets to spend some more time with his family.
Obama’s greatest problem, though, is that no matter who else he fires, he still has himself.
The Obama administration’s greatest and most intractable problem is Obama. No Beltway shake-up will fix that.
More: Mickey Kaus says we should cut Obama some slack over the “enemies” line, because:
Isn’t it clear that Obama’s now-controversial “enemies” remark was simply a rephrasing of union leader Samuel Gompers famous dictum that labor should “reward its friends and punish its enemies”? Standard union (and political scientist) talk.
That’s actually a confirmation of the problem with how Obama thinks and how that translates into how he governs. He’s a creature of, by and for the unions — they’re in his head in the worst way. The unions outlived their utility probably 40 years ago, and are now largely just corrupt pools of retrograde socialism and outright thuggery. That their thinking is in Obama’s DNA to the level that he reflexively uses their terminology tells us that, first, “hope and change” really was a conscious fraud on his part and that, second, he only recognizes how problematic his union-think is when it blows up in his face. And then, he only sees it as a communications problem, not a worldview problem. Neither recommends him as unifier, or even as someone who grasps the modern economy at all.
How can anyone disagree with this???? Truthful and right on the money!
“The Obama administration’s greatest and most intractable problem is Obama.”
I suppose, many could say, “we” told you of this even before the elections of 2008. But, he, Obama, was the HOPE of a NEW CHANGE??? Well, we see now how far the “hope and change” went…………
Makes one long for the good old days (back before aught-two, it was) when dissent was patriotic.
Kids these days – no respect for history!
Actually, there will be a Beltway shakeup in 2012 that will fix exactly that.
But Obama won’t be around to profit from it.
This is a guy who hasn’t ever replaced anybody excel the General, and that was a setup deal anyway. He doesn’t care who works for him. What he cares about is the NUMBER of people who work for him. The specific people don’t matter since he’s a genius and they aren’t.
And in his mind, everything has gone perfectly. It’s hard to imagine him shaking up the staff unless people are jumping out of windows on him.
In that press conference Obama will punish all his enemies — including moderate dems. — by announcing that he will veto any attempt to stop taxes from going up for everyone as scheduled under current law. This will be done in the name of reducing the deficit. “Take that, you ungrateful voters!” will be his implicit message.
You know, one reason we put up with political parties in the first place is to have a group of knowledgeable people on the inside to “vet” potential office holders and prevent amateurish incompetents like Obama from getting anywhere near real power. For failing in this one simple task, if nothing else, the Democrats deserve to lose. Of course, just having a tax bill where the inheritance tax goes from nothing to 55% on Jan. 1 is an incredible moral hazard — what an economic incentive to remove life-support from granny sooner rather than later (and there will always be those tempted to take more drastic action). We live under a truly dysfunctional political system run by creeps.
oblammo is THE problem-for everyone. . . the question is, do the Repubs now have the balls and the smarts to expose his lies/obstructionism/dirty tricks or will they want to “make nice” with “principled compromise”?He needs to be hammered every day by the truth, so all can see what worms he, and the dims, really are.
Organized and unorganized labor are just one quarter of the quartet: land, labor, capital and enterprise that make up the economy. They are no more evil than any other part and demonizing them is just the mirror image of communists blaming evil Capitalism as the source of all evil. Just a convenient scapegoat.
The implication is that somehow muzzling them or removing them entirely will make things better for everyone (excluding, I suppose the members of the unions) is no more tenable than reducing the income of the rich to spread the wealth. There is no evidence that the the other three sectors will treat the worker any better than they did before the labor movement became strong if it is profitable to do so and nothing stands in their way.
If the Republicans are going to make a genuine improvement to America and not just as in Ron Radush’s(?)memorable words, suck but be less suckier than the Democrats, they will have to come up with a program for dealing with organized labor. The economy is not just taxes and spending – or doing less of both.
The obaMadministration’s biggest problem is that they don’t think like normal Americans and they don’t like normal Americans.
They dislike normal Americans to the point where they consider them enemies (and use that word publicly to describe them). They penalize them for wanting to continue living the normal life they have created for themselves and their families. They don’t want normal Americans to continue expecting the same level of excellent health care, so they have changed the rules to prevent that from happening. They don’t want normal Americans to keep their own money~~and don’t even want to let the normal Americans know whether they will get to keep it. They didn’t want normal Americans to know what the plans for government spending for the FY year were, so that was easily handled: they didn’t prepare a national budget.
Imagine what would happen if normal Americans decided to live the way the obaMadministration thinks is normal.
Yep. Obama is the problem. What kind of tone death c-sucker would plan a $200 million per diem to India within days of this looming repudiation.
The House Republicans should a) repeal O-care b) begin a line by line review of the Federal budget as promised by Obama c) extend Bush tax cuts. Send these measures to the Senate and then either recess or begin extensive oversight hearings.
The man doesn’t have a clue. I overcame my revulsion for this guy and watched his 1PM, post election news conference. There was no news worthy of note other than he still considers himself in charge and will “work with Republicans,” if they have any good ideas, to try and find common ground meaning his way or the highway. My perception? He still sees himself as the only genius in the room, the guy with all the right answers, maybe perplexed and perturbed but convinced that the rubes, clinging to their guns and religion, can be made to see how brilliant he is given maybe another hundred or two hundred “lessons” from the bully pulpit. He expressed great concern for permitting gays to express their patriotism and love of country by allowing them to serve in our military, coming, obviously, from someone who has never experienced military service but with the chutzpa to refer to himself as Commander in Chief which was followed by a struggle to control my gag reflex. Nobody followed up with “how does that jive with your utter disregard for their right to vote?” He remains stuck to the Demoncrats assertion that “things could be much worse” if he hadn’t come along. A President with an R next to his name wouldn’t, for a second, get away with that one but this yokel and his equally feckless entourage get a pass. No wonder he thinks his excrement doesn’t stink! Speaking of the media don’t ever expect them either to admit that the guy they promoted as some kind of God has clay feet and not in retrospect but something that they, as so called professional journalists still riding the coattails of Woodward and Bernstein, should have known from the get go but will never admit.
Anyone who thinks the Republicans are going to be running the show for the next two years had better think again and you can be sure that the Demoncrats will make certain that every Government caused disaster falls at the feet of the Republicans and they will make every effort to create as many disasters as they can. It’s gonna come fast, thick, heavy and unrelenting and unless Americans stay current and engaged, in 2012 Barry and his “intellectually superior,” Socialist cohorts will be given another four years to finish what they started.