David Frum on Obama

I generally don't pay much attention to right wing "analysts". They are mostly flaks. But Frum has been more honest than most and as a result his right wing buddies have beat him up and turned their backs on him. That's a sign that he may be worth listening to.

Here is a critique of Obama by David From on his blog that I think is dead right:

He’s just not the person the country needs. He’s not tough enough, he’s not imaginative enough, and he’s not determined enough.

In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, the president ran out of ideas sometime back in 2009.

In the face of opposition, Obama goes passive. The mean Republicans refused votes on his Federal Reserve nominees and Obama … did nothing. Would Ronald Reagan have done nothing? FDR? Lyndon Johnson?

With unemployment at 10% and interest rates at 1%, the president got persuaded that it was debt and interest that trumped growth and jobs as Public Issue #1.

Yet even as he yields to his opponents on the fundamental question, Obama is surprisingly rigid in his political tactics. Back in 2008, Obama made two big promises: a tax cut for everybody earning less than $250,000 and an Afghan surge. I think it’s safe to say that Obama believed in neither of them. I’d argue that neither was important to electing him. Both were adopted for defensive reasons, to shield himself from conservative critique. In the very different circumstances of 2009, both promises rapidly showed themselves to be counter-productive. The “tax cut” promise caused Obama to direct almost one-third of his big stimulus into an individual tax rebate that no economist would have regarded as effective, for reasons explained by Milton Friedman more than 40 years ago. The Afghan surge promise was regretted by Obama himself as soon as he came into office, and he spent 9 months looking for ways to evade it. He proceeded with both, leading to the two biggest problems of his presidency: a stimulus that added hugely to the national debt while under-delivering on jobs and an expanded Afghanistan war that must end in a reversion to the same disappointing status quo that prevailed before the Afghan surge. Obama probably anticipated both results. And yet he staggered forward anyway. As ready as Obama is to surrender to uncongenial political pressures, he is strangely inattentive to negative real-world results.

What really galls me, Obama is a flop but his ego has him running for another term. For what? To preside over not just a 4 year Great Recession but an 8 year Even Greater Recession?

When it comes to the debt ceiling "debate", Obama should simply say "you will vote for the ceiling or I will stop paying all federal activities including the military, homeland security, and the intelligence agencies in order to have the money to meet the debt obligations of the country. If that doesn't get the attention of Republicans, I don't know what will. Do the Republicans really want to unilaterally disarm?

If the Republicans were serious about debts and deficits they would have a real program that they would be working hard to implement. They would be doing the serious negotiating and compromising to get a consensus on a plan. But they don't. They grandstand. They run the country up to the brink of a financial crisis, and apparently even over the brink, in order to "win" the political game. That is insane! And Obama hasn't stood up to this hooliganism on the right. What does it take to get Obama to show some fire and determination?