WASHINGTON -- Egads, it is going to be a long four years! It is
only two weeks since the Prophet Obama's inauguration, and
already he has revived memories of Boy Clinton's first 100 days.
Political observers with a sense of history might well ask
whether the Obama Administration will approximate the adolescent
incompetence of Clinton Administration or the Pecksniffian
pratfalls of the Carter Administration. Presidential historian
that I am, allow me to caution my fellow citizens that here in
the vestibule of the Obama Administration it is probably too
early to say. Yet with the economy in crisis and American
national security in the hands of a starry-eyed novice, one can
argue that we are in for a reprise of the Carter years complete
with the self-righteous pout.
I had wanted to suspend criticism of our incoming president for a
few months until his bungling became obvious. As I wrote during
the campaign, it is inconceivable that a modern-day president
with only four years in the Senate (and but three terms in a
state legislature) could be equal to the demands of this high
office. Still, I thought it would take a few months for President
Obama to reveal his ineptitude. Well, it only took two weeks. In
the area of foreign policy, fiscal policy, and now appointments,
it is apparent that 52.9% of the electorate vouchsafed us a dud.
Vice President Joe Biden, stay close to Washington! Yet, wait,
this six-term senator has had no executive experience either.
Whom can we turn to to administer the federal government?
I know there are conservatives who believe that by 2012 the
Republic can be saved by the pulchritudinous governor of Alaska.
Admittedly, Governor Palin, having been in office two years and
served as mayor of Wasilla has more executive experience than
either the president or the vice president, but four years is a
long time to wait for the curvaceous governor to deliver us.
Withal, I have almost as many doubts about her as I have about
President Obama, which brings to mind my growing awareness during
the 2008 election that our political class at the national level
is distinctly second rate.
The mediocrity of our national leaders, truth be told, has been
apparent since the first baby boomer replaced the last member of
the World War II generation in the White House. President Bill
Clinton's unreadiness for the presidency was obvious during his
first campaign, as he flailed his way through the Gennifer
Flowers controversy, his draft dodging stratagems, and all the
other lies he had to confront. Then his unreadiness was
observable anew immediately following his election, with his
appointment snafoos, and it is eerie to think that some of his
failed appointments had the same problems President Obama's now
have, to wit, employing domestic help (in Clinton's day illegal
domestic help) and failing to pay taxes.
Actually the problems President Obama has had with his
appointments are more egregious than President Clinton's. Mr.
Obama nominated Governor Bill Richardson apparently not knowing
that Richardson was under grand jury investigation. He nominated
for secretary of treasury and for secretary of health and human
services two men whose tax problems suggest that evading taxes is
a commonplace among prominent Democrats. The problem that forced
President Obama's nominee for the new -- and may I say purely
ceremonial -- position of Chief Performance Officer demonstrates
that high-level Democrats still have difficulty paying taxes on
their domestic staffs. Then there are the two lobbyists President
Obama has brought into his government at the Pentagon and at the
Department of Health and Human Services, despite bragging that
his newly adopted ethics rules against lobbyists are the
strictest in American history. Explained the White House press
secretary: "Even the toughest rules require reasonable
exceptions." Yes, and a few more such exceptions and President
Obama's tough rules are no longer rules.
Finally, turn to the problems President Obama now faces with his
so-called stimulus bill. It is a mountain range of pork, created
by wantonly spendthrift Democrats defiant of any economic
stimulus theory, Keynesian or otherwise. Even President Obama is
backing away from some of it, for instance its "Buy American"
provisions. Obviously our presidential novice was had by
Washington's special interests. In the area of foreign policy he
has been had by his own self-righteous meddling. This week the
Indians have warned him that he is "barking up the wrong tree" in
involving himself in their dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir.
The Iranians were even ruder in responding to his offer of talks
with them. They simply mocked him. Said the Iranian spokesman,
Gholam Hossein Elham, "This request means Western ideology has
become passive." Frankly, I can understand the chap's playful
mood. The Iranians are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the
fall of the Shah. That happened, if memory serves, during the
Carter Administration. Again, it is going to be a long four
years.
