carter/obama

[HaMeR]

Obama-Jimmy Carter Comparisons Hauntingly Similar

Friday, August 21, 2009 9:37 AM

By: Matthew Towery    Article Font Size  

It's as simple as this: Just as semi-rural Georgia politics of the mid-1970s couldn't be imposed on the Washington establishment, Chicago-style, brute-force politics doesn't work, either. Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress started digging a hole when they decided to force-feed massive healthcare reform on the American people in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis. And with every town hall meeting, press conference, and leak of a new strategy, they just keep digging that hole deeper.

In early February, I suggested that the new president might become the Jimmy Carter of this generation. To date, I have little doubt that he's well on his way. In fact, Obama is the "super-sized" version of Carter � the style and gimmicks that he uses to try to get his way have gone way over the top. The result is that his polling numbers are dropping like granite.

Carter's early years as president included cute moves like amnesty for Vietnam War draft dodgers, a bailout of Chrysler (sound familiar?) and the creation of an energy department that was heralded by the installation of solar panels at the White House. They never really worked.

Carter's staff felt that their man had been elected on a mandate of "change." They got that notion from the nation's anti-Washington, post-Watergate mood. The Carter crew viewed Congress as a necessary impediment that was expected to yield to the new ways of the White House.

But the Carter team had nothing on Obama. For example, Carter began his term with no official chief of staff. But quickly enough, that role fell to a brilliant man by the name of Hamilton Jordan. While many in Washington saw Jordan as arrogant and a playboy, he was never feared like current White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is.

Carter's press secretary was the genial and soft-spoken Jody Powell. It's hard to imagine Powell getting into the type of ruckus recently ignited by current White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

With the Obama team, everything has to be a bigger and brasher brand of Carter-style politics. Carter merely had his pearly white teeth to flash to the media. Obama has his endless wit and charm, and the ability to sink a half-court basketball shot on a moment's notice.

But just like Carter's toothy grin grew weary on the general public, Obama's stylish forays and endless press conferences, while perhaps still the apple of the eye of the D.C. press corps, are quickly growing old with Americans. They're not entertained or charmed because they're too busy being terrified over their economic future and confused by a barrage of government programs that the new administration is proposing.

Like Carter, one gets the sense that the Obama administration is not as keen on the strength of our military as perhaps a president should be. Nor is he willing, at least in the early going, to stare down potentially dangerous foreign adversaries. In essence, both men came into office believing they had been given a mandate from heaven to change the lives of Americans. It's just that Carter thought so in comparatively modest ways, while Obama came from Chicago with the idea that his big city machine should move mountains at a snap of the fingers.

Like Carter, Obama is running into a buzz saw with Congress. He has quickly learned that a strong-willed liberal House speaker and a not-so-friendly Senate can mangle legislation into something unrecognizable. Now the healthcare effort has become a political football, and like Carter, Obama believes the public still loves him and his rhetoric.

Here's a message, Mr. President: They don't. Obama is overwrought, overexposed, and under-prepared with policy details.

Because of his administration's haste to solve all of the world's problems in six months, ideas such as the "cash for clunkers" auto program have yielded plenty of car sales, but also have proved how inept the government is at administering such initiatives. Car dealers can't get their cash for the clunkers they accepted in exchange for new car purchases. It sure does provide encouragement about the ability of government to pay for healthcare, huh?

In short, as a writer once put it, "Jimmy Carter's biggest problem was that he believed his own 'BS.' " That goes super-sized for Obama, at least for now.

Matt Towery served as the chairman of former Speaker Newt Gingrich's political organization from 1992 until Gingrich left Congress. He is a former Georgia state representative, the author of several books and currently heads the polling and political information firm InsiderAdvantage.

I had forgotten about the Chrysler/draft dodger deal back then.  

[HaMeR]

Obama's Economic Plan Dissolves Into Chaos

Thursday, July 23, 2009 9:37 AM

By: Matt Towery    Article Font Size 

Six months into his presidency, Barack Obama finds himself where he likely never expected � surrounded by chaos. Some of it is admittedly the result of the Bush years, when banks, lenders, financial institutions, Wall Street, and a host of others ran our economy slap into the ground. Then the lot of them got rescued. And now one blue-chip "investment banking firm" � which has suddenly become a blue-chip regular bank � announced this week that it would put over 70 percent of its profits into salary and bonuses as a strategy in a war among top "investment firms" for talent. What talent?

Other portions of the chaos are the result of the actions of the very "axis of evil" that former President George W. Bush warned a skeptical national press corps about many years ago. We have big problems on the horizon coming from Axis members Iran and North Korea.

But much of what now engulfs our nation is the result of a president and Congress that have been in too big of a hurry to fix problems, some of which are indeed pressing, like the economy. And yet others of our difficulties aren't as immediately time-sensitive, including the massive and increasingly unpopular healthcare reform bill, climate control, and an endless number of czars and new proposed heads of programs designed to put government in charge of virtually every aspect of our lives.

Outside Washington, while Wall Street seems somewhat stabilized and the big investment banks are suddenly showing huge profits, the average guy on the street can't get a loan. Small businesses face cash flow crunches that seem insurmountable. Young people graduating from college can't find a job. And long-term employees of companies big and small are either facing significant pay cuts, or are being told they have to find a new job � one that's not out there.

The massive stimulus bill sounded like a "chicken in every pot." But no one can find the chicken. Other than transportation projects and an extension of unemployment benefits, government bureaucrats across the nation are hard-pressed to tell how or when the stimulus dollars will arrive. And many of the programs slated to be paid for with stimulus money won't create a single new job in 2009.

Meanwhile, our state and local governments are having to curtail vital services such as law enforcement, firefighting, and pay for teachers because they, too, are running out of money. Travel and tourism are down, and it's starting to look like retail will barely flicker through the year.

Then there are the cases of North Korea and Iran. North Korea's recent uptick in aggressive saber-rattling would normally be the type of diplomatic crisis that would dominate the news and the attention of world leaders, including the president. It barely receives a mention. And while we huff and puff, Iran continues to move toward becoming not just a nuclear state but also a nuclear terror. Cyberattacks on major government institutions are swept under the media rug amidst obsessive coverage of healthcare and Michael Jackson.

And where are all the protesters who tallied up every civilian death during the war in Iraq but who have nothing to say about the deadly situation in Afghanistan? Here again is another diplomatic situation that is ready to blow wide open.

We see Congress going soft on our defense budget, including killing off the F-22, which could be critical to our defense in the future, and the media headlines hail it as a great victory for the president.

Of course, write a column like this, and one will be labeled an alarmist of the first order. If so labeled, I plead guilty.

I started off the Obama administration saying that I was pulling for this president to succeed. I still am. But watching him hold endless press conferences and push like mad over a healthcare bill in the middle of all of this madness does not give me solace. Someone had better help this administration and Congress reset their priorities. If not, we may all be facing a confluence of dire circumstances so overwhelming that even the most charming of presidents, and the very best and brightest of Harvard-educated minds, will have no clue how to handle it all.

Matt Towery is author of the new book, "Paranoid Nation: The Real Story of the 2009 Fight for the Presidency." He heads the polling and political information firm InsiderAdvantage.


I will admit Bush did nothing to reverse NAFTA or the housing debacle. Altho he inherited these things he could have changed them. But then again it's kinda tough to focus on these things around here when you're running after Daddy's evil no-gooders of the world.