WASHINGTON — According to the Gallup Poll, the Prophet Obama’s
job approval is now at its lowest since his coronation. It began
at 70%. Now it is at 51%. Equally glum, his disapproval rating
has climbed from 11% to 42%. So what about his golf game up there
at Martha’s Vineyard? From all I have been able to ascertain it
is mediocre. In other words, Mr. Obama, you are no Dan Quayle.
Vice President Quayle was a really superb golfer. Moreover, he
ran a competent staff. Naturally it was smaller than Mr. Obama’s,
but it was competently run.
My belief, based on reports in the news and from my private
network of seasoned agents and provocateurs, is that this White
House is a carrousel of incompetence. How else do we explain the
ravening push on all fronts, healthcare, the environment, fiscal
reform, intelligence reform, and a foreign policy of humility and
apology? Unsurprisingly, on every front the President is in
trouble. Remember chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s, callous
enjoiner, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste”? This White
House is a serious crisis.
According to sources with whom I confer, the Obama White House is
the most tightly controlled White House in years, with the
President, Emanuel, and David Axelrod micromanaging practically
everything. They compose what is called “the Politburo,” and the
news story waiting to be written is that their control is as
stultifying as was Jimmy Carter’s control of his White House.
Stupendous failure is in the cards.
The Politburo follows no organizational flow charts. A source
deeply rooted in official Washington tells me that when the
President and his fellows want information from the National
Security Council they may go to its head, General James L. Jones,
or they may not. They may just call in one or two of his
subordinates. If they do this with Jones they probably do it with
other government heads. That cannot be good for morale, to say
nothing of orderly decision making. Slowly some news stories are
appearing that convey the harum-scarum state of things in the
Obama government. Burnout afflicts staffers. The President has
fewer than half his appointments in place to advance his
historically unprecedented agenda. Mr. Emanuel, your crisis is
shaping up nicely.
Some months back Sidney Blumenthal, then a loyal Democrat
expecting an appointment over at the State Department where he
would serve with his idol Hillary Clinton, inadvertently told a
reporter that the Chicagoans coming in with Mr. Obama were even
greener than the Arkansans who came in with the Clintons. By
“greener” he was not referring to their environmental bona fides.
He was referring to their governmental experience. They were
provincials, though coming from a large and sophisticated city
such as Chicago they were much less aware of what they did not
know than were the Arkansans. Remember Blumenthal is from
Chicago, and he was very close to the Clintons. His revelation is
well grounded.
Blumenthal did not get the appointment the Clintons wanted for
him. That brings me to still more evidence of the Politburo’s
incompetence, to wit: bringing a Clinton into the cabinet. Last
year Mr. Obama beat Hillary Clinton in an acrimonious competition
for the nomination. She was beaten and out of the limelight. Her
husband was discredited as a campaigner and revealed as a cad.
The Clintons should have been history. But the geniuses in what
we now call the Politburo brought Hillary back to center stage
and installed her at State. Then they attempted to hem her in by
appointing special envoys and ambassadors, nearly 20 composing
what the Washington Times reports is “a confusing
patchwork of policy fiefdoms inside the administration that lacks
clearly defined lines of command and has the potential for
miscommunication on a grand scale.” So they brought to the State
Department the kind of confusion they brought to the White House,
and they did it at a time when foreign policy has to contend with
international terror, nuclear proliferation, two wars, and a
dollar in decline. Moreover they have antagonized the Clintons.
During the 1990s such incompetence was not particularly
dangerous. The economy was sound. The Cold War was over. We could
sit back and enjoy the show as Bill and Newt entertained us. It
was, as a gifted phrasemaker put it, The End of History. Now,
history has begun again. Nuclear arms could fall into the hands
of the kind of barbarians that attacked New York and Washington
on 9/11. Other nations are prospering with modern conceptions of
economic growth, while here at home the economy is weak and
overseen by reactionaries with a 1930s grasp of governance and
economics. Over at the White House we see three amateurs and a
carrousel of incompetence.
