Posted on 11/29/2008 9:55:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Barack Obama wants to give the economy a jolt. So far, though, the biggest jolt we've seen is the one the economy has given to Obama. That jolt, in the form of a plummeting stock market, upset Obama's desire for a leisurely transition. It made him virtually America's acting president.
Obama is fond of saying-he said it again last week-that the country has only one president at a time, and until January 20 it's George W. Bush. True enough, but financial markets don't look at Washington that way. They focus on the future, and that means Obama. Financial markets demanded at least some comforting hints about Obama's plans for reversing the economic downturn.
Reluctantly, Obama has begun to provide them. But it took a 900-point dip in the stock market, plus persistent pleas, for Obama to act. After two days of market collapse, his aides spread the word that Obama's choice for secretary of the Treasury would be Timothy Geithner, the head of the Federal Reserve in New York.
Last week, Obama made his choice of Geithner official. And he named former Treasury secretary Larry Summers his top economic counselor at the White House and chose a monetarist, Christina Romer of the University of California at Berkeley, as the head of the Council of Economic Advisers. The stock market rallied. This was change financial markets could believe in.
There's a larger point here. It's not that Obama, despite his unswervingly liberal record in the Senate, turns out to be a pragmatist. The point is he's pragmatic (so far) in one direction-rightward. Who knew?
His national security choices also underscore this point. Hillary Clinton benefits from not being John Kerry, who desperately wants to be secretary of state. And Obama owes Kerry for having lifted him from obscurity and made him keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic convention. But knowing Kerry, Obama looked elsewhere and fastened on Clinton as his secretary of state.
Clinton, for all her shortcomings, doesn't hail from the surrender-at-all-costs wing of the Democratic party. Nor does retired Marine general Jim Jones, who's slated to be Obama's national security adviser. Jones, an Iraq war skeptic, is a strong supporter of offshore drilling and other steps to increase domestic production of oil and gas.
Then there's Bob Gates, Bush's defense secretary. Obama wants to keep him at the Pentagon for another year. Liberals and the media like Gates because he replaced the man they loved to hate, Donald Rumsfeld. But Gates is no dove and no ally of the antiwar left.
So the scoreboard looks like this: Three of the four cabinet posts that matter most are going to those with views acceptable to the center-right of the Democratic party. That's Geithner, Clinton, and Gates. The fourth, attorney general, will provoke a confirmation fight if Obama chooses his buddy Eric Holder, famous as President Clinton's deputy attorney general for facilitating the pardon of Marc Rich.
Three out of four isn't bad. Conservatives aren't jumping for joy. But imagine how the left wing of the Democratic party-the dominant wing, after all-feels. Let down would be an understatement.
Organized labor must be crazed over the selection of Summers. As a believer in the indispensability of global trade, Summers is bound to advise Obama to reject labor's call for limitations on trade, especially during a world financial breakdown. In fact, I suspect he's already urged Obama to go along with "card check," labor's latest scheme for unionizing workers, but not the protectionist agenda. Tinkering with trade would unsettle financial markets.
And how about the environmental lobby, which totally embraced Obama? Jones will be hard for environmentalists to stomach. And the foreign policy left? The left views Jones, Clinton, and Gates as enemies.
The losers in the Obama administration, as of now, are Joe Biden and Susan Rice, favorites of the left. Biden's role in foreign policy is likely to be minimal with Clinton at the State Department. She'll squash him if he sticks his head up. Rice, an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and an Obama campaign adviser, may wind up as United Nations ambassador, a highly visible but inconsequential post. She'll have little influence.
The Washington cliché about appointments is that personnel is policy. It's an exaggeration but essentially true. If Obama wants to pursue economic and national security policies that would thrill MoveOn.org, William Ayers, and the Democratic left, he has a funny way of showing it. The only reasonable conclusion is he's spurning the left.
Obama has dozens of lesser posts to fill, and no doubt he'll use some of those jobs to assuage the left. Labor can probably have whomever it wants as secretary of labor. For all Obama's talk about education reform, chances are he'll bow to the teachers' lobby in choosing an education secretary. If former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle becomes health and human services secretary, that will please the single-payer crowd and the champions of more government-managed health care.
But financial markets are Obama's overriding concern as president-elect. In their eyes, he's acting president. In his postelection press conference on November 7, Obama said his aides would be monitoring markets and the economy. The transition, in other words, would be relaxed and unhurried.
Last week, Obama's tone had changed. He was alarmed. He held press conferences three days in a row. He said he'd be getting full daily briefings on what's happening on Wall Street and Main Street. "We don't intend to stumble into the next administration," he said.
In trying to give financial markets a sense of comfort and continuity about his priorities, Obama might have provided one further note of assurance: that he won't raise taxes in 2009 or 2010. He stopped short of that.
But he offered a signal. Interviewed on 60 Minutes, Obama said, "We shouldn't worry about the deficit next year or even the year after." Later he told reporters his advisers would recommend whether to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the well-to-do and on capital gains and dividends, or merely allow the cuts to be "not renewed" and thus expire at the end of 2010. With the door opened to leaving the cuts in place, shutting it would be hazardous. Keeping the cuts would enrage the left, but financial markets would appreciate the jolt.
Oh he probably will do something like that, but it’s going to take him time to figure it all out, which is why I think he will do nothing at first, until he puts his first budget together. It’ll probably be early spring before he starts making his moves.
No.
I agree because it's going to take some time to figure out which way to go to remain popular. He's not a leader; rather, he's a follower of public opinion and does what it takes to maintain power.
Ultimately, if he can get away with going left he will. But if a centrist policy is the only way to get the market to rise (and it will be) he will forsake all campaign promises and embrace that.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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Why wait for a 2nd Term for OBAMA to do what he wants, when he wants with us..?
When right now he doesn’t even have to produce proof he is a Natural Born Citizen born in the United States, as dictated by our precious U.S. Constitution..?
Just look at the big smile on his fellow SAUL ALINNSKY soulmate BILL AYERS’ face to preview what’s really in store for us right from the very start...!!!
Unless our United States Supreme Court does it’s job of protecting our Freedom’s very foundation...???
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I don’t think he gives a darn about the markets. The only thing Obama cares about is power, and this goes for Bill Ayers and the other people behind him as well. However, he knows that if he tips his hand now, it’s going to cause considerable alarm and possibly lead to more calls to investigate his birth certificate and other circumstances about him.
Notice that Ayers and the gang, after briefly surfacing following the election, have disappeared from view. But after all these years of association, and the fact that Ayers engineered much of the situation surrounding the election, they’re not going away. Obama wouldn’t know what to do without them, for one thing; he’s not a smart man, and clearly gets his leftwing talking points from the theorists behind him.
However, he wants power and he’ll get it. If anything, I’d expect things to get worse after the inauguration and after he has no need to hide. Miserification, that is, the creation of a state of misery and crisis, is a key part of left-wing strategy in gaining absolute power, and I think we’re going to see that played out on a devastating scale.
The idea that Obama cares what happens to the US is ridiculous. He hates it and wants to destroy it.
Read my previous post.
I don't think he cares about the markets. However, he does care about power. And these days the large middle class will judge a President on their 401k's and investments.
If he could get away with decimating the economy as a leftist he would be in glory. However, he cares about power more. If his popularity starts to decline, he will do what he can to shore up the markets. I think this is the way he's going to have to go.
I’ve been praying that O would “see the light” and become conservative.
(Maybe he's even a secret Zionist!)
I don’t think he’s going to wait for popularity, though. That was the Bill Clinton approach, because Bill Clinton loved to be loved. But Obama doesn’t care. I think once he gets sufficient misery, he will use that as an excuse to impose his real agenda. People will feel defenseless because of the crisis mentality and sense of peril he has instilled, and while he will not be popular, he will be able to exert unprecedented power very easily.
“Is Fred Barnes insane?”
He’s a Rino, first and foremost, but he also hopes they’ll invite him to parties if he licks their boots.
Fred’s to the right of center, but he’s still on target for getting a brown nose
NO.
Think about it, Fred. When Kennedy's Socialized Medicine Act reaches Comrade Ubama's desk do you expect him to veto it? Sign it "present"? Wad it up and shoot a 3-pointer into the trash can that has a mini-backboard and hoop attached to it?
For the love of pete. We are so screwed.
He’s a fraud with a huge ego. He’ll play the game first term then a hard left if he was re-elected. So far he has only won an election...isn’t even President-elect yet....and the supremes are looking at his illegal alien status...
Are you just now figuring that out?
I sure as hell wouldn't want that responsibility. So...what's it gonna' be ? Mainstream or Marxist ?''
You do have a very interesting and troubling point.
As a Black American, I too have some serious concerns about this issue, especially when there are more than enough capable Black Conservative politicians that could serve this country well. And it doesn't help to have that horrid perception of all Black politicians being Socialists.
...There has got to be quite a weight on Obama's shoulders right now.
What, no barf alert?
I don’t think he’s an anything-ist. Except maybe an opportunist.
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