Seven Reasons For Healthy Skepticism

Politico: Amid High Hopes, Great Expectations Need To Be Reined In

(The Politico)  Even in a city of cynics, the Inauguration of a new president - and the infusion of new ideas, new personalities and new energy that comes with it - summons feelings of reverence.

Barack Obama, especially, is the object of inaugural good feelings. He has assembled an impressive White House and Cabinet team. The country is clearly in his corner. With the economy gasping, and two wars dragging on sullenly, even many Republicans who ordinarily might enjoy seeing Obama fail now root for him to succeed. The stakes are simply too great.

Amid all these high hopes, it may seem needlessly sour to point out why expectations must be kept in check. But it is also realistic.

Here are seven reasons to be skeptical of Obama’s chances - and the Washington establishment he now leads:

1. The genius fallacy

There is no disputing Obama has built a Cabinet of sharp and experienced public officials. His staff, especially on national security and economic matters, is often praised as brilliant - and that’s by Republicans.

But recent history teaches us to be wary of the larger-than-life Washington figures supposedly striding across history’s stage. Consider the economy. Everyone seems to agree Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner are smart, vastly qualified to manage and repair the economy.

Everyone was saying the exact same things about the two economic geniuses of the 1990s: Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. Now Rubin has been reduced to making excuses for his involvement in high-risk investments and for helping oversee the demise of Citigroup, which lost $10 billion in the past three months alone. The onetime oracular Greenspan has admitted to Congress that his once-revered economic philosophy had “a flaw,” and many blame him for turning a blind eye to the housing bubble.

As it happens, the Obama economic team is full of Rubin protégés, including Geithner and Summers. Geithner had to recently admit he failed to pay taxes on a big chunk of income - as part of his confirmation process to run tax policy and the Internal Revenue Service. As president of the New York Fed, he was integrally involved in the decision not to rescue Lehman Bros., which many see, in retrospect, as a grievous error.

The reception of the Obama economic team recalls the reception of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy team eight years ago. Many Democrats applauded the experience of Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

As Bush named his national security team in 2000, The New York Times editorialized: “Putting superstar players on the court does not always guarantee harmony or success.” In retrospect, that was an understatement, indeed.

2. The herd instinct

The most bipartisan tradition in Washington is to laud bipartisanship, even while lamenting that there is not enough of it.

But the instinct for bipartisanship overlooks an inconvenient fact: Some of Washington’s biggest blunders occur when the government moves to do big things with big support. Bush won the much-regretted Iraq war resolution of October 2002 with strong Democratic backing.

The current economic crisis produces similar pressure to get on board the train - never mind for sure where it’s going.

It is easy to sympathize with the temptation. Top officials on Obama’s team told us in recent days that things are much worse than most people appreciate. The Obama staff and top lawmakers are getting stern warnings that the banking system in particular is extremely fragile and could collapse. So they are moving with amazing speed to pump money into the economy.

First up is the stimulus package that could top $900 billion. It is a mind-numbing number rarely contemplated in U.S. history - and yet it might not work. There are no guarantees people will spend money the government doles out or that it will be enough to ffset miserable economic performance elsewhere.

The history isn’t encouraging.

Rewind just a few months back. Republicans and Democrats alike said the best of many bad options was to approve $700 billion to prop up banks, mainly to thaw the credit freeze and juice the economy. Half the money is gone now. Many banks took the cash and sat on it. Some used it increase lending. But much of it was wasted or unaccounted for. Now Washington wants to spend the rest of it.

And a top Hill aide told Politico’s David Rogers that Democrats will probably need to request even more.


3. We are broke.

The past several months have produced a rare convergence. Something that politicians of both parties find pleasurable - spending money - has overlapped with what economists and policy experts of all ideological stripes said is urgently necessary. As “Saturday Night Live’s” Church Lady used to say, “How convenient.”

One month from now, Democrats will likely have passed the massive stimulus bill and Obama will have signed it into law. The new Treasury Department will be well on its way to spending the second $350 billion chunk of the $700 billion bank bailout fund.

After this rush of activity, the ability to spend during the balance of Obama’s first term - never mind if there is a second - will be sharply constrained.

Instead, the new administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill will awaken to another first: the prospect of the national deficit approaching $2 trillion. For most, these numbers are simply too big to ponder. But ponder this: This country has never reckoned with deficits like these.

Wait, it gets worse. Remember those entitlement programs the elderly and poor need more than ever: Social Security and Medicare? In budget terms, they are more troubled than ever.

Social Security’s surpluses “begin to decline in 2011 and then turn into rapidly growing deficits as the baby boom generation retires,” according to one recent report. “Medicare’s financial status,” the report said, “is even worse.”

Basically, the government needs more money than ever at a time when people are losing jobs, income and confidence.

4. Words, words, words

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, though starkly different men, both viewed the presidency as pre-eminently a decision-making job. Clinton often waved away speech drafts bloated with lofty language by saying: “Words, words, words.”

Obama seems to have a different view of the presidency. He thinks that the right decisions can be reached by putting reasonable and enlightened people together and reaching a consensus. He believes his job as president is to educate and inspire, largely matters of style.

He knows he is good with words. He knows he has great style. So that’s why he projects exceptional confidence in his ability to do the job.

We don’t know yet how justified Obama is in his self-confidence - or how naive.

But he is almost certain to face many tests, probably imminently, in which the test will be Obama’s ability to act quickly and shrewdly - and not merely describe his actions smoothly or impress people with nuance. And an unlike a governor - who must decide what’s in a budget and what gets cut, or whether a person to be executed at midnight should be spared - Obama has not made many decisions for which the consequences affect more than himself.

5. He rarely challenges the home team.

Obama frequently talks of the need to transcend partisanship. And he invokes his support for charter schools - a not-terribly-controversial idea - as evidence that he is willing to challenge Democratic special interest groups.

In fact, there are few examples of him making decisions during the campaign or the transition that offended his own party’s constituencies, or using rhetoric that challenged his wn supporters to rethink assumptions or yield on a favored cause.

Has Obama ever delivered a “Sister Souljah speech”? Ever stood up to organized labor in the way that Clinton did in passing North American Free Trade Agreement?

This is not a good sign. By Obama’s lights, the national interest usually coincides with his personal interest. Back to you, Church Lady.


6. Everyone is winging it.

No matter how much confidence Obama or other politicians project, the reality is the current economic crisis has totally scrambled the intellectual assumptions of almost every policymaker. People who used to bemoan deficits want to spend like crazy. Improvisation is the only proper response. But the chances that improvisation will take the country to exactly the right destination - without some serious wrong turns along the way - seem very slight.

7. The watchdogs are dozing.

The big media companies that once invested in serious accountability journalism are shells of their former selves. The Tribune Co. - in other words, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune - has slashed its Washington staff by more than half. Newspaper chains such as Cox are fleeing D.C. altogether.

The end result: There are few reporters in this country doing the kind of investigative reporting that hold government officials’ feet to the fire. Think back eight years to the pre-Iraq war reporting and consider the words of Scott McClellan in his otherwise humdrum book.

“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise,” McClellan wrote. “In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

Rigorous reporting is even more important when you have one-party rule in Washington. Democrats, like Republicans, are simply less likely to scrutinize a president of their own. The end result here: Don’t expect the Democratic Congress to investigate the Obama administration or hold a bunch of tough oversight hearings. That means the only real check on Obama is the same one it’s always been - the voters.

[jedi_4jc]

Is this possible? A small bit of old fashioned reporting? Is it possible in the post Immaculation Age? Good article on CBS for once. Amazing!

I pray, despite my lack of hope, that the BHO worshippers will wake up. That would be REAL change.

News flash - no politician is God. No party is perfect - no politician infallible. The better ones learn from history. Of course we can HOPE that the history they want to emulate is FOR the good of ALL, not just personal glory and mass appeal based on personality and lofty speeches.

I am still reminded of the Nazi spectacles every time I watch Hussein manipulate the masses . . . instead leading us to believe we have Jews to hate, we are told have the GOP.

Take your own advice BHO, put away the childish things, grow the h**l up. Time to stop finger pointing . . . it is really wearing thin.

[nealtpm]

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[b4ucmyi]

"He has assembled an impressive White House and Cabinet team."

Obama has unearthed a few relics from the Clinton administration; nothing more.

[joepack61]

Point #4, is weak. Ideas are expressed in words. The more complex they are, the more words used to describe them. Bush used a very few small words and the result was small ideas. The world and the country have complex problems that require thoughtful, intelligent discussion and consensus. It is doubtful that Bush had a single naysayer besides C. Powell in either of his administrations. Obama will encourage discussion that will lead to better decisions. Obama is already a remarkable centrist and a humble man of intelligent words. He already is for blocking the arms supplies to Hamas on the on hand while also giving economic development aid to Palistein. He is like a veritable King Soloman.

[joepack61]

Obama will get twice as much good done as Bush did because he has not limited himself to ideology from only one-half of the spectrum of possible actions.

[joepack61]

The authors of this article are Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris who are the founders of Politico which is a right-wing organization that has attempted to disguise itself and would have you believe that it is a neutral organization something like the league of women voters.

Point #5 is weak. Obama has already had his Sister Souljah moment when he gave his Reverend Wright speech. Obama advocating Charter Schools as a possible fix for failing districts is in fact significant when you consider that "No vouchers, no charter schools" is like a mantra for liberals.
Further, the authors fail to describe what left-wing ideas they think Obama should speak against.

[johndevinejr]

Rush Limbaugh has been saying your paper god wouldn''''t be able to deliver his lies and you stull voted him in. Now you libs are going to make up your excuses as to why Obuma won''''t deliver, all politicians lie when running for office. All you libs wanted Bush gone, now he is, you blamed everything on him, now obuma gets a free pass from the politico, the libs biggest lying fools there are, you wanted him, you got him...lol!


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Posted by libbssuck at 06:03 PM : Jan 21, 2009

Rush Limbaugh is a moron and a liar. Who gives a *** what that pedophile says?

[libbssuck]

Rush Limbaugh has been saying your paper god wouldn''t be able to deliver his lies and you stull voted him in. Now you libs are going to make up your excuses as to why Obuma won''t deliver, all politicians lie when running for office. All you libs wanted Bush gone, now he is, you blamed everything on him, now obuma gets a free pass from the politico, the libs biggest lying fools there are, you wanted him, you got him...lol!

[ballpen1]

Well, there are people who have been giving out advice like "grow your own food" or "learn something useful, like carpenting" for years. Seems to me - right now - this wasn''t as bad advice as i thought back then.

Can anybody here even _imagine_ what a collaps of our country would look like? Everything is so highly connected to everything else. Imagine no police, no firefighters, no public transport, no oil or gas, no electricity, no jobs, no money, no food, no ANYTHING!

Also imagine what this would mean for the rest of the world, so don''t expect help from there. I believe we would crash down toward something like the dark ages until we recover, basically every Armageddon scenario you ever saw in a movie.

So, we CAN NOT fail! We need to straighten out and fly right from now on, stop our hyperbole, our excess, our madness, our greed. We are at a watershed. Either we behave like we did (which is like children) and go down - and FAST - or we behave in new, responsible ways (like adults) and try to manage a "soft landing", avoiding the worst.

That will not be easy...

[dwath1]

First ABC News (Just who is Obama?) Now CBS, "7 reasons for skepticism." Where in the world have you guys been for the past two years? Every tiny bit of fuzz that might have a possible negative spin went out w/ a vengance against McCain (who I really did not care for) and Pali. What was in Palin''s garbage can yesterday got full time coverage and the glaring inconsistencies, changes, obfustacations of Obama were ignored to the great Media sing along fest.

Well, better or worse, he is there. So my prayer on inauguration day was "God, bless him and prosper him where it is in your will and frustrate that which is contrary to your will." We will see.

I think for me, the saving grace is for the Black community. But, this is a two edged sword. It is going to be much harder to lay the blame for community failures on prejudiced white people. Obama did talk about looking at our own failures. I agreed w/ that. Hang on folks. It is going to be a ride.

[robstrck]

The righties have an aversion to people being smart. And black, or female, or educated. Every word that Obama said during his speech was a blow to the failure slimewad that is the war criminal Butch.

Posted by noloyalisti

*********

They must love you. Nice sentence structure and punctuation.

[sincity_q]

Those seven points all make good sense but as an eighth, will anyone pay heed?

Most of those who voted for Obama as well as those holding seats in the Democratic Party on The Hill, appear to be more interested in deflecting doubts than investigating them. This is nothing new, though, because we saw the exact same thing in both 2000 and 2004 from the Republicans.

Still and all, it would seem that this COULD be a learning experience so that the new power base didn''t follow the same dead end course as the previous administration.

Words, words, words? More like ''Deny, Deny, Deny''.

...

[noloyalisti]

The righties have an aversion to people being smart. And black, or female, or educated. Every word that Obama said during his speech was a blow to the failure slimewad that is the war criminal Butch.

[noloyalisti]

Posted by withad - you hit the fascist nail right on the head. Crooked politicians and the media, all owned by violent, right wing, extremist corporate CEOs.

[parisdakar]

Whoa! Who let this piece get published in the midst of the Obama love-fest?!?

[hawksprings]

Interesting that after our Dear Leader is elected that now the Media is trying to lower expectations that they built up during the campaign.

[sjkid1]

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. As a child in the 50''s and 60''ss and coming of age in the 70''s I can tell you that your constant bickering over idealology is counter productive. The nation is in a very severe crisis. I am not a knee jerk liberal although my leanings are liberal, I voted for Barack Obama because I felt that he had the ability to inspire the American people to demand better from our elected officals. I do not think he is the Messiah, but of the choices in the last election , he was the most qualified to lead the nation in our time of distress.
Like John Kennedy, he probably has flaws that we are unaware of but if given a fair chance he may be able to lead us out of the current morass. I call on all Americans to intelligently support his efforts. Please lets work together for the common good.

[usclimey]

Posted by I_H_Libturds

At least you listened all the way through - even Cheney couldn''t listen to Bush all the way through - he fell asleep during the farewell speech.

[drputt45]

Well, at least one person read at least some excerps from McCllelan''s book. I don''t think even his momma bought a copy.

[homespunlady]

So far Guantanamo and the Gaza Crisis seem to be getting Obama''s attention.
So, it appears international concerns top his list.

I''m still waiting on his domestic actions. Although he has mentioned this alternative energy agenda.

Has anyone read that new bailout bill as well as the other proposed legislation?

I heard second hand and want to find out where it might be that there may be some kind of "filing fee" to submit income tax forms to the Feds.

The person who told me that either HAS to have it wrong or whoever slipped in THAT little tidbit is CRAZY. there are too many people who DON''T file already and to charge them for the "privilege" would cause even more to not file.