From Camille Paglia at Salon:Money by the barrelful, by the truckload. Mountains of money, heaped like gassy pyramids in the national dump. Scrounging packs of politicos, snapping, snarling and sending green bills flying sky-high as they root through the tangled mass with ragged claws. The stale hot air filled with cries of rage, the gnashing of teeth and dark prophecies of doom.
Yes, this grotesque scene, like a claustrophobic circle in Dante's "Inferno," was what the U.S. government has looked like for the past two weeks as it fights on over Barack Obama's stimulus package -- a mammoth, chaotic grab bag of treasures, toys and gimcracks. Could popular opinion of our feckless Congress sink any lower? You betcha!
Why in the cosmos would the new administration, smoothly sailing out of Obama's classy inauguration, repeat the embarrassing blunders of Bill Clinton's first term? By foolishly promising a complete overhaul of healthcare within 100 days (and by putting his secretive, ill-prepared wife in charge of it), Clinton made himself look naive and incompetent and set healthcare reform back for more than 15 years.
Yes, this grotesque scene, like a claustrophobic circle in Dante's "Inferno," was what the U.S. government has looked like for the past two weeks as it fights on over Barack Obama's stimulus package -- a mammoth, chaotic grab bag of treasures, toys and gimcracks. Could popular opinion of our feckless Congress sink any lower? You betcha!
Why in the cosmos would the new administration, smoothly sailing out of Obama's classy inauguration, repeat the embarrassing blunders of Bill Clinton's first term? By foolishly promising a complete overhaul of healthcare within 100 days (and by putting his secretive, ill-prepared wife in charge of it), Clinton made himself look naive and incompetent and set healthcare reform back for more than 15 years.
President Obama was ill-served by his advisors (shall we thump that checkered piñata, Rahm Emanuel?), who evidently did not help him to produce a strong, focused, coherent bill that he could have explained and defended to the nation before it was set upon by partisan wolves. To defer to the House of Representatives and let the bill be thrown together by cacophonous mob rule made the president seem passive and behind the curve.
Most mainstream American voters are undoubtedly suffering from economist fatigue these days. This one calls for tax cuts; that one condemns them. One says we're wasting hundreds of billions of dollars; the other claims that sum falls pathetically short. A plague on all their houses! Surely common sense would dictate that when Congress is doling out fat dollops of taxpayers' money, due time should be delegated for sober consideration and debate. The administration's coercive rush toward instant action, accompanied by apocalyptic pronouncements of imminent catastrophe, has put its own credibility on the line.
Most mainstream American voters are undoubtedly suffering from economist fatigue these days. This one calls for tax cuts; that one condemns them. One says we're wasting hundreds of billions of dollars; the other claims that sum falls pathetically short. A plague on all their houses! Surely common sense would dictate that when Congress is doling out fat dollops of taxpayers' money, due time should be delegated for sober consideration and debate. The administration's coercive rush toward instant action, accompanied by apocalyptic pronouncements of imminent catastrophe, has put its own credibility on the line.
2 comments:
You know what's funny? Attacks on Obama don't work. Congress is more that fair game, but somehow, Obama seems to be floating just a bit above the toxicity of all of this.
Now, I believe that the economy will be well on its way to recovery by mid-2010, and it won't be this bill that really helps. But to the average Joe and Jane, this stimulus package, supported by Obama, will look like a great idea.
I'm not sure if that translates to Dems holding off the GOP in 2010; that depends on a lot more than this bill - but not much more. Besides, if Obama keeps this up, this bill turns from pork into "spending for the little people", simply because most people don't know better. And that's why I'm upbeat today!
Soon enough they will. I don't think Obama understood the enormous amount of pressure from the job. If this stimulus debacle has proved one thing it's that he doesn't have the cajones to stand up to Nancy and Harry. He's really just a puppet for Nancy who just got royally f'd by Harry. They put Obama up there and said, "Handles this..." and all he has done has given us an oratory of the death, destruction and fire that will come if we don't sign the stimulus. In the past few days one thing is clear, Obama has endorsed the Book of Revelation as a crude guideline of the upcoming years. If he doesn’t get his way, he preaches death and destruction, of course it’s in an American way, "Don't do what I say and we're in for the worst fate that awaits mankind, the loss of your flat-screen TV’s, your espresso machines and your high-priced automobiles." Oh The Horror!
Breaking News... Breaking News...
This is just in. A piece of paper with a little-known French Poem on it has fallen out of President Obama's bag. The poem read:
"In my own country I am in a far-off land.
I am strong but have no force or power.
I win all yet remain a loser.
At break of day I say goodnight.
When I lie down I have a great fear
Of falling."
What can this mean? Only time will tell. The outlook however is ominous. Check back regularly for updates, as we will be following this story closely.
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