That's Not The Obama I Knew

Buyer's remorse is examined by Byron York.  I deplore this distraction.

And while we are here, would McCain really be any better than Obama as President?  The mortgage plan he rolled out during a debate (not this debate - don't rush me, it's here) needed more work to qualify as half-baked.  McCain clearly did not understand economics and has even less of a feel for Wall Street and finance than a Chicago street organizer.  My goodness, in McCain's world real men get shot at and live or die in the service of their country for a mere pittance; wealth is not something you earn, its something you marry.

McCain also lived in a good guys/bad guys, with-me-or-against-me world.  OK, that is probably a realistic approach to take in a prison camp but it would not be helpful to have a President demonizing everyone with whom he disagrees (thereby encroaching on Paul Krugman's turf) and McCain would surely be demonizing these AIGers.  (Hmm, I say that, but what has McCain actually said on this?  Don't stop me now!  OK, he was on Hannity last night and was suitably Senatorial, denouncing the process and the $20 billion to European banks - don't vex me.)

Comments

[daddy]

Good night.

[kim]

He'd have Treasury up to speed with people who've paid their taxes because they believed it was the right thing to do. Integrity has a role somewhere in government, just where I hope to figure out soon.
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[pagar]

With McCain, we would have gotten Palin, the only person in the race who has demonstrated common sense on a daily basis in her life. Instead we're stuck with ACORN running America.

[Bill Smugs]

I wish Romney was president. Obviously the best of all the candidates (Dem and Repub) economically. The problem was the economy was not much of an issue during the primaries.

[Pofarmer]

pagar, I agree with you, but I can't imagine the constant attacks there would have been on Palin, over nothing, while Barack Hussein and company can go on blissfully destructifying.

[verner]

If Mccain was president...

1. The earmark laden omnibus bill would have been vetoed.

2. We would not have all the left wing loon appointments.

3. We would still be calling enemy combatants enemy combatants.

4. The stimulus (aka democrat pork) package would not have passed.

5. Nuclear power would be on board.

6. We would have a real Sec. of State instead of Hillary "overload button" Clinton.

7. We would not be facing spending an additional 5 trillion for a socialist health care plan and doomed to fail education reform.

8. We would have serious people in charge of intelligence.

9. Our taxes would have been cut instead of raised.

It is getting sooo depressing writing this list, I can't go on.

[William Teach]

Would McCain have been better? He certainly couldn't be worse. He would have, as Kim points out, had the Treasury up to speed and had the people he needed in the positions in Treasury, unlike Obama and Geithner, who have yet to fill the jobs.

He wouldn't be running around the country, doing campaign stops on Leno, while pushing all sorts of other measures, such as health care, and ignoring the actual causes of the current recession. He would have focused on it.

And, yeah, I do think some of Maverick's ideas were half baked and dumb, but, at least they weren't trying to turn America into what the Europeans have become.

[Jane]

McCain loves this country as it is. He's not looking to turn it into Cuba. That alone was enough incentive to elect him.

[hit and run]

What should trouble Obamaphiles more than perhaps anything else* is that we, that is the VRWC (absent all those conference calls, listservs, etc), told you exactly who Obama was. For nearly two years of the campaign.

He is who we said he was.

I may one day tire of saying "I Told You So", but today is not that day.

You cannot spell

“OBAMA’S PROMISES TO BRING YOU HOPE AND CHANGE ARE BULLSHIT”

without

I   T-O-L-D   Y-O-U   S-O

-------------
*Well, they should be more troubled by creeping galloping socialism, but at this point, blinded as they still are by love, they'll happily take socialism to be with Obama. Even those who would normally have a proper disdain for socialism are in the throes of "but I can change him" emotionalism. Perhaps, hopefully, not for too much longer.

[Jim Ryan]

Voted O. Can't sleep.
At the bubbler just chime in.
No way they can know.

[Appalled]

A quick observation -- bolstered by today's Wall Street Journal (cpommenting on FDR's approach to the banking crisis of 1933). Job 1 for either McCain or Obama was doing something about the banking crisis in a way that does not scare off investors. Obama is failing the test through Geithner's utter failure to come up with a real plan. McCain showed what he would have done through his TARP I hyprventelating.

It really doesn't matter whether you think the underlying policies of Obama or McCain are preferable. Both have demonstrated an appalling inability to deal responsibly with problem 1.

So, I'm not ging to say, knowing what we know now, McCain would have been worse. I will say that he would have been no better. And I expect, that at this point in the fiasco, I would have been able to something very like Verner's list.

[Pofarmer]

In the "Just how stupid are these people" dept.

From your attorney General, Eric Holder.

Attorney general signals shift in marijuana policy

Attorney General Eric Holder signaled a change on medical marijuana policy Wednesday, saying federal agents will target marijuana distributors only when they violate both federal and state law.

So, the Attorney General is now willy/nilly undermining Federal laws. That should be useful when all the gun legislation comes up. I have this huge sinking feeling that just won't go away. We have become Venezuela.

[Cecil Turner]

Obama's remarks at Costa Mesa yesterday were pure comedy gold:

But these bonuses, outrageous as they are, are a symptom of a much larger problem. [. . .]
That is the kind of ethic we've had for too long. That is the kind of approach that led us into this mess. And that is something we have to change [. . .]
We're already seeing signs of progress. Because of the Recovery Act that your two outstanding senators, Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer worked so hard to pass and that I signed into law the other week [. . .]

Yeah, that great recovery bill (that was too urgent to read before passing) is part of the solution. Except it specifically authorized those types of bonuses, and the authorization was included at the behest of the Administration:

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said the Obama administration asked him to insert. a provision in last month’s $787 billion economic- stimulus legislation that had the effect of authorizing American International Group Inc.’s bonuses. [emphasis added]

A few lessons leap out from this mess:

• Congress is in fact in charge of drafting legislative language, and minor changes in the language of these bills are significant;
• the primacy of the legislative branch in appropriations torpedoes any Democrat claim to've "inherited" the crisis which matured on their watch;
• despite months of posturing on the executive bonus distraction, the Obama Administration can't even get an internally consistent story on their own chosen measure of merit;
• President Obama revises his version of events as needed to fit the narrative . . . and the media is happy to help.

Luckily, this stuff isn't terribly important. And it's somewhat amusing to discuss whilst the Administration wastes another couple trillion dollars.

[kim]

Oh, fah, Appalled; McCain would have had an honest team at work and he wouldn't have stampeded capital. And he wouldn't be shoving socialism down our throats. There is no comparison, except, of course, in your own private Idaho.
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[kim]

Look, Appalled, would McCain have Kundra back? He wouldn't have had him in the first place.

Obama is a Chicago thug; McCain is not. QED
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[kim]

Pofarmer, that's a victory for state's rights; funny how they don't think the states have any rights in any other area. Hypocrisy, by thy name.
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[hit and run]

Cecil:
Yeah, that great recovery bill (that was too urgent to read before passing)

But not so urgent that, once passed, Obama and Michelle couldn't slip away to Chicago for some private, romantic fist bumping before signing it.

[Sue]

I don't know if McCain would have handled this better or not, but I do know he wouldn't have a tax cheat as SoT. The media and democrats wouldn't have allowed a Republican to appoint one.

[kim]

Really, Appalled, if you can't sense the difference in integrity between the two, and how that would flow into good governance and confidence in our nation, I have to wonder about you. I see you have a warped opinion about McCain, and I'd guess you have one about Palin, too, but I know you have the sense and the ethical grounding to understand that on some level integrity is important. So enough with the bullshit about how McCain would be no better. You are just wrong, and probably know it, too. Heh.
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[pagar]

have Kundra back

The mysterious petty theft that President Obama's new computer chief committed at age 21 was shoplifting four dress shirts worth $134 from J.C. Penney.

Does everyone in the Obama Administration have problems>

[kim]

I'm reminded of when I used to complain about Hillary's precise hundred thousand dollar payoff on cattle futures, and the liberals to whom I complained said that all politicians do it.

Well, no. And we don't have to put up with it. Period. Neither do you.
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[kim]

Forget his petty theft which is and was petty, though not meaningless. Why is he so critical to have back?
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[kim]

Heh, I should have written: 'Hypocrisy, buy thy name'.
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[RichatUF]

And flagged up over at the top of Drudge, Obama's diplomacy seems to be working well: the UN (during the April G20 conference) is proposing a UN administered oil import (small, barely noticible) tax for OEDC (ie "rich") countries and a move to eliminate the US dollar as the global reserve currency. The oil tax idea is to fund the UN's "green agenda" of hookers, 5 star resturants, and blow solar power, windmills, and "public" transportation.

[Wonder if anyone would bother to look at the UN's record the last time they had a substantial amount of oil wealth pass through their hands?]

I'm so thankful that the unsteady McCain and that ditz Palin aren't in charge because they might have thought that this was a bad idea.

[Ranger]

You know, since Obama created that nifty Porkulus emblem to mark all the money he is spending, someone should do up a photoship of an AIG check for $165 million with Obama's logo on it. Hey, the bill is the reason the checks got cut! AIG bonuses, brought to you by Obama and the Democrats' stimulus package!

As I said before, I actually don't have a problem with the bonuses, but the Dems wanted to make this an issue, so lets make them choke on it.

[pagar]

Pofarmer, I totally agree. Much as I would like to see a better quality in our politicians, I don't see how we are going to get it until the MSM becomes at least a little better at reporting important things and not just attacking decent people for the crime of being decent.

Just up on memeorandum, "Obama's $500,000 book bonanza". No wonder he doesn't care about the stock market.

[Appalled]

kim:

I never have challenged McCain's integrity; I challenge his judgement and temperment. As for policies -- my guess is that the Treasury would have been fuly staffed because there would have been some Bush holdovers. Any tax cuts would have been DOA in the house.

And, to be honest, I tended to think Obama's challenges would be corruption and ego. I completely missed his odd passvity.

[narciso]

So we're really qualifying under the MIAC anti-Government index (heard thequestionaire
from Beck)People who can't tell the difference between the two approaches really are appalling. The U.N. General Assembly has been a mug's game since the 70s, when Moynihan gave the whole story away. But this administration, thinks exactly along these lines, not able to tell the difference between democracies and tyrannies, deep down it probably thinks the colonists should have reconciled with Great Britain, because their gripes were essentially bourgeois, not properly anti-property and secular. But hell, we dodged a bullet with that Palin chick, (grumbling
bitterly at the irony of Ace's statement)

[David Walser]

Had McCain won, there's a decent chance Romney would be Secretary of the Treasury now. Wouldn't that, alone, be a dramatic improvement? Romney would have put forward and implemented a workable plan weeks ago.

[Pofarmer]

I completely missed his odd passvity.

Passivity about what?

What's going on is what he wants.

[Ranger]

I completely missed his odd passvity.

Posted by: Appalled | March 19, 2009 at 10:01 AM

Hmmmm... I think the fact that he has never acomplished anything in any job or life opportunity he's ever held (been given) might have been an indication of that.

Undergrad: spent 2 years smoking pot, doing blow, and getting average grades before being accepted as a tranfer to an Ivy Leage school.

Community organizer: Doesn't seem to have done anything that anyone remembers, but got accepted to Harvard Law.

Harvard Law Review: Nada, and spent a lot of the time "working from home"

Law practice: Spent almost no time in court, yet earned significant retainer income for apparently doing very little.

Education reform: Sat back and let Bill Ayers piss away a ton of money for no effect.

State Senate: Except for greasing the skids for Blago to pack the health facilities board, seems to have done rather little until Emil Joens decided to back his effort to run for Senate, at which point Obama got a lot of credit for bills he'd done no work on in the previous sessions.

U.S. Senate: Started running for president almost right away. No real record of anything, except always voting with his party when needed.

Yes, you are shocked, shocked that he is so passive as President.

[Rick Ballard]

"And, to be honest, I tended to think Obama's challenges would be corruption and ego. I completely missed his odd passivity."

Did you miss the fact that he was a dirty socialist as well? Or was that a plus to put beside his total lack of anything resembling ethics? Would you prefer that he were more actively corrupt as he displayed the pathological narcissism which you describe as 'ego'?

If so, time will show that that he has fulfilled your desire. He's as dirty as they come - no need to worry about him being passive in generating filth.

[ben]

"I never have challenged McCain's integrity; I challenge his judgement and temperment"

"And, to be honest, I tended to think Obama's challenges would be corruption and ego. I completely missed his odd passvity."

So let's see, Appalled was right on McCain's integrity, wrong on his judgment and temperament (spelling included). Then on Obama, right on the corruption and ego, wrong on odd passivity.

Score is 3 right and 3 wrong, not bad.

[kim]

Heh, Appalled, I know your heart's in the right place. Once you figure out just how bad this bunch is, you'll be a Republican fanatic, too. These fascist progressives have overtaken the Democratic Party. It is possible to be a classic liberal and a Republican. Look around.
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[clarice]

Cecil, that is such a brilliant post, I wish you'd blog it to editoratamericanthinker.com

[boris]

Any tax cuts would have been DOA in the house

After the Bush half and the McCain half of the original TARP was used up, gridlock would be better than what we have now. ("expert" consensus doncha know).

McCain probably would have compromised with dimorat congress for something like porkulus lite. Bad but not as bad.

But ... the advantage for Sarah Palin in this Obamanation term is that we just might get her as president in 2012 with the MSM and dimorat congress completely discredited.

It's the MSM and dimorat congress who need "more time in the wildnerness" along with our and their dear friend Appalled.

[Pofarmer]

gridlock would be better than what we have now

I'm becoming more and more convinced that gridlock is the prefered state of govt.

[boris]

Passivity about what?

About the fact that from Obama's point of view a lot of the people getting hurt the worst deserve it the most. Seems oddly unconcerned as a result.

[Ranger]

This just in, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29773472/>13 bailout firms owe back taxes. I'm sure Dems will want to make a big deal about this, but how can they do that with Turbo Tim at the helm?

[pagar]

Forget his petty theft which is and was petty

Kim, I just don't see why we need a person in the Administration who has already demonstrated an ability to hide things. Anyone want to guess the reward for keeping certain things hidden in this administration?
Maybe a birth certificate, or a certain Columbia U paper on Russia? I don't see a reason to increase the odds that things, lots of things, are going to be hidden by this WH. Give people with a clean record a chance to show what they can do, is my suggestion.

[kim]

Of course, you are correct, and that's why I've been hammering on integrity today, but four shirts isn't the same as Turbo Timmy's tax thievery. More important is why this Kundra is so desperately important to the administration. What is his schtick, anyway? Besides, it's probably his sister who slipped the shirts in his basket. Probably only Elliott will get that one.
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[Pofarmer]

Give people with a clean record a chance to show what they can do, is my suggestion.

Do you really think that those kinds of people are applying to work for this administration? Somehow, I doubt it.

[Ranger]

More important is why this Kundra is so desperately important to the administration. What is his schtick, anyway?

Posted by: kim | March 19, 2009 at 11:01 AM

He's proven he can allow corruption to run rampant right under his nose without raising any alarm bells.

[clarice]

How could the administration not have found out about his theft conviction?
When he ran the O website during the campaign was he the guy who turned off the location of contributor button?

[Bill in AZ]

Verner has a good list of reasons why McCain would be better, and there are plenty of good followups. The big problem I see in all of this, however, is that the media created this entire mess.

The media selected our nominee, they selected Obama as President, and they willfully created the economic crisis - all through sins of commission and omission driven by leftist ideology. Had McCain won, but had to try to work with a democratic House and Senate, the media would have worked themselves into even a bigger frenzy than their normal state to deny McCain any power whatsoever. They would have rallied around Pelosi, Reid, Fwank, etc, and would have continued to make their entire "crisis" a Republican problem. And, of course, would have worked very hard to make the crisis even worse, focusing on the "hate capitalists" meme. The general public would lap it up like they have for years. I don't think McCain would have been strong enough to deal with all of this with the media against him. With his history of reaching across the aisle, and appeasing on some fronts to make "progress" on others, I am not sure he wouldn't put us into an even worse situation politically down the road.

The media created this mess, and now they are sitting in a very exposed position. It is becoming increasingly difficult to paste over the mess, and it is becoming apparent to all but the most hardcore socialist/leftists that whatever Zero is doing is not fixing the problem.

The one silver lining in having this incompetent Teleprompter and his incompetent staff "leading" is that the media may finally be seen for what it is, and be taken down a peg or three. If that happens, and if we can someday get back to having just a biased media instead of the activist media working for the other side, we may someday appreciate that Zero was "selected" instead of McCain.

[Dorothy Jane]

As far as I am concerned, all you had to know about Obama was that he was politically conceived in CHICAGO. (I say this as a native of Chicago whose parents hated Mayor Daley. I grew thinking he was the city's chief garbage man because my dad was always yelling at the radio - THAT'S A LOAD OF GARBAGE!!!)

[kim]

Ah hah, clarice, he could put the whole damn bunch in jail, couldn't he?
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[Fresh Air]

The mysterious petty theft that President Obama's new computer chief committed at age 21 was shoplifting four dress shirts worth $134 from J.C. Penney.

There's your problem right there. The guy wears 60-40s.

===========

As to Zero, with his inability to comprehend legislation, I'm starting to wonder if he can read at all. The only thing that gives me solace is the teleprompter.

[pagar]

Ranger has already answered " What is his schtick, anyway" very well.
But on the Do you really think that those kinds of people are applying to work for this administration? Question. I have no doubt we still have people with clean records that have the traing to do computer stuff at a high level. What I think is that this administration does not want that type of a person anywhere around them. It's just going to lead to conflicts.

[pagar]

traing=training.

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

"And, to be honest, I tended to think Obama's challenges would be corruption and ego. I completely missed his odd passivity."

There's nothing odd about it and it isn't passivity. In fact it is irresponsibility and insecurity; which are both artifacts of his ego.
The last thing a narcissist will ever allow is being stuck with responsibility for a problem because it will damage his facade of super competence, which in turn will harm his immensely fragile self image.
The buck stops anywhere but here for a narcissist. That is why they always make sure a fall guy is in place when a decision does have to be made and why they love to play hands off chairman of the board type games rather than leave a paper trail which can affix blame squarely where it belongs.
The more they bluster the more their insecurities are ruling them.
He's not passive; he's afraid.

[MayBee]

He's proven he can allow corruption to run rampant right under his nose without raising any alarm bells.
Ha ha ha ha ha!

[matt]

U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald, paging U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald......

[Thomas Collins]

In addition to the list verner compiled and the items mentioned by other JOMers, there is a fundamental difference between the Obama Administration and how a McCain Administration would have conducted itself: in a McCain Administration, the top individual would have been up to the job. I think that even Obama's severe critics are reluctant to admit what is obvious already: Obama is not up to the job of POTUS. In temperament, he is too much an arrogant control freak to deal with the pushing and pulling that is an inherent part of being POTUS of a sprawling, diverse, nation. He is completely ignorant of diplomatic niceties (the folks who are blaming the protocol officers are missing the point; a POTUS who was attuned to diplomatic niceties would have made sure that he or she was properly briefed). The only focus he has is being the conduit for the dreams of the leftist resentment class. The USA has survived POTUSes who aren't up to the job before, and we will survive this incompetent. Furthermore, the credit contraction in many aspects is beyond the power of any POTUS to ameliorate. So, we just have to plow on and avoid being disheartened by the incompetence at the top.

[Fresh Air]

Bill in AZ may have it right about McCain, and certainly has it right about the goddamned rotten socialist media. Frankly, many subjects require an extended treatment--the kind of scrutiny that only a newspaper, serious magazine or documentary filmmaker can do. Glowball Warming is the greatest coordinated hoax in the past 1300 years, possibly ever. Not a single of our supposedly endlessly "curious" journalists has ever seriously taken on this fraud. Ditto for the international B.S. known as "secondhand smoke." I could go on, but I'm getting worked up so I will stop.

But I will say this is reason why every last newspaper and every "news" magazine must die. They lie, repeatedly, incessantly, willfully, by omitting facts; by using ad hominem circumstantials and other logical fallacies; by constantly carrying water for their liberal Democrat friends; by skewing the play of headlines and the placement of stories; and by generally creating a misinformed public that only bothers to educate itself every so often when an unmitigated disaster like Jimmy Carter or Zero comes into office. They are derelict in their duty and if they can't be shot, at least they can be fired.

[ben]

"The mysterious petty theft that President Obama's new computer chief committed at age 21 was shoplifting four dress shirts worth $134 from J.C. Penney."

Hmmm, well today they would probably be Armani and worth $250 each so it could be grand larceny.

[pagar]

paging U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald.

IMO, US Attorney Fitzgerald has left the building, or the crime scene or_________ whatever.

[daddy]

The 3 most important reasons I heard to vote for the hopey-changy Obama were;

1) Finally the rest of the world would love and admire and respect us again, especially since we proved we're no longer a nation dominated by racists,

2) Finally the Media would quit blaming everything on Republicans, and

3) Finally we would get to see Obama's unquestioned competence and unrivaled brillance on display on a daily basis, along with his marvelous uncorrupt Cabinet appointee's.

So I ask again, how's that working out?

[ajacksonian]

McCain would not have tried to do all of his programs at once and would have prioritized to make the worst screw-ups the highest priority ones, which would mean the economy. He would have shelved cap and trade, health care, and damned near everything else to concentrate on the first screw up first. Be fair to the guy, he knows he has limits and would not be this incredibly stupid trying to do everything all at once right out of the gate with economy tanking.

And Sarah would be there ready to hand him a Bullwinkle costume so she could claim mistaken identity... yup, he would concentrate on one or at most two things, not, what is it, 15? 20? that Obama has. McCain would be a SNAFU, Obama is a CF.