Obama: all style, no substance, no leadership

From Neal Boortz:
OBAMA AND LEADERSHIP .. OR LACK THEREOF

With each passing day, the world begins to realize that ObamaLand is nothing more than a Hollywood movie set .. it looks real with the right camera angles, but in reality it is nothing more than flat pieces of cardboard and some paint. In other words .. Obama is all style and no substance. This is actually pretty fitting for our American Idol generation, which ultimately tipped the scales in favor of Obama. They wanted the hot bod and cool campaign slogans, but couldn't tell you the first thing about his policies or his qualifications to be president. Mort Zuckerman says it best in US News and World Report:

"The reviews of Obama's performance have been disappointing. He has seemed uncomfortable in the role of leading other nations, and often seems to suggest there is nothing special about America's role in the world. The global community was puzzled over the pictures of Obama bowing to some of the world's leaders and surprised by his gratuitous criticisms of and apologies for America's foreign policy under the previous administration of George W. Bush. One Middle East authority, Fouad Ajami, pointed out that Obama seems unaware that it is bad form and even a great moral lapse to speak ill of one's own tribe while in the lands of others.

You really do need to read the entire Zuckerman column. The more you understand about the trouble we're in, the better then chance you may actually try to change things this November. Here's the link again.

   

Democrat Gamble makes Republicans Scramble

Harry Reid has criticized Republican's for not being bipartisan enough, claiming that they want President Obama to fail. But how can they be "bipartisan", if by definition it means jumping off a cliff with the Democrats? Is not agreeing to mutual suicide really "wanting Obama to fail"?


Ironically, I think if the Democrats would have worked on a truly bi-partisan approach to solving the crisis, they could have, with Republican help, insured Obama's success for improving the economy and creating jobs. Instead, they are taking a terrible gamble that seems suicidal to many of us.

This article in the San Francisco Chronicle attempts to make a very positive pitch for Obama's budget and the Democrat's agenda. But even with all the gushing and praise, it acknowledges many of the risks being taken:

Obama taking big political risk with budget

[...] After two years of protecting her conservative Blue Dog Democrats by signing off on farm subsidies and avoiding immigration votes, Pelosi has signaled a leftward shift, warmly embracing the Obama budget as the culmination of a vision she has fought years to achieve. "We are very excited, I guess is the word," Pelosi told liberal media representatives last week. "Now we have a president who shares our values and has the right priorities."

Like former President Reagan, who inherited an economic calamity from a deeply unpopular predecessor, Obama is using the crisis to change government's role in the economy. "We are at an extraordinary moment that is full of peril but full of possibility," Obama told PBS' Jim Lehrer, "and I think that's the time you want to be president."

If the polls are accurate, the economic meltdown has altered public attitudes about government, be it the appetite for health care reform, regulation of banks or higher taxes on the wealthy.

"What you've got is a context that makes a very ambitious budget strategy possible in a way that wouldn't be possible in times we would call normal," said Bruce Buchanan, a presidential scholar at the University of Texas. "This is a rare moment." [...]

I read the whole thing. I can follow the logic of the arguments being put forth in favor of what's being done. Yet I can't see that it's going to work, because it's the same flawed logic that got us into this mess. Even the article warns there are a number of pitfalls that could cause it to fail:

[...] Historically, a president's first year is almost always his most productive. "If you can't do it in your first term with your first budget, you almost never get a chance to do it later," said Stan Collender, a veteran budget expert now with Qorvis Communications, a Washington public relations firm. And when a new president comes from a different party than his predecessor, big changes are expected. [...]

President Obama's $3.6 trillion spending and tax plan is the most ambitious effort to shift the federal government's role in the economy since former President Ronald Reagan's in 1981. But instead of rolling back government, Obama advocates spending in three key areas, each dependent on the others. If Congress declines to raise taxes on carbon emissions, for example, money for the middle-class tax credit vanishes, forcing the deficit even higher. [...]

If Obama would only cut taxes to create jobs and increase investment, he would increase the tax revenue from new and expanding businesses, which could fund many of his programs. A true bi-partisan compromise could have achieved that. The problem is, in the name of "fairness", he's instead punishing business with higher taxes, causing investors to sit on their money, shrinking the tax payer base, and borrowing trillions to pay for the Democrat's massive budget agenda. It's growing a bubble that's bound to burst.

Debt is the problem, not the solution. Many Republican's turned against George Bush and the Republican Party for continuing to spend money we don't have, increasing our debt massively and weakening the dollar. And now ironically, Obama is compounding that problem.

If it works I'll eat these words, but I honestly don't see how it can. Jimmy Carter threw endless money at problems, with very bad consequences. It's looking more and more like Barack Obama intends to do the same.

This Administration is still new, and they could conceivably learn from their mistakes. Carter didn't learn from his mistakes, and had one term. Will Obama?


Related Links:

More than a bad day: Worries grow that Barack Obama & Co. have a competence problem

Is Obama taking on too much at once, at economy's expense?

President Obama: a "Leader" or a "Figurehead"?

Does Obama Know What He Is Doing?

HANSON: Maxing out a crisis card
     

President Obama: a "Leader" or a "Figurehead"?

It might be too early to say what kind of Leader Barack Obama will be, but if we were to judge by his performance thus far, I and many others would say it's lacking. Some people have maintained that Obama was never meant to be more than a figurehead for the Democrat Party; the Party Leadership, Pelosi, Reid, etc, will be doing the "Leading", while Obama holds press conferences and summits, and generally continues to do carefully planned campaign style appearances with his teleprompter. How much truth could there be to that? What kind of president have we elected? Michael J. Bernard asks these questions and more:

The Ploy of Inaction
Is President Obama Lazy or is Inaction a Calculated Political Move?

[...] Some observers, however, have begun to take notice of President Obama's lack of leadership in a lot of the moves being made by his Administration and party in congress. As Jennifer Rubin concludes, "Well, it's becoming obvious he's not really much of a manager, decider, legislation-craftsman, or supervisor. His vetting process is in shambles and key Treasury slots are still vacant. His Treasury Secretary is a classic under-performer and Obama encourages that tendency by talking about everything other than our immediate recovery needs. He lets Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do the legislating — and they've come up with an embarrassing stimulus and an omnibus spending-bill even Democrats aren't swallowing. What does he like to do? Summits. These are in essence campaign events — faux town-halls where nary a discouraging word is heard and no real work is done. And he loves those campaign rallies around the country. So if the report is accurate that others are crafting his political strategy (just like the Pelosi-Reid machine is drafting his legislation), it should should come as no surprise. George W. Bush was lambasted for poor management skills and excessive delegation. But that was nothing — Obama has delegated the entire task of governing. He will keep the campaigning for himself."

Have we elected a figurehead President who is more enthralled with the idea of being President then actually doing the work of being President? That may suit America better given that the election cycle had all the substance of a high-school popularity contest.

While Obama has yet to spend a weekend in the White House, and jets all over America to do such menial tasks as signing legislation (at a clip of $67,000 an hour on the taxpayer's tab), some have been having time to further analyze his leadership style. [...]

The article is full of links to other articles to back up what is being said as it goes on further to examine Obama's exaggerated career accomplishments and resume distortions, and what some former co-workers have to say about him.

I can't say that I find any of it particularly surprising. My biggest concern is that Obama and the Democrat Party generally want to extend the current crisis, not fix it. They keep talking about the crisis as an "opportunity". I hear some Democrats who keep repeating the mantra, "the death of capitalism". Many Leftists in the Democrat party have for years been talking about making our current economic and political system "unworkable", so they can replace it with something else. Is that what we are seeing here? Deliberate sabotage?

The truth is, over the next four years, we are going to see what kind of leader our president is. For better or for worse.