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.
Like a previous poster said, I also pray that Obama sees the light, and changes his political philosophy while in office. He would not be the first man to make a complete turnaround in office.
Wait ... the House will impeach him over the laws they write? How does that work??
No, Fred isn’t insane. He is pointing out the fact that Obama has gone centrist in his approach. Not every democrat is a raging commie. Bush might be a Repub and a social con but on matters of finance and free markets he’s far from conservative.
Then you lose the debate.
If you set the options as Marxist or centrist and argue that he's a Marxist, and he doesn't behave like one, people assume he's a centrist, because you set the bar too high, so you're out of the debate at an early stage.
Plus, some of what you're talking about has more in common with Mayor Daley strong-arming than Marxism. Where do you draw the line? Or was Richard J. Daley a Marxist?
He does care. He'll be watching his numbers very carefully. If they start to dip too low he will act accordingly because he wants 2 terms.
I hope you are being cute because you sound sort of stupid otherwise. Impeachment would come from his misuse of executive orders and the force of the people to throw him out.
He is going to have to watch his step either way because the far left is already pissed at him
If he tried to start up his "civilian force" and a few other things he claimed he would do with executive orders, people will start to pressure congress, then impeachment will follow or the house members will have to find a new home next election. On top of that, the house and the Senate will have to watch their steps in passing onerous laws, the electorate isn't as far to the left as the dems seem to think. Immigration is one area they will get smeared on, since the vast majority of people do not want amnesty. Use your frickin' head and quit being a jerk.
Did you catch Michael Steele filling in for Bill Bennett this week? I've always liked him, but he's comfortable in his own skin. Smart and funny, too.
I'm quite sure there are many Blacks out there, including Barack Obama, who thought he had as much of a chance of winning the White House as snow turning to ice in Hades.
I didn't get to catch Mr. Steele this week at all, since I'd been traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday.
He’ll get as many terms as he wants once he has destroyed the Constitution. Believe me, popularity is not his thing - power is.
Weren't you warned NOT to sniff glue with Peggy Noonan?
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Don't agree.
I sense a tingly leg and wishful thinking.
God may send so much wrath his way that Obama will be too busy putting out fires to be effective with his agenda, IMHO.
? WTF is Fred Barnes drinking/smoking/snorting/shooting into his veins??
Hussein is not going to support drilling. Since when does the NS Advisor talk about oil drilling?? Not to this guy.
And from what I've heard, this Jim Jones is a real Kool-Aid drinker when it comes to bashing Israel.
Yeah, IOW he is going to spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, and then when he gets done, he'll consider spending a little more. But only for the essentials...you know, college grants, libraries in Chicago, bike paths in Vermont. Hussein will be willing to cut non-essentials...like, oh, defense, for instance.
God bless you; a black conservative woman in California, no less.
I was heartened recently when I went to a gun class; the class was almost entirely white, but there were three young black women there. During discussion time, some of the students expressed disdain at the prospect of BHO coming to office and threatening our 2nd Amendment rights...the young ladies there agreed.
To be young, black and conservative in this environment shows true grit. :)
Not true! I hope he steals them all. Nothing would make me happier than to discover I am wrong in my opinion of Obama.
No! He is just doing what many commentators are doing; waiting for the guy too actually take office and implement some policies before he starts his criticism. Every President, save Bush in 2000, gets similar treatment.
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