Commentary: Obama under fire from left and right

[OnePimpTiger]

Commentary: Obama under fire from left and right

A few things I found interesting from the article:

...the administration's plan for another banking bailout got a cool reception from lawmakers in what Obama senior adviser David Axelrod acknowledged was a "bumpy rollout" for the financial rescue plan.

You can say that again, David. The bumps include Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's disastrous testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, which was so unconvincing and so bereft of specifics that it sent Wall Street investors into a nosedive. And to think this is the wunderkind who the Obama team told us deserved a break on his tax problems because he was uniquely qualified to fix the economic mess...

...Besides, congressional Democrats have to bend themselves into pretzels to stand by Geithner. As the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he was a central player in Bush's bailout of our lending institutions -- the same bailout that Democrats voted for and now criticize.

I agree with the criticism of the new bank bailout plan and how it was presented and also how the Democrats have chosen as their head economy guy someone who was integral in the bank bailout that they are now slamming.

Then, there are the politics. Obama is still getting as much criticism and resistance from his own party as from the opposition. The latest gripe from the left is that Obama -- in inching to the center -- gave away too much of what House Democrats approved to win support from Senate Democrats and three GOP moderates -- Sens. Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman hyperbolically insisted that "the centrists' insistence on comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted will ... lead to substantially lower employment and substantially more suffering."

For this, Krugman put the blame squarely on Obama and the president's belief that he could rise above partisanship -- a belief that "warped his economic strategy."

That's not right, and it's not fair. I can't believe I'm about to defend Barack Obama to Paul Krugman. But here goes. Whatever else is going wrong at the moment, the president should be applauded for trying to move to the center and find ways to work with Republicans.

Agree comletely. One of the big things during Obama's campaign was how he was going to try to end the partisanship in Washington and "reach across the aisle." Now that he's actually doing that (to a very small degree, mind you), he's getting blasted by the Dems. It just shows that the Democrats were only saying what people wanted to hear and had no actually intention of backing it up. Of course we all know this, but people seemed to forget it during the campaign. So far, most of Obama's "change" has been more of the same, but when he actually does try to do something differently, he gets slammed by his own people for it.

[gatorboymike]

Republicans in Congress are like a bunch of schoolyard bullies, in other words, cowards at heart. They throw their weight around when they can, and plot and sulk when they can't. You can never offer them an olive branch because they only thing they respect is force, and they see anything but 100% pure brute force as weakness and therefore an invitation to swarm you like locusts and devour you. The only helping hand you can ever offer them is the Iron Fist. Or as the guy from Young Turks said, "The carrot didn't work, so let's try the stick."

And notice I said IN CONGRESS before you start braying and screeching about stereotypes.

[OnePimpTiger]

I'm not sure where you get that out of this article. Democrats are criticizing Obama for doing what he said he would and what they said he should by trying to rise above partisanship, but Republicans are schoolyard bullies who are cowards at heart?

[gatorboymike]

Democrats are cowards too. Rather than own up to their ideals, they try to play boy scout with this non-partisan, reach-across-the-aisle nonsense because they care more about their own re-election than doing what they think is right for the country.

[Star_Cards]

Just because Obama is trying to reach across party lines doesn't mean Republicans or Democrats will follow suit. Most politicians are interested in one thing and that's being reelected. My hope is that Obama can help foster a better working atmosphere in DC, but it will take much longer than 3 weeks to break up the patterns of many many years.

As far as the bailout... I'm more for a tax holiday for american workers. Simply stop collecting income tax out of americans paychecks for an extended amount of time. That lets each worker receive money that they actually earned and we don't have to worry if some company that gets tax payer money uses it to buy planes, give bonuses, or go on company retreats. Let us trickle the money up and the companies with good business practices will reap the benefits as well. More importantly, more people will be able to pay their mortgages as well as any other bill they are delinquent on.