'Obama and Weaver’s Razor'

At Power Line, Steven Hayward writes, “George Will occasionally recalls the story of how the Baltimore Orioles’ legendary manager Earl Weaver used to storm out of the dugout after a bad call from a umpire, get nose-to-nose with the ump and say, ‘Are you going to get any better, or is this it?'”

As Steve notes, near the end of his disastrous first (and thankfully only) term, even Jimmy Carter began to pull the controls back as his administration reached the perigee, and began making some concessions to the free market and reality as we know it. In contrast, PBO sets the controls for the heart of the fail — and goes in full throttle. In other words, he’s not going to get any better, and this is it:

But as we now know from the Ron Suskind book, Obama doesn’t listen much to his economic team.  And it clearly shows.  Any sensible president concerned about jobs would have ordered the approval of the Keystone pipeline months ago, among other things.  Even Jimmy Carter would be looking around for ways to set loose jobs—any jobs—in the private economy right now; how about giving some drilling leases in eastern Montana, for example, which is missing out on the oil boom taking place on private land in next-door North Dakota?  Instead, this week we got Obama’s version of Carter’s “malaise” speech, calling us “soft.”  That’s rich coming from someone whose life experience as a coddled law student, part-time professor and community organizer is the epitome of “soft.”  I think it is doubtful whether Obama has ever had a callus on his hands.  Or ever changed the oil filter on an automobile.  Or bussed a table in college to make ends meet.

Watching a few minutes of Herman Cain last night on Jay Leno, I was reminded of the disconnect Obama seems to have with the day to day world. While Obama is clearly not the second coming of Lincoln, FDR, JFK, RWR, Harry Truman, God, Gandhi, Shiva, Spock, and everybody else whom the MSM has labored to compare him to, he seems to be a somewhat reasonably educated fellow, the myriad of off-TOTUS verbal disasters not withstanding. But still, there’s that strange lack of empathy he displays with vast swatches of his fellow Americans, and an equally strange determination, even more so than Carter, to auger the plane as deep into the ground as possible.

And right on cue, here’s Bill Clinton sucking the oxygen out of the room, and reminding people that he was a more successful — and more centrist president than Obama ever was. Sure, he had to be dragged kicking and screaming after the GOP controlled both houses of Congresses — but at least he was able to switch gears.