Rubin on Gregg:
The bottom line: this is another executive management debacle, which if isolated, would be no big deal. That it is part of an emerging pattern of questionable judgment, poor execution and destructive partisanship suggests there is something seriously out of whack in the White House.
What worries me longer-term is Obama’s attempt here to politicize the census. It’s already a messy exercise as it is. Bringing it into the White House might mean years of lawsuits. But Obama the Community Organizer proved last year that long-term campaigns are won with a great ground game — and there’s no bigger game than the census.
I know its early in his Presidency and there is a tendency in the modern age to over-analyze, but since the start of the Obama presidency, do we have any examples of his competent execution and management of the office itself?
What I see is misstep after misstep, fumble after fumble.
Ive said it before and I’ll say it again, he certainly knows how to run for office, but he doesn’t really know what to do with it once he has caught it.
“Ive said it before and I’ll say it again, he certainly knows how to run for office”
Not really. Barack Obama ran a mediocre presidential campaign. What success he achieved is almost entirely due to white guilt. You remove this single factor out of the equation—and the Obama phenomenon would have never occurred. The desperate need to prove that “I’m not a racist” may yet destroy the West. Leftists have cleverly manipulated this guilt to their advantage.
Dear Leader gave better speeches than McCain. And after 8 years of Bush’s speaking missteps (gleefully amplified by the media) coupled with Clinton’s good speechifying + Reagan’s as well, and I have to conclude that the majority of American voters really wanted a pretty suit regardless of how empty it was.
RBJ –
I don’t even think the suits are pretty. I know this makes me terribly old-fashioned, but three-button suits just look wrong, wrong, wrong to me.
True dat, Stephen.
Just watched part of McCain’s speech against the stimulus bill. I could tell he was upset because he was making me sleepy instead of very sleepy.
Thus far, Obama has gotten the largest tax cut in history (something you don’t see in the coverage of the stimulus package,) a bill to make it easier to sue for sexual discrimination, undone a lot of Bush Administration (and Republican) policy, and is appointing many Federal prosecutors of his liking.
Commerce Secretary, Geithner’s taxes, and Daschle’s taxes are minor stories that will not be defining of Obama. Those things will be forgotten. What’s remembered of Clinton’s problems with getting an AG? Janet Reno’s Dance Party is the correct answer. Waco might come a distant second. Nannygate? Psshaw, no matter how many Kennedys may have similar issues.
There will be plenty of reasons to criticize Obama (I voted for him, and think the stimulus is a bucket of shit mixed with snot mixed with those boogers you get after a cold dries up and produces those relief maps of your sinuses.) But to suggest that it’s a lack of accomplishments is to make the mistake many did during the campaign: look at what he’s proposed to do, not at the hype. His opponents are still focusing on “Change” as a slogan while Obama’s making his changes. He’s kicking ass and his opponents aren’t even on to the fact that their names are already on his shitlist.