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Hammer...meet nail...
A Vineyard Too Far
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
August 31, 2011
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson083111.html
By Sunday afternoon, the Gallup tracking poll showed a 17-point spread in the president’s approval rating — 38 percent approval to 55 percent disapproval. Such polls are fickle and can go up and down quickly, often depending on unwarranted and unfair perceptions and media hype, hinging on everything from hurricanes to killing bin Laden. That said, these recent abysmal numbers might suggest that for the first time, a considerable number of Americans are starting to be turned off not just by Barack Obama’s economic policies, but by Barack Obama himself. But why now?
The president’s latest Martha’s Vineyard vacation was a public-relations disaster, wholly unnecessary, and in part responsible for Obama’s most recent slide in the polls. Part of the problem was purely coincidental and no one’s fault: Who could have expected that while the president of the United States was resting on an exclusive private beach on a tony island on a calm August day, millions of Eastern Seaboarders around him would be engaged in a media-driven frenzy of emergency preparation and evacuation?
Yet most of the negative perception was the president’s own doing. For nearly three years, there has been something strange about the First Family’s ritzy getaway tastes. The annual Martha’s Vineyard rentals were bookended by First Family junkets to Vail, Costa del Sol, and Hawaii. The choice of venues spawned at least three problems for the president that have nothing to do with the First Family’s right, and indeed duty, to enjoy a little well-earned vacation time — or with the fact that other presidents have vacationed in nice places.
First, Obama’s fiery rhetoric (“fat-cat bankers,” “corporate jets,” “millionaires and billionaires,” “redistributive change,” “at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” etc.) has demonized the better off. Many successful liberal presidents do that, but they finesse the necessary fundraising and schmoozing with Wall Street zillionaires with tact and discretion. Bill Clinton was a past master at gluing a populist veneer atop his deep fascination with old money and hip celebrity.
The Obamas are far clumsier in both their class-warfare boilerplate and their overt elite tastes, whose contradictions they apparently either miss or don’t much care about.
No doubt this August the presidential advisers, without a clue about life in Tulare or Des Moines, gave sycophantic pep talks to the Obamas not to listen to “right-wing talk radio” and just enjoy what they like to enjoy. Obama himself apparently is still confident that the media will always exempt his golfing in a way they never did Bush’s far less frequent putting. Michael Moore, after all, is not going to cut and paste a video clip of Obama on the fairway.
Yet some photos inevitably leaked out of the “redistributive change” statist at his $50,000-a-week rented estate, surrounded by “millionaires and billionaires” who could alone afford such rental prices, many of whom flew in on “corporate jets.” That disconnect appears to the American public as abjectly hypocritical. We all know that for the president to keep pushing his agenda of higher taxes, he will soon inevitably get back to bashing the rich. But we also assume that this time the public has seen the flip side of a one-eyed Jack and wonders, when the president hits up his Vineyard neighbors for campaign cash at his $20 million rented estate, whether he will first make sure that they are not “fat cats” and owners of “corporate jets.”
Even right-wing presidents, even in good times, know enough not to rub in too much the perks of being president. George W. Bush was pilloried for chain-sawing at “the ranch,” as if he were a counterfeit outdoorsman; but he still knew that his media critics suffered far more in his beloved nowheresville of Crawford than did he. The “Reagan Ranch” in the Santa Barbara Mountains was not really a ranch at all, but a rustic hovel, and the videos of Reagan in his early seventies, chopping wood amid burrs and stickers, with sweat spots under his arms, were not faked. In contrast, the elder Bush liked boating off his family estate in Maine — and was flayed for being a bit too happy with his seaside, preppie-sounding Kennebunkport mansion.
Timing poses a second problem, hurricanes apart. The United States is in the doldrums. The economic news — high unemployment, credit-downgrading, a ruined housing market, almost no growth, record debt, trillion-dollar-plus deficits, soaring fuel and food prices — is not just bad, but seems to be getting worse. Could not the president have gone home to Chicago for a week, followed by a weekend at Camp David — demonstrating in symbolic fashion to hurting Americans that their chief executive is cutting back on exclusive travel and amenities? Even Jimmy Carter knew enough to turn down the White House thermostat and put on a cardigan sweater when gas was hard to find. The misdemeanors of phony man-of-the-people photo-ops (the awkward, camouflaged John Kerry coming back from goose hunting) are usually far outweighed by the felonies of “I do what I want to do” overt elitism (the smug windsurfing John Kerry in spandex).
Finally, this summer’s golfing at Martha’s Vineyard has torn the curtain away from an image that Barack Obama has taken a lifetime to cultivate, to considerable advantage. He was decidedly a middle-class prep-schooler in Hawaii. He was not born into Clinton-like poverty. Occidental and Columbia are not Eureka College or Texas A&M. When Obama finally got some real money, he almost immediately bought a wannabe Chicago mansion and tried to enhance his grounds with help from Mrs. Tony Rezko. Nothing in Obama’s résumé suggests poverty — or disdain for elite enjoyment.
To square his apparently embarrassing middle-class circle, Obama has brilliantly manipulated some weird facets of American culture: Being not quite so-called “white,” and vocally left-wing, can mean that even a multi-millionaire has innate street credibility and can qualify for minority victimhood. The fact that Barack Obama is part Kenyan meant for many — and apparently for Barack Obama himself — that a record number of presidential golf outings, and Michelle’s Costa del Sol jetting, were still excused by the fossilized 1960s nexus between poverty, prejudice, and race.
Likewise, Obama (thanks to the two-decade tutelage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright) does not talk like someone from Hawaii — at least not all the time. With some flair, he is able to turn on and off the slightly southern soaring cadences of the inner city (better than Hillary Clinton’s awkward attempts at clingers populism), both to reassure skeptical blacks of his racial solidarity and authenticity, and (as Harry Reid bluntly noted of the adroitly opportunistic diction) to remind his white liberal supporters that their efforts at penance really were genuinely well grounded. Again, in our upside-down world of race, a Clarence Thomas or a Condoleezza Rice, who grew up amid the authentic African-American struggle against Jim Crow, could never quite be as legitimately “black” as was Barack Obama (preppie, half-white/half-Kenyan), simply because liberal identity politics offers instant superficial authentication in a way real life cannot.
But this last in-your-face Martha’s Vineyard vacation was one too many even for our most adroit gymnast of identity and class politics: The public at last really does believe that Barack Obama, whatever his heritage or nomenclature, is an out-of-touch elitist who simply likes hanging out with wealthy people and shares their refined tastes, even as millions are out of work or broke. This summer all the old SEIU talk about “fat cats” and “corporate jets” has been reduced to a parlor game.
In short, this year’s vacation was a vineyard too far.
©2011 Victor Davis Hanson
A Vineyard Too Far
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
August 31, 2011
Even right-wing presidents, even in good times, know enough not to rub in too much the perks of being president. . . .The “Reagan Ranch” in the Santa Barbara Mountains was not really a ranch at all, but a rustic hovel, and the videos of Reagan in his early seventies, chopping wood amid burrs and stickers, with sweat spots under his arms, were not faked.Professor Hanson seems to have forgotten the public out cry over Mrs. Reagan's redecoration of the White House. Source is here. (http://millercenter.org/president/reagan/essays/firstlady/nancy)Although she might have been "everything" to the President, Nancy Reagan was often a target for the media. In some cases, she created her own problems. During the 1981 recession Nancy Reagan wore designer dresses, undertook an expensive renovation of the White House, and ordered new china. She was later ridiculed for consulting with an astrologist to guide presidential scheduling—a secret until Donald Regan exposed it in a 1988 memoir in which he avenged himself against Mrs. Reagan for his firing. Mrs. Reagan had known the astrologer, Joan Quigley, in California. She had turned to her for guidance after her husband was shot, fearing that he might again become a target of a would-be assassin. Responding to stories about her clothes and high style that depicted her as "Queen Nancy" during the recession, Nancy Reagan and her aides worked to repair her image. She did so most notably at a Gridiron Dinner on March 29, 1982, where she won the plaudits of this showcase audience by doing a song-and-dance number. She also won praise even from critics by throwing the weight of her office behind her anti-drug campaign. While the china was eventually purchased with funds donated privately, the fact remains that the Reagans made a considerable gaffe with the timing of the redecoration.
And then there was this doozy <<LINK (http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,924901,00.html)>>.
Professor Hanson seems to have forgotten the public out cry over Mrs. Reagan's redecoration of the White House. Source is here. (http://millercenter.org/president/reagan/essays/firstlady/nancy) While the china was eventually purchased with funds donated privately, the fact remains that the Reagans made a considerable gaffe with the timing of the redecoration.
And then there was this doozy <<LINK (http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,924901,00.html)>>.
Was the out cry from the public, or the media elite?
Although she might have been "everything" to the President, Nancy Reagan was often a target for the media.
When Nancy Reagan first became First Lady, her focus was on creating a home in the White House; rather than use government funds to redecorate as well as renovate the floors, doors and other hardware, she sought private funds to underwrite the work. In preparation for the required entertaining, she also carefully tested the meals that were to be served and also told U.S. New & World Report that she hoped to have new china ordered since there had been much breakage in the fifteen years since the Johnson set had been inaugurated. The combination of the redecorating, new china set, more formalized entertaining style than the Carters, in addition to her attendance of the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana of England in 1981, and her acceptance of free clothing from designers (thus unwittingly violating the new Ethics in Government Act of 1978) led to the creation of a public relations dilemma. Contrasted in print and broadcast news with the 1981 economic recession, high unemployment and homeless families, the so-called "Queen Nancy" caricature was created and even occasionally invoked by Democrats as a means of criticizing the Administration. In addition, much as there had been some suggestion of a regional bias against the Carters' southern background in the national media, primarily generated from the eastern seaboard, there was suggestion of a bias against the Reagans' lifestyle and friends from the entertainment industry in California.
http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=41
rubberneck
09-01-2011, 10:08
Professor Hanson seems to have forgotten the public out cry over Mrs. Reagan's redecoration of the White House. Source is here. (http://millercenter.org/president/reagan/essays/firstlady/nancy) While the china was eventually purchased with funds donated privately, the fact remains that the Reagans made a considerable gaffe with the timing of the redecoration.
And then there was this doozy <<LINK (http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,924901,00.html)>>.
IMHO there is an order of magnitude difference between the two. Both certainly are PR blunders but that's where the similarity ends.
Badger52
09-01-2011, 10:37
IMHO there is an order of magnitude difference between the two. Both certainly are PR blunders but that's where the similarity ends.Agreed. I care not a whit for an AAR or tit-for-tat recounting of one or the other president's "management" of public perception, or lack thereof.
Deeds speak.
Was the out cry from the public, or the media elite?Out here in L.A., there was a sense of public incredulity that went above and beyond the reporting of the event.IMHO there is an order of magnitude difference between the two. Both certainly are PR blunders but that's where the similarity ends.
Agreed. I care not a whit for an AAR or tit-for-tat recounting of one or the other president's "management" of public perception, or lack thereof.
Deeds speak.I understand the points both of you are making. However, IMO, if a professional academic historian as prominent as Victor Davis Hansen is going to offer political editorials that use examples from history, then it is imperative that he gets his basic facts correct.
Calling out Obama for his Big Lie is no lie.
If Obama is a man of the people I’m 9’ 3"…sitting down.
Obama and the Burden of Exceptionalism
WSJ - online
OPINION
SHELBY STEELE
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011
Post-'60s liberals, with the president as their standard bearer, seek to make a virtue of decline.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576532623176115558.html?m od=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Shelby Steele is the Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He specializes in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. He was appointed a Hoover fellow in 1994.
http://www.hoover.org/fellows/10347
If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: President Obama is destroying the country. Some say this destructiveness is intended; most say it is inadvertent, an outgrowth of inexperience, ideological wrong-headedness and an oddly undefined character. Indeed, on the matter of Mr. Obama's character, today's left now sounds like the right of three years ago. They have begun to see through the man and are surprised at how little is there.Yet there is something more than inexperience or lack of character that defines this presidency: Mr. Obama came of age in a bubble of post-'60s liberalism that conditioned him to be an adversary of American exceptionalism. In this liberalism America's exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil—an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America's greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom.
Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself.
Anti-exceptionalism has clearly shaped his "leading from behind" profile abroad—an offer of self-effacement to offset the presumed American evil of swaggering cowboyism. Once in office his "hope and change" campaign slogan came to look like the "hope" of overcoming American exceptionalism and "change" away from it.
So, in Mr. Obama, America gained a president with ambivalence, if not some antipathy, toward the singular greatness of the nation he had been elected to lead.
But then again, the American people did elect him. Clearly Americans were looking for a new kind of exceptionalism in him (a black president would show America to have achieved near perfect social mobility). But were they also looking for—in Mr. Obama—an assault on America's bedrock exceptionalism of military, economic and cultural pre-eminence?
American exceptionalism is, among other things, the result of a difficult rigor: the use of individual initiative as the engine of development within a society that strives to ensure individual freedom through the rule of law. Over time a society like this will become great. This is how—despite all our flagrant shortcomings and self-betrayals—America evolved into an exceptional nation.
Yet today America is fighting in a number of Muslim countries, and that number is as likely to rise as to fall. Our exceptionalism saddles us with overwhelming burdens. The entire world comes to our door when there is real trouble, and every day we spill blood and treasure in foreign lands—even as anti-Americanism plays around the world like a hit record.
At home the values that made us exceptional have been smeared with derision. Individual initiative and individual responsibility—the very engines of our exceptionalism—now carry a stigma of hypocrisy. For centuries America made sure that no amount of initiative would lift minorities and women. So in liberal quarters today—where historical shames are made to define the present—these values are seen as little more than the cynical remnants of a bygone era. Talk of "merit" or "a competition of excellence" in the admissions office of any Ivy League university today, and then stand by for the howls of incredulous laughter.
Our national exceptionalism both burdens and defames us, yet it remains our fate. We make others anxious, envious, resentful, admiring and sometimes hate-driven. There's a reason al Qaeda operatives targeted the U.S. on 9/11 and not, say, Buenos Aires. They wanted to enrich their act of evil with the gravitas of American exceptionalism. They wanted to steal our thunder.
So we Americans cannot help but feel some ambivalence toward our singularity in the world—with its draining entanglements abroad, the selfless demands it makes on both our military and our taxpayers, and all the false charges of imperial hubris it incurs. Therefore it is not surprising that America developed a liberalism—a political left—that took issue with our exceptionalism. It is a left that has no more fervent mission than to recast our greatness as the product of racism, imperialism and unbridled capitalism.
But this leaves the left mired in an absurdity: It seeks to trade the burdens of greatness for the relief of mediocrity. When greatness fades, when a nation contracts to a middling place in the world, then the world in fact no longer knocks on its door. (Think of England or France after empire.) To civilize America, to redeem the nation from its supposed avarice and hubris, the American left effectively makes a virtue of decline—as if we can redeem America only by making her indistinguishable from lesser nations.
Since the '60s we have enfeebled our public education system even as our wealth has expanded. Moral and cultural relativism now obscure individual responsibility. We are uninspired in the wars we fight, calculating our withdrawal even before we begin—and then we fight with a self-conscious, almost bureaucratic minimalism that makes the wars interminable.
America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding—by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness?
As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them.
Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism—the genius for freedom—of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so.
Mr. Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Among his books is "White Guilt" (Harper/Collins, 2007).
I'm beginning to wonder if folks at the Hoover Institute ever have mixers with the folks at Stanford's department of history. At the very least, Gordon Chang could tell Mr. Steele that the statement "The entire world comes to our door when there is real trouble. . . ." is historically inaccurate.
If, as Mr. Steele alleges, post-1960s liberalism pits itself against American Exceptionalism, then why is there so much continuity among the national security strategies of the last three presidents? Why can one find the precedents of those continuities in the national security policies of the Truman and Wilson administrations? (Is the debate really about the ends of American national security strategy or is it more about the means used to achieve those ends?)
If, as Mr. Steele argues, American Exceptionalism is the byproduct of an evolutionary process--a spectacular conclusion given his emphasis on the individual--and that it remains our fate to be exceptional, then his basic premise that the current president is a threat to established traditions is moot. (If evolution AND fate mandate American exceptionalism, then what one president does is irrelevant.)
And then there's this doozy from Mr. Steele's editorial.Since the '60s we have enfeebled our public education system even as our wealth has expanded. Moral and cultural relativism now obscure individual responsibility. We are uninspired in the wars we fight, calculating our withdrawal even before we begin—and then we fight with a self-conscious, almost bureaucratic minimalism that makes the wars interminable. Exactly what vision of American military history does Mr. Steele have in mind? Is he at all aware of the fact that, during the Reagan administration, the United States, planned to widen the time frame of conflict across the spectrum of violence? Does he remember that the bureaucratic minimalism behind COBRA II came from Donald Rumsfeld? And does he remember that during the "good old days" (when ever they were), the American armed services had to deal with the constant question "When are they coming home?"
I'm beginning to wonder if folks at the Hoover Institute ever have mixers with the folks at Stanford's department of history. At the very least, Gordon Chang could tell Mr. Steele that the statement "The entire world comes to our door when there is real trouble. . . ." is historically inaccurate.
I would have to say .. not completely. Both sides used various propoganda campaigns to draw us into WWI. It was only after events such as the sinking of the sinking of the Lusitania, Germay's failure to stop submarine warfare and the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt and others that we did enter the war, but we were still being courted by foreign governments.
During WWII, if not for the initial lend-lease programs, Europe as a whole, would surely have been lost had the U.S. not been drawn into it militarily by Pearl Harbor.
Korea can be attributed to our U.N. obligation at the time and the rabid fears of a communist controlled, unified, Korean Peninsula.
If we had helped Ho Chi Mihn in 1945, as he asked, Viet Nam may have been a very different country, as well as the entire Indochina area.
If, as Mr. Steele alleges, post-1960s liberalism pits itself against American Exceptionalism, then why is there so much continuity among the national security strategies of the last three presidents? Why can one find the precedents of those continuities in the national security policies of the Truman and Wilson administrations? (Is the debate really about the ends of American national security strategy or is it more about the means used to achieve those ends?)
Perhaps because until now, those who grew up during the 60's and were heavily influenced by that liberalism, were not in the positions of power that they find themselves in with the current administration.
If, as Mr. Steele argues, American Exceptionalism is the byproduct of an evolutionary process--a spectacular conclusion given his emphasis on the individual--and that it remains our fate to be exceptional, then his basic premise that the current president is a threat to established traditions is moot. (If evolution AND fate mandate American exceptionalism, then what one president does is irrelevant.)
I would argue that the American Exceptionalism is an evolutionary process BECAUSE of the individuals that have contributed the most to that exceptionalism. Over the last 235 years, we have developed a national identity of individualism and self reliance that has made us who we are. In the last 20 to 30 years, there have been those who have tried to paint that characteristic as bad. Those folks, who subscribe to that 60's liberalism, are the same who placed this administration in power.
And then there's this doozy from Mr. Steele's editorial.Exactly what vision of American military history does Mr. Steele have in mind? Is he at all aware of the fact that, during the Reagan administration, the United States, planned to widen the time frame of conflict across the spectrum of violence? Does he remember that the bureaucratic minimalism behind COBRA II came from Donald Rumsfeld? And does he remember that during the "good old days" (when ever they were), the American armed services had to deal with the constant question "When are they coming home?"
I think his article is refering to more than the last 3 or 4 administrations. As far as the "When are they coming home" question, that is a question that has been asked of military men from the time of the first wars between countries.
MTN Medic
09-06-2011, 18:12
I seem to remember the lambasting of GWB for his extended stays at his Crawford Ranch. Seems blatantly unethical for the media not to make the same accusations about Obama; especially when all of his destinations are those of the oligarchy.
If anyone debates the blatant love affair of the media with Obama, there is no hope for you. The American people are sure to wise up to this blatant 'marketing' of Obama by the news media.
In the future, it could be toxic for a liberal candidate to be so closely associated with the media because of this sordid affair. I am sure that I am not alone in my disdain/boycott of T.V. journalism. You either have FOX slinging right wing rhetoric or a myriad of liberal syncophants elbowing to suck on the proverbial tit that is Obama.
I would have to say .. not completely. QP rdret1
My criticism of Mr. Steele's generalization centers around my disagreement with his use of metaphor. He's saying that America has involved itself in world affairs and expended blood and treasure as a selfless neighbor will help put out a fire after someone has knocked on the door and asked help. Within this formulation, America is driven by its ideas, most notably, altruism born from its sense of exceptionalism.
IMO, a more historically accurate argument is that America's involvement in international affairs has generally reflected a calibrated balance of our interests (in a geopolitical sense) and our ideas. In this interpretation, we have advanced interests through a variety approaches (neutrality, hemispheric isolationism, unilateral interventionism, multilaterial cooperation, and formal international alliances). Our sense of exceptionalism has informed our selection and implimentation of these markedly different approaches. (For example, we generally assume that we should set the standards that others should follow.) This is not to say that America has always followed the best course of action based upon the facts available at the time, but rather policy makers consistently sought to balance what was possible with what was preferable.
Moreover--and the purpose for referencing Gordan Chang specifically--a historically accurate argument would reflect an understanding that requests for America's help (the knocks at the door) are often parts broader plans to advance the requester's own interests at America's expense. Within this interpretation, the history Ango-American diplomacy during the two world wars acquires a dimension beyond cousins finding common cause against their mutual enemies.
In this added dimension, our cousins could chat up the Wilson administration about our common cultural heritage while stonewalling our protests of their violations of our neutrality. During the Second World War, the selection of TORCH and HUSKY over BOLERO, ROUNDUP, and SLEDGEHAMMER all reflected London's desire to hold on to as much of the British Empire and its imperial prerogatives as it could.
MOO, due to his questionable reading of history, Mr. Steele's missed an opportunity for a much more powerful argument. The current president is risible not for denying American exceptionalism but for subscribing to a version that is anachoristic. Rather than seeing the world as it is and how it might be--he views the world as he thinks it should be yet without a corresponding vision of how to get from here to there. Hence, his vision of American exceptionalism prevents the U.S. from pursuing foreign policies that sustainably balance its interests and its ideas.
Through his misconduct--such as withholding military support to insurgents in Libya before vetting them thoroughly--the president ignores the wisdom gained through the hard-earned experience of every president since McKinley. By allowing his idealism to trump the board, the president undermines America's ability to protect its geopolitical interests. (Self determination in North Africa and the Middle East may end up a Pyrrhic victory if local populations elect radical Islamcist governments.)
From there, Mr. Steele could have avoided his comments about the post 1960s liberal--a remark that will only get the current president's supporters to dream fondly of the Clintonian Democrats--if not his inchoate remarks about America "'since the 1960s" altogether.
YMMV.
An interesting report was issued today by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
A link to the material is reproduced below - for your convenience. The report, IMO, furthers the observation that Obama is an out-of-touch elitist.
FWIW, most folks even tangentially familiar with most sizeable construction projects - realize that the permitting process can range from months to years - before breaking ground - a.k.a being “shovel ready.”
EXCERPTS:
President Obama has sold stimulus as a successful effort to save the economy from the brink. As he prepares to offer a “son of stimulus” proposal to Congress and the American people, it is vital to understand exactly the results of the previous attempt and assess its overall cost vs. benefit.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has reviewed public-available data on the stimulus and prepared a comprehensive report that examines stimulus measures as well as how President Obama and his Administration “sold” the program to the public. On both accounts, stimulus failed.
In recent months, Administration officials have come very close to admitting the overall failure of the program and the Administration’s economic policies in general. In June 2011, President Obama admitted while speaking at the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that “shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”27
In August 2011, former stimulus architect Christina Romer revealed her true feelings about the overall state of the U.S. economy in light of the S&P credit downgrade. On the “Real Time with Bill Maher” show, Romer told Maher that the U.S. is “pretty darn fucked.” This admission by President Obama undercut a major argument of the Administration at the time of the stimulus that the package would immediately fund construction projects and get people working quickly. The stimulus did not immediately begin creating jobs, but it took President Obama over two years to admit this failure. 28
Will President Obama Finally Admit the Stimulus Failed?
It is time that the Administration takes Summers’s pre-inauguration advice and measures the progress of the stimulus by whether the American people have experienced results. With unemployment stuck above 9% and the entire economy continuing to struggle, the stimulus clearly did not live up to its advertised results and failed. Over the past months, the Administration has gradually begun admitting that their various stimulus claims were wrong. Before proposing more ill advised stimulus spending, it is time for the Administration finally to admit that the stimulus has failed.
Doubling Down on Failure:
Before Asking for a New Stimulus Package, Will the Obama Administration Admit that the First One Failed?
Staff Report
U.S. House of Representatives
112th Congress
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
September 8, 2011
http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/9-8-2011_ARRA_Jobs_Staff_Report_FINAL_2.pdf
YES SIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:lifter :lifter :lifter
Yes in deedy!!!!!
Obama: “…an out-of-touch elitist..."
Not only is he an "...out-of-touch-elitist..."
He most definitely stands in front of the mirror and lies to that guy every morning.
"Hey, lets you and me print more money, that'll solve everything!" What an idiot... :rolleyes:
Surely if he's doing that we're in trouble...
Someone here wrote, "If you voted for Obama to prove you're not a racist. You'll have to vote for someone else to prove you're not an idiot."
That just about sums up how the guy was voted into office to begin with... IMHO...
Mr. President, it's time for you to go, just let me know when moving day is so I can get to DC to help throw your crap out onto Pennsylvania Ave...
Darbs