{"id":4194,"date":"2009-02-11T08:40:14","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T13:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4194"},"modified":"2009-02-11T08:40:14","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T13:40:14","slug":"lapdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4194","title":{"rendered":"Lapdog"},"content":{"rendered":"

The initial in this article<\/a>, in ordinary times, would seem just a tad premature:<\/p>\n

Has Barack Obama\u2019s presidency already failed?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, these are not ordinary times:<\/p>\n

In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much. If he fails to act decisively, the president risks being overwhelmed, like his predecessor. The costs to the US and the world of another failed presidency do not bear contemplating.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is needed? The answer is: focus and ferocity. If Mr Obama does not fix this crisis, all he hopes from his presidency will be lost. If he does, he can reshape the agenda. Hoping for the best is foolish. He should expect the worst and act accordingly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a philosophy I’m comfortable with.<\/p>\n

Yet hoping for the best is what one sees in the stimulus programme and \u2013 so far as I can judge from Tuesday\u2019s sketchy announcement by Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary \u2013 also in the new plans for fixing the banking system. I commented on the former last week. I would merely add that it is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years\u2019 economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that’d be the problem.<\/p>\n

Look – I don’t know that President Obama ever <\/em>was more than a pretty package into which the left poured its energy after eight frustrating years out of the White House.\u00a0 In normal times – and with the benefit of a little gridlock – that can be a good thing.\u00a0 It’s what made the ’90’s so relatively tolerable.<\/p>\n

But today, Obama seems like nothing so much as Nancy Pelosi’s hired goon bringing the executive branch into line.<\/p>\n

I joked for years during the Ventura Administration that if you walked into the governor’s office, you’d see a big curtain in the corner – and behind that curtain sat Dean Barkley and Tim Penny, pulling the strings and pushing the levers that made Ventura do everything (except talk and embarass the state, Ventura’s only real talents and organic duties).<\/p>\n

It’s been less than a month, but I’m struggling to see more than that out of The President these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The initial in this article, in ordinary times, would seem just a tad premature: Has Barack Obama\u2019s presidency already failed? Of course, these are not ordinary times: In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-president-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}