Hard to believe Obama is already knee-deep in ethical muck. Even Maureen Dowd has gone on the attack, albeit with 28-ounce gloves: “Obama [was telling schoolchildren] his favorite superheroes were Batman and Spiderman,” the New York Times’ third-ranking Bush-hater wrote on Thursday, but “his own dream of being the superhero who swoops in to swiftly save America was going SPLAT.”  Is the honeymoon already over, the huge Inaugural throng on the D.C. mall just a faded memory? 

Our new President has been perhaps too conspicuously on the defensive, sounding even a tad unctuous in an interview with Brian Williams. Taking the blame usually works better if there is some question as to who should have received it in the first place. Obama sounded more presidential under fire from Fox’s Chris Wallace when he asserted on Tuesday, against a mounting protectionist tide, that “we can’t send a protectionist message”. For sure. But it will be interesting to see if the President stands his ground when unemployment climbs above 10 percent, as seems likely.

His stimulus package has had a bumpy ride in Congress so far, but fat-cat Republicans aren’t the only ones having trouble finding the stimulus in it. One decidedly lean cat, Rusty Staff, a beleaguered mom-and-pop business operator who weighed in on the op-ed page of the ultra-liberal Boulder Camera yesterday, had this to say: “I spent four tedious hours poring over the stimulus bill recently passed by the House. I saw money for ATV trails, money for alternative energy research and development, money for climate change modeling development, money for broadband Internet installation in rural communities, money for weatherization, money for family planning clinics in other countries, and money – no, lots of money – for unemployment and food assistance benefits.”

Who to Believe?

Just so. Obama insists that the programs denounced as wasteful by the Republicans “amount to less than 1% of the entire package.” Somehow, though, Rusty Staff sounds more convincing. Perhaps it’s because he’s genuinely desperate. He had five full-time employees and three part-timers on his staff last summer but is now down to one full-timer (himself – unpaid, of course) and three part-timers. “Rather than assist us after we are casualties of the recession, I hope to see provisions in the final bill that might help companies like mine survive so that, with this assistance, we can work our way through this difficult period.”

Do the Republicans, and sensible Democrats, need more cover than this to oppose a bad bill? Probably not. Problem is, the stimulus package may be politically unopposable, since no one on Capitol Hill wants to be seen right now as doing nothing to “help.” Too bad we’re about to shell out another $819 billion to learn this lesson. 

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-- Posted Friday, 6 February 2009 | Digg This Article