Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?
The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.
The release of the update – usually scheduled for mid-July – has been put off until the middle of next month , giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.
The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.
The White House budget director, Peter Orszag, said on Sunday that the administration believes the “chances are high” of getting a health care bill by then. But new analyses showing runaway costs are jeopardizing Senate passage.
“Instead of a dream, this routine report could be a nightmare,” Tony Fratto, a former Treasury Department official and White House spokesman under President George W. Bush, said of the delayed budget update. “There are some things that can’t be escaped.”
(Speaking of dreamworlds – has L. Ian MacDonald been living in a cave ? Or just Canada?)
More, from The Anchoress;
I am waiting to hear the outrage in the press, over the heavy-handed, brazen and rather arrogant moves of a president who sounded downright thuggish last week when he went before the microphone and said this monstrosity was going to pass, and it was going to pass quickly and “I mean it.”
President Obama’s daily finger-wags and bully-pulpits are not in the mode ala President Bush, who said, “I have all this political capital, and I’m going to spend it,” which the press found unpardonably arrogant. It’s not even Obama saying, “I won,” which made the media giggle. This withholding of public information/ramming through of legislation is a whole ‘nother kind of arrogance.
Imagine if W tried to put off releasing info…
Oh.
Juxtaposing
Barrack “Chance the Gardner” Obama ( from the Ian Macdonald aricle) in an Oval Office interview.
“I’m the captain of the ship. I am not the builder of the ship…I can’t steer the thing faster than its capacities, and most importantly I don’t control the weather or the oceans. On the other hand, given what the oceans are, what the weather is and what the constraints of the ship are, I can be a better captain or a worse captain. And my job is to be the best captain I can be.”
And
From the movie Being There, with Peter Sellers, where Chance is clearly headed to the Oval Office because of his soothing rhetoric:
President “Bobby”: Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President “Bobby”: In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President “Bobby”: Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President “Bobby”: Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we’re upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President “Bobby”: Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I’ve heard in a very, very long time.
Imagine if GWB tried to ram an agenda that was as radically right wing as Obamas is left wing and with similar tactics, which is precisely what he could have done after the 2004 elections when the Republicans controlled the White House, Senate and House.
Media certainly never used words like “daughntingly ambitious” to describe the Bush Presidency. They were more obsessed with the Rebublicans “reaching across the aisle” to the powerless Democrats – which they did.
Nice to see the Dems return the favor under pressure from the same media.
As for Mr. MacDonald, he is only on the side of conservatism when it is controlled via the Desmarais family.
Maybe MacDonald wrote most of the article 6 or 8 months ago. If he was writing it today the clearly love-struck Mr. MacDonald would be forced to rename the ship The Titanic.
As for Ogabe hiding the bad news from the public and the actual law-makers – can you imagine the wailing from the MSM if Bush pulled this stunt while forcing through important legislation? Now we have the most transparent govenment evah!!!, and they’re allowed to get away with this crap?
I wouldn’t be to hard on L. Ian, after all he does confirm that the important thing is the narrative.
Syncro
facta non verba
fine words butter no parsnips
Macdonald couldn’t even have watched
the pitch by Michelle Obama’s metrosexual accessory.
Michelle could have done better herself!
Obama has done one thing that I never thought possible, he has made me nostalgic for Jimmy Carter.
Oh yeah, and the seas have stopped their rise.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/18/global-sea-level-updated-at-uc-still-flattening/
In the immortal words of Eddie G. Robinson: “Where’s your god NOW, Moses?”
Hmm. If the budget report shows an economy in a state worse than Obama’s previous rhetorical promises of IF you pass the ‘stimulus’ THEN this happy state will necessarily result…then, the reliability of Obama as a Seer and OverSeer will be in tatters.
However, most current reports on the economy show just that – an economy unresponsive to the so-called stimulus, increasing unemployment, and decreasing confidence in Obama.
But, don’t underestimate Obama’s ability to misinform and manipulate an audience – which includes Congress and the MSM.
Obama will move into his most persuasive mode now. This will consist of misinforming people about the current state of the healthcare system in the US, asserting that it is in crisis, claiming that it’s all the fault of ‘the previous administration’ and insisting on passage of His Bill. He will of course, claim that it will cost next to nothing, will save zillions and..so on.
Any who dissent, will find themselves smeared and marginalized.
The thing to remember about Obama is that, for him, the chief priority is CONTROL. The ability to make you do something. He has no deep interest in what is being done; he himself is not affected by any reform of health care. Or in need of any stimulus package. Nor is he interested in America – remember, he spent 20 years in an assemblage of people who weekly ranted against America. His agenda is to show, himself, that he can control others. That’s all.
And since he’s moved into a position that expands his surroundings, his Control moves outside of his family, outside of the lowly editors of the Harvard Law Review, outside of the activists in the community…to Congress. He has to CONTROL Congress.
So, watch how he’ll try to make Congress do what HE wants.
I read yesterday that the plan likely was to make this an unfunded mandate and make the states pay for it, thus absolving The Loser in Chief of raising any taxes. Seems like a plan to me. Lies, lies, and damn lies.
So the administration that can add 300 pages of legislation to a bill overnight cannot produce a budget update in 90 days.
You think maybe their priorities are warped? Spend-yes we can, Account for spending-huh, nobody told us we had to do that.
The definition for socialism has always been – We can think of all kinds of ways to spend your money, but we are clueless about getting good value or figuring out how much we spend.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed Obama during his trip to Ghana. Read what he said:
“That’s part of the African American experience. You are, in some ways, connected to this distant land, but on the other end, you’re about as American as it gets in some ways. African Americans are more fundamentally rooted in the American experience because they don’t have a recent immigrant experience to draw on. It’s that unique African American culture that has existed in North America for hundreds of years long before we actually founded the nation.”
Now – would someone please explain what the key line means – “African Americans are more fundamentally rooted in the American experience because they don’t have a recent immigrant experience to draw on”.
What the heck does that mean???? Would someone explain?
First – How are ‘African Americans more fundamentally rooted in the American experience”???
Second – Remember, the ‘American experience’ is all about individual independence, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, hard work, innovation, entrepreneurship.
Third – what ‘unique African American culture existed in America for hundreds of years’????
What is Obama talking about?
black americans are no more african than i am scots. my people came to north america about 200 years ago. scots ancestry yes, scots, no. white canadian yes. black americans are not africans.
Following her link to “Althouse”: http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-obama-lost-me.html#comments
Well, WAFS!!
“Indian” begat “native” which begat “aboriginal”.
Similarly “negro” became “black” which became “African-American”.
The terminology has about as much to do with Africa as it had to do with India.
“In Renegade: The Making of a President, an important new biography by former Newsweek writer Richard Wolff, Obama shares a sense of his new job in an Oval Office interview. “I’m the captain of the ship. I am not the builder of the ship…I can’t steer the thing faster than its capacities, and most importantly I don’t control the weather or the oceans. On the other hand, given what the oceans are, what the weather is and what the constraints of the ship are, I can be a better captain or a worse captain. And my job is to be the best captain I can be.”
Is it just me or is there one metaphor too many in there?
O’s over ruled by Hilda who has now assumed the mantle of Presidentess. It’s a coupedaytat.
Hilda now rules the World from Pak.
Hope Lahore is ready for the change.
Yes, it’s Dick’s fault.
…-
“Hillary rules out military government in Pakistan
LAHORE: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ruled out the possibility of an undemocratic or military government coming into power in Islamabad, saying that a weak government in Pakistan will be harmful for India too, an Indian TV channel reported on Monday.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2297005/posts
The real trick to follow is how the dems will avoid raising interest rates and keep inflation down until the congressional mid-term elections in October 2010. After then, the wraps will be off; they will not be able to contain it any more. They will have to rely on The One’s tired rhetoric to get them re-elected in 2012.
old white guy @4:57 – laconic, as always, and, as so often, completely correct (i.e. I agree with you).
E.T. @4:08 – I suppose you could argue that some sort of “unique African American culture” existed in the South for a long time… maybe…
Basically I think Obama has had this problem – politically, and probably personally – for a long time: He’s Black but he’s not really a brother; he’s the Ivy League educated child of a white hippy-chick and some guy from Kenya (wherever that is!). Honestly, I think Michael Jackson was more secure in his racial identity.
Of course ideally this wouldn’t matter and it shouldn’t matter but it does matter to a President who has based so much of his campaign and his persona on Being Black. It matters because Obama insists it matters.
Personally, I think he’s a rootless man who doesn’t identify with any group of people very much; including, disturbingly, Americans.
black mamba – yes, I agree that Obama is rootless. And anti-American. And anti-white. But that still doesn’t explain the vacuous nonsense of his words.
To claim that ‘African Americans’ were not ‘immigrants’ is meaningless. They weren’t indigeneous. The fact that many came from Africa, where they were sold into slavery by other black Africans, isn’t any more ‘ fundamentally American’ than the non-slave experience in America. Both are American experiences and how can one say that either is ‘more fundamental’?
And ‘recent immigration experience’? What about the settling of America, long before the slave trade began? Don’t these people and their descendents count as American?
Does Obama have any sense of reality? Is his world confined to these fictional tales he tells us?
If the first lie does not win the collective over, try another is Obama’s creed. The bigger the confusion with phycho babble the better. Obama’s always in a hurry to pass legislation he knows the American people would never agree to vote for.
ET (sorry, not the alien :-)) – I don’t think most of what he says is about conveying information, I think it’s about striking a mood. It’s P.C. background noise. Most politician do it, – make no mistake! – but Obama more than most. It’s not exactly lying, it’s just the way one talks at the Useful Idiots.
I think you must be right about his psychological makeup; there must be a there there somewhere, but I don’t get any sense of where “there” is (if you see what I mean).
Watcher – what was missing was the end of his speech was – “The problem is that I’ve never been to sea before, so we’ll just have to hope this turns out OK”
ET, I’ve tried to advance this point before (re Obama’s gobbledy-gook) – that the modern politician wants to be the best “creative writer” or “creative speaker” – so they just toss together a word salad of beautiful ingredients and hope that it mollifies people.
Also, the politics of race is so discouraging. The whole “phenotype” vs “genotype” thing.
Reminds me of when I saw a red-headed, light-skinned, Caucasoid woman dressed in buckskin during the Meech Lake hearings yammering away – I thought – whose culture is she trying to appropriate? Turns out she was a status Indian. Her garb almost shouted out her insecurities.
Those of us born before 1980 may have certain hang-ups. Those after – far fewer. But the pre-1970s born crowd, currently in the position of authority, are bringing their experiences to the fore to facilitate their agenda.
My point – those in power tend to be older, and try to right the wrongs of their youth – forgetting that things have changed substantially since then – new problems exist, and are generally ignored
“The problem is that I’ve never been to sea before, so we’ll just have to hope this turns out OK”
That was laugh out loud funny. It’s funny because it’s true.
“Is there nothing Obama can’t do”.
I don’t get it, stupid me. Tongue in cheek maybe?
Do you really mean:
“Is there anything Obama can’t do?”