Posted on 08/26/2011 11:57:22 AM PDT by cruise_missile
Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president? Jonathan Alter writes in his column.
Alter tells us hes not talking here about Obama as a tactician and communicator, and hes not interested in hearing ad hominem attacks or about peoples generalized disappointment. (Neither am I.) He wants to know on a substantive basis why Obama should be judged to have failed so far.
In Alters words, Your mission, Jim [or anyone else for that matter], should you decide to accept it, is to be specific and rational, not vague and visceral.
Consider the mission accepted.
In one sense, the answer to the Alter challenge is obvious: Obama has failed by his own standards. Its the Obama administration, not the RNC, that said if his stimulus package was passed unemployment would not exceed 8 percent. Its Obama who joked there werent as many shovel-ready jobs as he thought.
Its Obama who promised to cut the deficit in half. Its Obama who said if we passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care cost curve would go down rather than up. Its Obama who promised us recovery and prosperity, hope and change. What weve gotten instead is the opposite.
What makes Alters challenge particularly delicious is during the Bush years he spoke out about the importance of a reality-based presidency (as opposed to a faith-based one). They [Republicans] could end up winning in November by distorting the argument, Alter said in 2006. But on credibility and the facts, theyve lost.
With Alters devotion to credibility and facts in mind, lets take an empirical, reality-based look at economic life in America during the Age of Obama:
* Under Obamas stewardship, we have lost 2.2 million jobs (and 900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone). He is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era.
Obama has made it very plain that he opposes the measures that would revive the economy in a very short time...in short, free-market incentives. Free-market incentives are the last things on Obama’s list of things to do. By failing to get out of the way, in fact by placing severe restrictions on it, Obama has hamstrung the economy. If Alter cannot understand that, he’s dumber than he looks.
thanks cruise_missile, additional:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2769258/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2769500/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2769570/posts
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