I have to ask the question: Is Obama an optimist? I am going to have to answer in the affirmative.
We are seeing this at the macro and microlevel and in foreign and domestic policy.
1) At the microlevel, Obama is defending Timothy Geithner for Secretary of the Treasury when it is clear that Geithner was a conscious tax cheat. While working for the IMF he signed papers certifying that money he was provided to pay his U.S. income taxes would be used for that purpose. Later he was audited by the IRS for two years where he did not pay and he paid the disputed taxes. However, for two earlier years in which he had undertaken similar income tax evasion, he did not declare the income. In other words, he deliberately and consciously evaded paying his income tax even after being caught for other years. Obama is defending this income tax evader. Is this change from the Bush regime? No this is more optimism. Obama’s meme of change from the corrupt Bush years appears simply to be hollow or perhaps cynical.
The Geithner appointment, besides ratifying tax evasion, also ratifies the crony capitalist bailouts in which the New York Federal Reserve was a central player. Obama is appointing one of the key persons in aiding and abetting the current crisis. By this decision, Obama is saying Wall Street and its representatives should be running the U.S. Treasury and personal responsibility is not an issue in this estimation. What a terrible message.
2) At the macrolevel, Obama lobbied Congress for the TARP bank bailout. Even after the first $350 billion was used to bailout banks and ensure that the executives that drove their banks into insolvency would retain their jobs, salaries, and bonuses. In other words, Obama is assuming ownership for the failed Bush response to the economic crisis. This is optimism run wild. The oracle of change rushes to become identified with failures of the past. Obama in his eagerness to please identifies and takes ownership of immoral failed policies.
3) Where Obama seemed to promise that he would get us entirely out of Iraq quickly, now is talking about a presence there for years. But, more foolish than this, is that he wants to massively increase our commitment to the already failed war in Afghanistan. Not only is Afghanistan already lost, but he will be increasing our expenditures there despite a looming bankruptcy of the Federal government due to the bailouts related to #1 and #2.
In my estimation, the Obama regime is already well on its way to failure. Let me outline the issue again, though talking about change, he ratifies individual irresponsibility in his choice of Timothy Geithner, institutional irresponsibility by his support of the TARP, and foreign policy foolishness in increasing our commitment to Afghanistan. These actions epitomize my definition of crackpot ideas AND unfortunately the cost is that, unless he dramatically changes direction toward honesty and realism, his Presidency is already on the road to failure.
January 19th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Almost two days until the inauguration and he STILL hasn’t fixed the economy. Not only that, he let someone quote Reagan at his concert and invited a bestselling evangelical preacher to speak, the same guy who infuriated conservatives by inviting Obama to his church. He’s obviously a closet right-winger and doomed to irrelevance. We’ll be sorry we didn’t back Nader after all.
January 19th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Michael,
I believe people show themselves not by their words, but by their actions. I know this is Unamerican, but I have seen too many smiling faces that don’t have my interests at heart.
This is a perilous time and Obama can quickly lose his credibility. The Geithner situation is a test of how much Obama values forthrightness and probity in those who he appoints to work for us. I presume you support Obama because you expect more honesty and intelligence than the last eight years. In this email you have implicitly supported a tarnished treasury secretary, an ill-considered bailout that is giving our precious tax dollars with nearly no strings attached to those that have destroyed our financial system and the lives of many Americans, and doubling down on a failed war.
If you are not concerned at how quickly (even before he needs to) he has been been taking ownership of Bush’s mistakes, then I congratulate you on your optimism.
January 19th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Geithner is clearly the most talented candidate for the sec of treas. position and, given the state of affairs, Obama can hardly be blamed supporting a guy who most likely ratified a mistake made by his CPA at the worst.
No one like the bailouts but I don’t know anyone outside some of the GOP leaders in the South who doesn’t believe it’s necessary. Plenty of mistakes led to this debacle, many of them by political leaders from both sides of the aisle who not only knowingly let the kids spike the punch (reckless deregulation) but provided the booze to do it with in the form of opening Fannie and Freddie to subprime packages and other garbage, plus passing benighted legislation like Sarbanes-Ox.
The war in Afghanistan is necessary, alas, recall that the fomenters of hate there did cause the greatest catastrophe in American history and will do so again if given the chance. We simply cannot live in isolation anymore. Yes, it would be better to have the world at large assuming this role and, yes, Bush did obligate the US as a seemingly one-man Batman show ready to swoop in and solve all of the world’s many security issues; but these decisions cannot be reversed overnight. Hopefully we’ll see a larger and more diverse world police force begin to emerge over the next 8 years.
Obama has lots of bridges to rebuild in stitching a fractured country and world back together, only an optimist would have the strength and energy even to begin to tackle these problems. We should all support him and be thankful that someone as talented as Obama is optimistic enough to fight this good fight for us. He could just as easily be in a coffee shop somewhere writing the doomsday epithets about crackpot optimism surrounded by the throws of a comfortable life. Instead, he’s elected to challenge such prognostications with vigor and, again, because it cannot be said enough, thankfully we have him and his talent and willingness to succeed when many wouldn’t dare to try.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:10 am
He is a politician. A great one, but still a politician who will do the practical/centrist thing rather than the promised. He asked Bush for the second $350 mill, that was pragmatic — who turns away money? He is speaking on the economy because the markets demand it. He is already acting a president in some ways.
Being president is not the same as being a candidate for the office or serving as a senator. In those cases words often suffice. As the President, Obama has no choice but to take action and deal with reality.
The good news is that he is a great politician and that can often translate to effective policy making/coalition building.