Obama Disappointed (Again) By Clunky Big Government Fail (Again)

Here we go again, as the NY Times puts out their obligatory "Obama is as shocked and dismayed by this latest Big Government fail as the rest of you poor suckers" story:

Amid Assurances on Ebola, Obama Is Said to Seethe

WASHINGTON — Beneath the calming reassurance that President Obamahas repeatedly offered during the Ebola crisis, there is a deepening frustration, even anger, with how the government has handled key elements of the response.

Those frustrations spilled over when Mr. Obama convened his top aides in the Cabinet room after canceling his schedule on Wednesday. Medical officials were providing information that later turned out to be wrong. Guidance to local health teams was not adequate. It was unclear which Ebola patients belonged in which threat categories.

“It’s not tight,” a visibly angry Mr. Obama said of the response, according to people briefed on the meeting. He told aides they needed to get ahead of events and demanded a more hands-on approach, particularly from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “He was not satisfied with the response,” a senior official said.

I have lost track of the number of times we have read that Obama is shocked to learn that big bureaucracies can be clumsy and plagued by poor communication, but I welcome some reminders in the comments; offhand, the Secret Service, the HealthCare.fail rollout and the VA spring to mind, but I also recall he learned about the IRS and Fast and Furious by careful reading of his daily newspapers.

My advice to Team Obama - encourage the Big Guy to take a look around. If he sees a playing field and thousands of screaming fans then he is probably in a luxury skybox somewhere and yes, he is free to cheer and boo like any other spectator. But if he sees a famous desk and slightly curved walls, then he is probably in the Oval Office and might want to remember that he is Chief Executive of the United States and is notionally responsible for the many bureaucracies he purportedly leads.

And I am begging these inside sources offering these seemingly friendly (and seemingly endless) attempts to separate Obama from the debacle du jour - after six years even Obama, a True Believer in Big Government with no actual executive experience, must have noticed that bureaucracies take a bit of coaxing and management. Enough already with the whinging and hand-wringing.

WHEN THE CHEERLEADERS PUT DOWN THE POM-POMS... Times Columnist Joe Nocera on the attack:

Failures of Competence

...

When you think about it, many of the Obama administration’s “scandals” have been failures of competence. The Secret Service let a man leap over the White House fence and get into the White House. The Veterans Health Administration covered up unconscionable delays in treating veterans. The error-ridden rollout of the Obamacare website was a nightmare for people trying to sign up for health insurance. The Republican right takes it as an article of faith that the national government can’t do anything right. Problems like these only help promote that idea.

And now comes the C.D.C. — the most trusted agency in government — thrust in a role for which it was designed: advising us and protecting us from a potential contagion. With every new mistake, it becomes, in the public eye, just another federal agency that can’t get it right.

 OBAMA, JUST PASSING BY: Ahh, the Limbaugh Theorem!

Comments

[hit and run]

It's not his fault he's not that smart.

[James D.]

Or that he surrounds himself with people even less smart.

[narciso]

I get the Marvin the Martian, image.

[Threadkiller]

Maybe he should revive his car, ditch, slurpee metaphors.

[henry]

There is still asbestos in Altgelt Gardens. His drive is still in the weeds. His henchmen are quitting in large numbers. When he looks in the mirror, he wonders how so many people can fail such greatness. He is still the god with the styrofoam columns -- no more substance than the columns -- too stupid to know the difference between a stage prop and reality. The price we pay for his delusions is high, rising, and likely to exceed our worst expectations.

[sbw]

Nice precise rant, Henry.

Everything about O: Obviously unexpected . . . and unexpectedly obvious.

[Iggy]

--“It’s not tight,” a visibly angry Mr. Obama said of the response, according to people briefed on the meeting.--

Jeez, he even badmouths Mooch in WH briefings?
What a tool....in fact, maybe the problem is the tool.

[Janet]

Amen, henry!!!

[les nessman]

"And I am begging these inside sources offering these seemingly friendly (and seemingly endless) attempts to separate Obama from the debacle du jour..."

It's like the NYT wrote this article with the intent of proving the Limbaugh Theorem.

[Iggy]

How many times have we heard a variation on this theme?

Barry pursues feckless and/or malignant policy.

Feckless and/or malignant policy explodes in face.

Barry only discovers explosion, and perhaps even feckless and/or malignant policy, in newspaper accounts.

Barry privately seethes and rages at the incompetents who didn't stop him from pursuing feckless and/or malignant policy!

Barry absolved, and perhaps a little heroic, as he battles the sinister forces still trying to implement his own feckless and/or malignant policy.

[Skoot]

Big surf on the jersey shore today thanks to Hurricane Gonzalo.

Manasquan

[Iggy]

In case this becomes the active thread I'm relinking David Horowitz's speech that annonamom linked previously and the content of which is the only possibility the nation has of avoiding a situation in which an insurrection will be necessary to return us to Constitutional governance.
If you haven't read it, read it, and then send it to someone else to read.
If the GOP can't make itself into what he prescribes the country will not be saved by political means.

[Miss Marple]

There was NO ONE in that meeting except Obama appointees and sycophants.

This is a crafted story made up to make him look like he's really, really trying and cares about us!

The actual meeting was probably the whole lot figuring out to spin Ebola as a GOP plot, how to refuse FOIA requests of the CDC, how to hide what they did with money that was supposed to go to Ebola, etc.

Except for Obama, who was playing a game on his Blackberry while listening to a song by Beyonce.

[sbw]

Go to Horowitz. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

[Miss Marple]

That Horowitz article covers something that has been bugging me for a long time.

It is considered unseemly to attack the dems for a lack of patriotism. Why is this so, when they so obviously are NOT patriotic about this country?

This is something that needs to be said. They do not love this country unless they are in power, and then only as a cash cow for their schemes and a vehicle for testing their half-baked theories.

[Pagar]

Read the Horowitz speech and then recall the mayor of Houston's efforts to get the pastors to turn in their sermons and compare that to what the Castro regime is doing to Christian Churches/pastors in Cuba today.

"For years, the church in Cuba has been targeted for two reasons:

1) the regime fears that pastors are talking about freedom and commitment to a supreme being not named Castro."

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/10/an_update_on_the_reforms_in_cuba.html#ixzz3GVODXvuf

The Obama regime and the American leftists have sunk us to the level of a bankrupt 3rd world country, IMO.

[Cecil Turner]

I think many are overlooking Ron Klain's qualifications for the job of Ebola Czar. He has a history of keeping unwanted riff raff out of the US (or at least sequestered) . . . absentee military ballots for example:

Then Ron Klain, Michael Whouley and Mark Herron joined in a telephone call to brief the would-be vice president. Context was everything, they counseled. A flood of absentee ballots had arrived . . .

After that effort, keeping out a few sick people ought to be child's play for him.

[Pagar]

"Why is this so, when they so obviously are NOT patriotic about this country?"

Electing/appointing John Kerry to any government position in the USA tells you all you need to know about " they so obviously are NOT patriotic about this country?"

[jack is Back!]

Does anyone believe the RNC will take Horowitz's sage advice. Not holding my breath.

New York Times Cocoon, Verified. Found it at Insty. Talk about living in a bubble.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/16/new-york-times-cocoon-verified/

[Cecil Turner]

On Friday, Mr. Obama took a step to both fix that response and reassure the public, naming Ron Klain, a former aide to Vice President Joseph R. Biden, to coordinate the government’s efforts on Ebola.

We've beat this to death, but it ought to be obvious to anyone looking at it that the Administration views this primarily as a public relations exercise. And as long as they do, there's no big impetus to improve performance, just to spin the results. Which is admittedly tricky. In particular, it's going to be amusing to see how they're going to sell the upcoming travel ban . . . especially after spending all that effort trying to "educate" us as to why it was counterproductive.

[matt]

It's time for a new short story, "The man with the exploding cigar"

He's angry with his Ebola team. He's angry with his State Department. He's angry with his generals. The cigar blows up in his face and every time"he's angry".

But he's the coolest president ever and dines in cool restaurants with cool people, so he's smouldering underneath the cool.

These people are tools.

[matt]

Wasn't Ron Klain the special interest reporter character in "Anchorman"? The one who got mauled by the bear?

[Iggy]

The essential point Horowitz makes is;
All of our Scholastic pinhead parsing of whether Barry and Pelosi, et al, are Marxists, social democrats, welfare statists, socialists, authoritarian, totalitarian, blah, blah, blah, is just so much intellectual conceit and fine tuning which avoids the unpleasant truth.

The left is a hodge podge of labels all describing an inevitable but sometimes conscious, unconscious and even an unwilling but naive march to the Paris Commune.
They detest what the US stands for; individual liberty, and they love what it stands against; collectivist control and tyrannical government.

And we elect polite Chamber of Commerce marionettes like Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to stop what at its heart is a revolutionary socialist movement.
Even the Ted Cruzs and Rand Pauls can barely bring themselves to admit the truth publicly and when they do they're eaten by their own.

[Jane]

The comments in this thread so far are as good as anything I've read (on a par with Horowitz) anywhere today.

Bravo!

[Threadkiller]

I sense Horowitz isn't included in Jindal's 100%.

[Iggy]

Ion Pacepa, Romanian intelligence defector telling us eleven years ago where Iraq's chemical weapons went.

[Neo]

I see heartbreak ahead in the Keystone state ..

"... banking on the fact that U.S. shale producers, the new kids on the block, will soon have to cut production because fracking will cease to be profitable."

So, how does this bode for Pennsylvania Democrats (i.e. Tom Wolf for Governor, et al) who have been claiming that they can fund expansion of school spending and a rollback in property taxes with an new oil extraction tax base almost entirely on fracking production ?

[Miss Marple]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2798086/mutant-ebola-warning-leading-u-s-scientist-warns-deadly-virus-changing-contagious.html#ixzz3GVeICUHF

Of course, I have to get this information from a UK paper.

[sbw]

MM: they so obviously are NOT patriotic about this country . . . They do not love this country unless they are in power, and then only as a cash cow for their schemes and a vehicle for testing their half-baked theories.

On target, but calling them unpatriotic rebounds against us. More effective to say they don’t like people in this country; they use and abuse them.

[Threadkiller]

Why does it rebound?

For the same reason everything else rebounds. No backbone when making the assertion.

Per Mike Tyson Horowitz, punch them in the mouth.

"You are unpatriotic for allowing the open southern border to destroy our nation's sovereignty."

[iqvoice]

I object to the "article of faith" putdown. We don't need faith to believe in government incompetence! We have irrefutable proof in the form of Ear Leader and his inexorable Merde Touch.

[clarice]

TM, Have I told you lately how I love you? Even with the worst news you make me laugh.

[Threadkiller]

"You are unpatriotic for redirecting drinking/agricultural water out into the Pacific ocean."

"You are unpatriotic for forcing a baker or a photographer to do gay things."

"You are unpatriotic for closing memorials to the citizens."

[Jum Jum]

Look out: it's getting close to the stage when it finally dawns on the narcissistic sociopath that it's all a complete, hopeless clusterfrack, at which point he blames the people for being unworthy of his most excellent mojo and gives orders to destroy everything and everyone.

[Miss Marple]

sbw,

You made my point. We don't say it because when anyone even HINTS at it, the press goes into their pearl-clutching and fainting act, just like they do when you accuse them of LYING.

No, we can't say they are LIARS. We have to say they are dissemblers, or stretching the truth, or whatever seems not as blunt and harsh as LYING.

So we end up with these timid statements (and I have been guilty of this myself, cringing when someone says the truth). We are conditioned to be milquetoasts, then the dems go after us for being boring and timid.

Maybe we ought to try it Horowitz's way.

[The evidence is plentiful, the fear is congealing.]

Let us earnestly desire that the Dems fear enough for their future credibility that they'll participate in impeachment.

[kcom]

He has no concept of being a leader. "They did this", "they didn't do that". He really doesn't seem to get that it's his job to keep all that on track. He is "they".

Just imagine him as CEO of BP oil during the gulf oil spill/drilling rig blowout trying to pull that crap. Can you imagine him walking around saying "they should have done a better job" in reference to his own people - like he wasn't involved? Imagine how far that would have flown with his alter ego version in the Oval Office? Yet, he thinks that's an appropriate position for the executive leader of the US government.

[henry]

Kim, they aren't smart enough for that. They merely have credentials.

[Tom]

Last year the Obamacare rollout was a FUBAR, whereas current events just reflect a SNAFU. That is, recent history just repeating itself.

[Or the battleaxes.]

Whoa, top of the mountain at Memeorandom. Better get out the fine china, and our best manners.

[It's getting bad enough.]

Jum Jum, that's the moment to cut, and not bait.

[henry]

Instalaunch as well.

[Blacque Jacques Shellacque]

"The Republican right takes it as an article of faith that the national government can’t do anything right. Problems like these only help promote that idea."

What does he mean, promote that idea? They prove the assertion to be very accurate.

[narciso]

Burgundy but not Klain, in the Carlos Slim's universe, Dr. Lurie is still on the milk carton,
actually more like Private Ogilvy, Stephanie Cutter, yes that one, offers kudos to Klain, for his management experience, I imagine that involves the military ballots.

[Iggy]

--What does he mean, promote that idea?--

What does he mean "article of faith"?
I can think of few more fact based assertions than "the national government can't do anything right".

[Miss Marple]

I think this concentration of CF's regarding government is actually instructive for some people.

My democrat sister, when I started detailing the problems with Obamacare, told me that I was too picky and that "smart people in Washington" would figure out the programs and fix it. This was BEFORE the rollout of the web site.

She has been very quiet about this latest episode, which indicates to me she is mulling this over in her mind.

[iqvoice]

Don't count on it, Miss Marple. I suspect silence is more akin to denial than internal debate.

[anonamom]

"We cannot fool ourselves into thinking the vast moat of the Atlantic Ocean will protect us from this disease."

Dr. Kent Brantley, September 16, 2014, concluding his remarks to the US Senate

[narciso]

this wouldn't he happening if Obama were presidenr:

http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2014/10/18/the-reality-of-obamacare-unable-to-meet-the-deductible-or-the-doctor/

[Carol Herman]

It's the same thing every day. "Nobody likes Obama." Which could mean he also doesn't like those people who don't like him. So he sleeps easy at night.

The GOP is still the same old crappy party. It's noticed nobody goes into rants about (the drunken) Boehner. And, the chinless wonder over there, in the senate.

So? As bad as the democrats are, people can't find substitutes by looking around the GOP store.

People also don't regret that McCain lost his presidential bid. And, ditto for Mitt Romney.

The biggest group to remain unimpressed are the youthful voters. Between 18 and 35, or so. Most have come into contact with extreme student loan debt. And, most have also received sticker shock at what it costs to carry health insurance.

Yeah, the media gives Sarah Palin the microphone. Because she's got the snappy one-liners. Too bad nobody set her up in her own show to counteract Jon Stewart ... But it seems, at least for Jon Stewart ... making fun of politics pays off.

Until the GOP can improve its bench; and, make politics more attractive to people who'd consider a public life ... but they don't have family money. And, dialing for dollars every day is not their thing.

President Reagan really wanted to be president! The Bush's controlled the GOP. You saw those shinanigans first hand ... when Reagan told Bush ... "Listen, I paid for those microphones" ... and, yes. A 3rd party was allowed into the debates.

Bush, the elder, had a canary.

While the whole Bush Family is deep into the pockets of the saud's.

The saud's are clever. It's a one-family operation ... with PR people coming up with new-new names for everything they do to kick Americans.

Does this mean Jeb runs in 2016?

Go ahead. Make as much fun as you want to, but Obama, now, is IRRELEVANT! What's noticeable is you ain't got no Patton to lead the troops.

And, Douglas MacArthur is a distant memory.

Isn't there anybody who is gonna remove the Bush idiots from holding the GOP hostage?

You laugh. And, the media turns to Sarah Palin knowing she sets off more alarm bells than Rush Limbaugh.

A long time ago ... back in the 1950's ... all Catholic votes were in the hands of the Vatican ... who dictated stuff from the pulpit. That system's gone bust, too.

And, ahead? It's the youth who, when and if they vote, will surprise you. The GOP is like the Edsel. Spent a fortune in PR and made no sales.

[Dave (in MA)]

On Friday, Mr. Obama took a step to both fix that response and reassure the public, naming Ron Klain, a former aide to Vice President Joseph R. Biden, to coordinate the government’s efforts on Ebola.

Well, Obola's first choice wasn't available.

[les nessman]

"People also don't regret that McCain lost his presidential bid."
Correct, for the most part.
" And, ditto for Mitt Romney."
You are so wrong on that, though.