Obama's Failing Presidency

American Thinker ^ | July 22, 2010 | J.R. Dunn

[neverdem]

Steven Thomma and Charles Krauthammer may disagree on everything else, but they do agree that Obama is a historical titan whose influence will echo across the rest of the century and beyond. Krauthammer looks upon this with foreboding, while Thomma, editorial writer for the McClatchy group ("TRUTH to POWER!") can't understand why we aren't all dropping to our knees weeping in gratitude.  

While Obama's reputation may no longer be that of a demigod, it hasn't fallen very far among much of the country's political elite. In uptown Manhattan and within the Beltway, Obama is viewed as a mastermind, a political wizard who gets pretty much what he wants and accomplishes what he sets out to do. As evidence for this thesis we're reminded that in his first eighteen months as president, Obama passed the stimulus, ObamaCare, and now a financial reform bill, a record unparalleled since FDR's legendary "Hundred Days."  To Thomma, this means the coming of the millennium, a down payment on a pure socialist state that the left has been yearning for since the 30s. To Krauthammer, it represents a terrible threat to every aspect of American well-being.

Neither appears to have considered the possibility of complete failure. It seems to me that a string of failed programs will have a slightly different historical impact from what Krauthammer and Thomma appear to be expecting.

Both conclusions are reflections of the Beltway mentality, in which all that matters is process. If the bill is passed, that's what counts. Results and consequences exist in a totally different dimension with no tangible connection to the inner-Beltway continuum. Once a bill is on the books, it stands as an accomplishment in and of itself, complete for all time, like a prehistoric stone obelisk left for future generations of peasants to gape at.  

Compare this to the quotidian world in which the rest of us live. Suppose you take a car to the garage for repairs. Two days later, you pick it up, only to discover after rolling through a red light and nearly ending up underneath an eighteen-wheel semi that the problem remains unfixed. When you return to the garage, the owner tells you that none of this matters, since he and his mechanics worked out the bill, wrote it down, and then voted on it.

What happens at the garage at that point is exactly what should happen on Capitol Hill at least once a year (and may in fact happen this November). But for the moment, let's simply use the garage metaphor as an analytical tool to examine Obama's "achievements".

The stimulus was supposed turn the economy around, limit unemployment to 8%, and prevent a deepening recession. It has accomplished nothing of the sort. The economy is effectively frozen, with business mesmerized by Obama's increasingly frenetic antics. Unemployment is officially above 10% and in truth much higher. Though commentators keep insisting that we're not in for a double-dip recession, it's apparent to anyone with two eyes that the second slump actually kicked in at the end of Spring. The reasons for this aren't difficult for anybody apart from a government economist to work out. Much of the $860+ billion (simply trying to nail the exact number down is a chore in itself. I've found anything from $787 billion to $866 billion) was awarded to Obama's supporters in the financial industry and the unions, which automatically removed it from any productive use. The remnant was scattered across the country with no rational form of targeting, going to things like earmarks, environmental programs, and affirmative action projects. For all the effect it's had, that money may as well have been taken and tossed into the Marianas Trench. The sole thing that the stimulus succeeded in doing was to remove three-quarters of a trillion dollars from the working economy, where it could have been used for capitalization, hiring and to pay down debts.

In the rest of the world, a large number of countries that attempted no such thing as a stimulus -- including Canada, much of Latin America, and much of Southern Asia --  are now back on their feet. Obama's response has been to beg the EU to increase its spending, more to act as a cover for his own actions than anything constructive. Angela Merkel, the EU's de facto economic head, quite rightly told him to take a hike.

That's a triumph? As Pyrrhus said after whipping the Romans at Heraclea: "Another such victory and we are undone!"

But Obama has plenty such victories rolling in. I wouldn't wade through the 2600 pages of the financial reform bill at gunpoint, but I don't have to. All I need to do is look at the title page featuring the names of the chief sponsors, Dodd and Frank. The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act. This is the equivalent of the Capone-O'Bannion crime-control bill. If any politicians are up to their necks in the chicanery that led to the latest crash, it's that pair. Frank's most recent paramour held a high position at Fannie Mae, while Dodd was snagging payoffs right and left. In a just world they'd be in custody, not sponsoring bills.

Dodd-Frank is likely to carry on in crippling the economy where the stimulus left off, with its 500 new regulations and complex bureaucracy extending down to the guy who sells toy robots out of cart on the street corner. The effect of regulation and bureaucracy on business is so well known as to have achieved the status of cliché. This bill has added a least another year to the recovery. But that won't bother Obama. Why should it?

So we come to ObamaCare, the program that, so we're told, will see him carried about in a solid gold sedan chair for the rest of his life by an eternally grateful populace. The sneak appointment of David Berwick to run the thing makes transparent a fact that was brought up continually and just as continually dismissed during the health-care debate: that Obama wants a duplicate of the UK National Health Service, the sole British feature that he admires.

And that's an interesting development. Because, according to studies by British health-care specialists, the NHS kills up to 95,000 patients a year through incompetence, mistakes, and accidents. This number is ten times the international per capita average. It is the highest in Europe, and twice that of the U.S., with six times the population.

Since the NHS was established in 1948, hospital beds have dropped from over 800,000 to 160,000, while the number of bureaucrats has expanded to nine for each patient. Tales of patient abuse are a never-ending, almost daily occurrence. A week ago, the Daily Mail featured a story about a young woman who entered an NHS hospital with excruciating head pain. Assuring her that it was merely a headache, the staff dumped her in a ward. It was actually a rare brain infection. When she began screaming uncontrollably as her brain was crushed against the inside of her skull, the staff tied her to a bed and left her. The next time they checked, she was dead.

Then we have the Liverpool Care Pathway or LCP, a method of end-of-life treatment in which any given doctor decides whether a person is dying or not, and then orders all food and water withheld -- the Terri Schiavo treatment -- along with heavy sedation. Hundreds have died from mistaken LCP diagnoses, including people suffering from such terminal ailments as broken legs, gastritis, and skin infections. I seem to recall a certain lady mentioning "death panels" at some point or other.

Just last week, the NHS ran into a "cash flow" problem (a neat trick with a budget of nearly $100 billion a year). The "trusts" which control hospital operations ran out of funds, leaving the hospitals high and dry. Patients were abandoned on operating tables for hours. Others scheduled for procedures were sent home. Ward patients were denied necessary drugs and painkillers. (The same thing happened in New South Wales in 2008, almost driving the state's health-care system -- also based on the NHS -- to collapse. This episode was kept very quiet. So quiet that no single reference to it was made in the American media.)

That's what's coming to us with ObamaCare. Oh yeah -- the number of accidental deaths under such circumstances will rise to the vicinity of 450,000. This won't simply increase Obama's popularity, it will raise him to the level of legend. The problem is that the legend will be comprised of equal parts Bernard Madoff, Charles Manson, and Ludwig, Mad King of Bavaria.

With luck, Obama's halcyon days will end this November 2^nd. I say "with luck", because the GOP will have very little to do with it. (Last week, John Boehner and John Cornyn revealed that the GOP campaign will set aside such dull issues as the economy and immigration to focus on the emotionally gripping topic of the deficit. With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?) But at that point, the circus will stop. Having refused to commit themselves to a budget, the Dems will have no recourse to such tricks as "reconciliation", which can only be used in conjunction with budget bills. So the lame duck session will truly be lame. When Congress reconvenes in January, Obama will see how it feels to stare failure in the face.

Curiously, Obama is following his model Franklin D. Roosevelt here as in everything else. The "FDR as national savior" image is almost pure fabrication. The NRA didn't work. The AAA didn't work. The PWA, WPA, and the CCC provided only make work jobs at the lowest economic level. FDR's insistence on raising taxes led to another collapse late in 1937. Though not often mentioned, the Great Depression was also a double-dipper. (See Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism and Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man  for details.)

Only three months later Hitler saved FDR's bacon at Munich. By making it clear (to everybody but Neville "Peace in our Time" Chamberlain, anyway) that he was out to devour Europe and would be stopped by nothing short of war, Hitler broke the economic logjam. States began rearming, the tariff barriers dropped, and in a short time the Depression began to ebb. It was the response to Hitler, not the Depression programs, that rescued Roosevelt's reputation.

So will Ahmadinejad save Obama? Stranger things have happened. But I have my doubts. When push came to shove, FDR turned out to be a warrior, the exact kind of leader the situation demanded. The man humiliated by the Depression had what it took to become a great warlord. Now I may be wrong, but I don't think even the McClatchy papers would claim any such thing for Obama.

J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker and editor of the forthcoming Military Thinker.

[Moonman62]

See my tag line.

[gogogodzilla]

Except that for the case of WWII... we weren’t breaking *OUR* windows, but someone else’s.

Who then had to buy from *OUR* ready-made window shop a replacement window, because their own supplier was bombed out of existence. Of course, we lent him the money to do it, but we charged interest on that, as well.

It helped us quite a bit, after the war.

[Jack Hammer]

He’s also an utter and unabashed egomaniac.

[livius]

Actually, I think he’s a sociopathic megalomaniac, personally...

[4rcane]

its certainly OUR windows. It makes no difference if its in another country. Resources used to replace broken windows in another planet, means less resources for stuff to build in our own country

[4rcane]

planet=country

[sergeantdave]

“He runs on hate.”

Good observation. The hate he has for America will be returned ten-fold. Washington DC is under seige. My criminal senator can’t show his face in public without a platoon size praetorian guard surrounding him.

[jnsun]

Obama isn’t smart, and his actual program comes from the extreme leftists behind him ----

He runs on hate.

This thread has it, but our point has always been we are not dealing here with amateurs. They know how to manipulate the anaesthesized masses, just like Hollywood knows how to make a mass audience cry, laugh, rage, etc. despite the fact the entire production is phony.

And that to combat that will take extraordinary self-honesty, courage, integrity, and articulation. Qualities that simply do not show up in the Washington DC Republican Party resume. It is far far too late for realpolitik.

[Inwoodian]

Should the GOP win in November they should refuse to fund all of Obama’s “accomplishments”. Then, in 2013, they should repeal all of his programs. Nothing is more important.

[Pollster1]

Talking about Obama’s failing regime is like talking about the Soviet Union’s failing regime. Both have failed completely. The USSR is gone and the Obama regime is still in the news, but that doesn’t change the fact that both are complete failures.

[P.O.E.]

The PWA, WPA, and the CCC provided only make work jobs at the lowest economic level

In FDR's day, people still had a work ethic, so at least some things were actually built. Nowadays, the money will just be spent on consumables.

[Liz]

[supercat]

the author made a nasty mistake by saying the war saved the economy.

The war saved us from FDR's economic programs that were even worse than war.

[The Duke]

What difference does it make if you move to another country?

The Obama tax man still cometh.

There are those of us who believe that Obama's minions are ultimately capable of *anything*, and the further one is from them the better.

Additionally, I wouldn't want to be in the US if our civilization comes apart at the seams - which I also think is a definite possibility.

[RipSawyer]

I have always been amazed by those who continue to insist that a war fixes an economy. I once asked one of these true believers if he could imagine two large family farms bordering each other with each family having six young adult sons and six daughters and with outbuildings, livestock, tractors etc. He said yes he understood farming and he could imagine that. I said okay suppose something happens to start a feud between the two families and they pull out their deer rifles, shotguns etc. and start shooting at each other. One family sends a son over to burn down the other families biggest barn where all the most valuable harvested crops are stored and in the process of burning it he is killed. In retaliation for the barn burning the other family burns down the home of the dead son’s family. After a little while of listening to all this he got the picture finally.

War destroys lives, and property and produces nothing. How can anyone believe it will rehabilitate a wrecked economy? It is equivalent to thinking that the best thing to do if you are sick is to shoot yourself in the foot.

[gogogodzilla]

It’s great for the general store owner, who now gets to sell all the needed supplies to both families to rebuild.

It’s not so great for the ones to suffer it, though.

[4rcane]

its as asinine as the obama policy of getting ppl to destory perfectly working cars so that they could replace it with new cars

[4rcane]

the difference between a good economist and a bad economist is that a bad economist can only see the immediate effect of the policy of the recipient, but not on the effect on all people in the economy

Economic in One Lesson, The Broken Window Fallacy. While the general store may owner may benefit from selling supplies to family to rebuild what was broken. Another general store owner (or the same store owner) may suffer, because instead of buying a new clothes for the season that year, both families were using their resources to replace what was ttheir broken windows.

So if you look at the entire economy.

Without the broken window, society would’ve one window, new clothes. To a society with a broken window, that only have the replaced window

Which society is richer? Obviously the society without the broken window

[Aria]

I agree, November will tell the tale.

We have an expat in Panama here on FR. I think their medical is pretty good, and probably will soon be better than ours. I’m wondering if our doctors will migrate down there.

Seems like the American Dream might migrate to South America thanks to the corrupt media and some American terrorists (Ayers) and their mouthpiece, and a bunch of “gimme” racists. Unbelievable.

But I’ve long thought that this country was established by good genes, people with the courage and gumption to take their chances to find freedom...and maybe that will have to happen again somewhere else.

[Hoodat]

The sole thing that the stimulus succeeded in doing was to remove three-quarters of a trillion dollars from the working economy, where it could have been used for capitalization, hiring and to pay down debts.

This cannot be emphasized enough.