Poison Pen: Column in Liberal NY Daily News Doubts Obama's Basic Competency

Read the whole thing. Rich, savory schadenfreude, although alarming. Our country elected a dolt.

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, "Do you think they know what they're doing?" The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts.

Yes, it's early, but an eerily familiar feeling is spreading across party lines and seeping into the national conversation. It's a nagging doubt about the competency of the White House.

It was during George W. Bush's second term that the I-word - incompetence - became a routine broadside against him. The Democratic frenzy of Bush-bashing had not spent itself when a larger critique emerged, one not confined by partisan boundaries.

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The tag of incompetence is powerful precisely because it is a nondenominational rebuke, even when it yields a partisan result. It became the strongest argument against the GOP hammerlock on Washington and, over two elections, gave Democrats their turn at total control.

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Which brings us to the heart of the matter: the doubts about Obama himself. His famous eloquence is wearing thin through daily exposure and because his actions are often disconnected from his words. His lack of administrative experience is showing.

His promises and policies contradict each other often enough that evidence of hypocrisy is ceasing to be news. Remember the pledges about bipartisanship and high ethics? They're so last year.

The beat goes on. Last week, Obama brazenly gave a speech about earmark reform just after he quietly signed a $410 billion spending bill that had about 9,000 earmarks in it. He denounced Bush's habit of disregarding pieces of laws he didn't like, so-called signing statements, then issued one himself.

And in an absolute jaw-dropper, he told business leaders, "I don't like the idea of spending more government money, nor am I interested in expanding government's role."

No wonder Americans are confused. Our President is, too.

The worst confusion is that this Miserable Failure tells us every single day we're in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, but, rather than focus on that, instead spends all of his time hostaing plans to nationalize huge segments of the economy having nothing to do with finance or banking.

Krauthammer's complaint -- now echoed by Obama supporter Warren Buffet -- is gaining currency.

Which raises the question -- incompetency or malicious intent? Is Obama delaying actually focusing on the financial crisis -- actually staffing the Treasury Department so that British officials can actually get someone on the phone to coordinate with, and maybe coming up with some kind of plan -- because he doesn't mind the crisis continuing a while? Does he favor allowing capitalism to be discredited further, so that his preferred program of socialism will find public favor?

There's an old adage in politics, offered whenever a political foe is being destroyed by his own actions -- "Never get in the way of an opponent who's self-destructing." Is Obama applying this adage to his true opponent, American capitalism itself?

posted by Ace at 11:05 AM

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