Patterico's Pontifications

3/18/2009

The Emperor’s New Trainwreck

Filed under: General,Obama,Politics — Karl @ 6:24 am



[Posted by Karl]

The populist outrage over bonuses paid to executives at troubled insurance giant AIG is depleting Pres. Obama’s political capital and threatens to derail public and congressional support for his ambitious agenda.  Treasury and Federal Reserve officials said they had known about the bonus program as far back as last fall, but Treasury secretary Timmy Geithner was out of the loop until last week, and Pres. Obama was not told until the day before they were paid.

The furor has Congressional Democrats in disarray, as the Treasury and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) pointed fingers at each other over responsibility for the legislation that protected the AIG bonuses.

Nevertheless, Pres. Obama is bent on pursuing the broadest left-wing agenda possible, ramming it through via the budget reconciliation process if necessary, even though members of Congress and old political hands want him to focus on the immediate economic issues.

Although the AIG bonuses — and the Obama Administration’s botch job of them — are the hot issue of the moment, the incompetence question goes well beyond the economy.  For example, Obama’s dishonorable trial balloon to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries has enraged veterans’ groups and even Congressional Democrats, who must be stunned at the political tone-deafness.

However, Fox, CNN, USA Today, the Boston Globe and McClatchy seem to be the only big news outlets reporting on this debacle. As I write this, the broadcast networks, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the L.A. Times have been missing in action. (update: the WaPo and LAT finally ran stories today.)

But wait… there’s more!

The New Ledger briefly summarizes the administration’s Carter-esque foreign policy, which thus far seems oriented toward snubbing our allies, making thoughtless overtures to our adversaries, and trying to place a conspiracy theorist in charge of preparing our intelligence estimates. That summary excludes a consideration of Russia, which is rearming, as the Obama Administration plans deep cuts in defense programs (and the jobs attached to them).  It also excludes the administration’s failure to halt the dropping support for our mission in Afghanistan, a particularly egregious failure when one considers that support is lowest among Democrats (shocka).

The big establishment media have largely ignored these stories, though they have had plenty of time and space to devote to criticism of Jim Cramer and Rush Limbaugh on behalf of the White House. Indeed, CBS News is still busy manufacturing Limbaugh coverage.  However, what the AIG bonus story demonstrates is that incompetence has a way of biting the incompetents — and that the lapdog media is eventually forced to report it.

Update: London’s Telegraph comments on doubts regarding Pres. Obama’s performance, adding: “Mr Obama is lucky that his Republican opponents in Congress are disorganised, incoherent and without ideas of their own.” Indeed. (via Allahpundit.)

Update x2: The Politico has more on Congressional Democrats pushing back against Obama’s “too much, too soon” agenda. (Where have I heard that phrase before?)

Update x3: Hot Air has video of Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) ripping Geithner and comparing the government to the Keystone Kops.

Update x4Obama retreats from the proposal to charge veterans’ insurance companies for the treatment of veterans with service- and war-related injuries.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was the first to announce it.

–Karl

52 Responses to “The Emperor’s New Trainwreck”

  1. The only thing politicians are good at is getting elected. Governing is definitely a secondary consideration. These guys are inept at the basics. Obama has had a charmed life in politics with his ability to eliminate opponents before the election. It’s showing.

    His healthcare proposals may be brain dead too if it comes out that Natasha Richardson didn’t get a CAT scan in the first Canadian hospital she was taken to. Grace Kelly died because the small hospital she was taken to had no CAT scanner. This may be another such case but the Canadian health care system seems to be Obama’s model.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  2. Only if one chalks it up to intentionalism, but that could be the reader’s problem, not the author. You think this was incompetence, partially, but corrupt dealings like the 100K to the dear leader, probably has a little to do with it. We’ve been chasing our tails for two weeks about a statement that is so obviously true, that it doesn’t need clarification. What was the title from Bradbury ‘Something Wicked this Way Comes”

    narciso (57971e)

  3. We can count on the MSM to start questioning Baracky about their idea to make private insurers or the vets pay for treatment for service related injuries. If they are willing to treat vets in such a manner …

    As far as the AIG fiasco goes, it is rich that the people that have been using metrics of hundreds of billions and even trillions, are now all atwitter over millions that they should have known about, since it was in the legislation that they supported and pushed.

    JD (df4164)

  4. Either that or Bh’s evil plan to put this country in such a crisis that we must turn to government to extract us is going well. A strong America is not in Obama’s best interests if he is the communist some of us think he is. (all of his mentors were or are) Makes one really think who he was talking to when he said he was the one we were waiting for. This arrogant pretender who has hoodwinked the voting public into placing him in an office he is totally unqualified for cares not for human life or values, only power and control. Watch him try to control events to his advantage. Saul Alinski’s books and writings give a clue with this piece of work is up to.

    Zelsdorf Ragshaft III (e461c0)

  5. “CBS News is still busy manufacturing Limbaugh coverage.”

    Something they’re not only very good at, but something that they have had at least 40 years experience with.

    GM Roper (85dcd7)

  6. Uhhh, very good at the manufacturing part

    GM Roper (85dcd7)

  7. Treasury knows good and well those contracts could have been vacated through bankruptcy or through moral suasion. They are lying but what can you expect from a tax cheat.

    Fact is big time Democrats fed at the trough of Wall Street and it was payback time. Dodd pushed it to protect his Greenwich, CT constituents who would have gone poof if the CDS market blew up.

    Hopefully, what this teaches Wall Street is you can’ get into bed with class warfare zealots and expect to come out ahead.

    Personally, I am ecstatic Obama is burning down the Street. They voted for him in droves and chalked up his rhetoric as “politics” — If I had to talk to another Ivy bred moron about how smart the L(unatic)OTUS was in spite of his lunatic proposals to engineer this country in the mold of 1920 Stalinist Russia ….. well, to say it was disappointing to hear our best and brightest so taken aback by a simple, vacuous speech maker.

    So, what goes around comes around Wall Street. “Ele que no quiere caldo, dos tazas.”

    Jimminy'cricket (637168)

  8. I still can’t believe the veteran’s fiasco – when we’re currently involved overseas in two conflicts, he drops that pile of road apples. What.a.clueless.Cateresque.doofus.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  9. Watch the “Blame Dodd” meme to percolate. Another friend thrown under the back of the bus. Maybe that meme was developed at JournoList? Orszag probably suggested that lead to the group.

    JD (df4164)

  10. So yesterday, the Armed Forces Press Service sent an e-mail to subscribing military retirees with Obama’s: “The United States will “fulfill our sacred trust and serve our returning heroes as well as they’ve served us” speech during a ceremony marking the VA 20th anniversary March 16.

    My interpretation of Obama’s speech: “You slugs in the military didn’t vote for me and it’s payback time.”

    tmac (f9e092)

  11. Dmac – Surely we can expect breathless segments on the nightly news shows about that idea. Surely Olbergasm is in high dudgeon over this. Surely MadCow has a smirk and a throw-away snark to add to this. Surely the NY Times and the LA Times are planning on running thousands of column inches over such a dramatic proposal.

    JD (df4164)

  12. Looks like EMPEROR OBAMA is completly naked and getting awfly cold

    Krazy Kagu (f5548f)

  13. Now that Obama is destroying the FDO program that allowed airline pilots to carry sidearms, is it too early to call Obama pro-terrorist?

    SPQR (72771e)

  14. “Now that Obama is destroying the FDO program that allowed airline pilots to carry sidearms, is it too early to call Obama pro-terrorist?”

    SPQR – I thought giving $900 million to Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization, was a pretty good start.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  15. Is a ‘Recall’ effort constitutionally valid? I can’t believe it won’t soon be given consideration by many of O’s sometime supporters.

    gary gulrud (6c4143)

  16. Is a ‘Recall’ effort constitutionally valid?

    No.

    Steverino (69d941)

  17. Is a ‘Recall’ effort constitutionally valid?

    The best reaction is to support your GOP candidate up for re – election in the upcoming mid – term elections. Deny the POTUS his majorities in Congress – always the best revenge.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  18. Has anyone anywhere done a comparison of the size of the AIG bonuses with that of the 8000 earmarks in the last spending bill? Intuitively, it seems that the latter would dwarf the former by several orders of magnitude, but I would like to see some real figures on that.

    Bored Lawyer (44ef84)

  19. Comment by Bored Lawyer — 3/18/2009 @ 10:12 am
    It’s on the order of 50:1!

    AD - RtR/OS (64ac21)

  20. only a racist would write an article like this one.

    shame on you.

    /white smoke

    redc1c4 (9c4f4a)

  21. Bored Lawyer – The bonuses were approx 0.02 percent of their bill, and the earmarks were approx 1 percent. In actual dollars, the earmarks were approx 53 times as much as the bonuses.

    JD (eef042)

  22. daleyrocks, yep, more than a good start.

    SPQR (72771e)

  23. While I appreciate the ratio, I would like to see some dollar figures — how much did the 8000 earmarks cost and then how much did the AIG bonuses cost ($135 Million is the statistic I saw.)

    Assuming that the 50:1 ratio is accurate, this proves what a PHONY our president is. He admitted that the earmarks were a bad thing, but he signed the bill anyway. That was something in his control — he could veto the bill. Now he raises all this outrage about bonuses which basically are outside the govt.’s control.

    That’s P-H-O-N-Y.

    Bored Lawyer (44ef84)

  24. Phony, yes. But the real problem is Obama and the rest of the Democrats’ stupidity. The whole point of the bailout of AIG was to keep it going as an entity to support the rest of the financial industry dependant upon it. Now by these irresponsible actions in reaction to the AIG controversy, they are destroying all the benefit of the bailout of AIG by destroying any belief by its customers that it will continue to be a going concern.

    Just another example of Obama empty-suit / Democrat stupidity in this “crisis”.

    SPQR (72771e)

  25. “We had to save the village to destroy it!”

    AD - RtR/OS (64ac21)

  26. Bored Lawyer – Spot on. I do not have the actual dollars available as I am on my Blackberry, but if my memory serves, those percentages and ratios were based on $167 million in bonuses and $7 billion in earmarks.

    JD (eef042)

  27. The “AIG cabal” is the first operation by Team Obama to really boomerang on them.

    All I can say is .. don’t get cocky

    Neo (cba5df)

  28. When we get to eleventy billion, then I’ll start to worry.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  29. Whoops – make that eleventy Trillion.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  30. The Obama Cabal are ideologues who are convinced they have a better way and are conjoined with the Press which will destroy this Nation.Look at the Sunstiens and Arne Duncans appointments as Examples of ruthless ideologues.The ghost of Dan Rather lives on at CBS News- any questions about Freddie Mac Bonuses,ties to Frank and Dodd ad nauseum….Keep up the good work Patterico.

    mike191 (b281fb)

  31. The national debt officially crested $11 trillion yesterday. What was significant today was the Fed’s announcement of buying a tankerful of USTs. Gold went from about 27 down in the AM to over 30 up last I looked. Dollar coughed up some blood, stock indexes blasted off…but immediately swooned to a still nice gain on the day…quite a roller coaster ride. I think Cramer, et al, will be hitting the nearest ER for whiplash this evening.

    allan (d988ec)

  32. The little fact that hasn’t been publicized much. Obama administration direct ties to AIG.

    From February 2001 until July, 2008, Holbrooke was a member of the Board of Directors of the now almost bankrupt American International Group.

    YES THAT Richard Holbrooke.

    Dennis D (ae900a)

  33. I got through the first few seconds, Neo. Then I just wanted to puke. What he is trying to do to our veterans is disgraceful.

    The first 50 days have been a nightmare for our Country; can’t wait for the two-year alarm clock.

    Pons Asinorum (11a0ef)

  34. Pons and Neo – That brief 41 seconds from the TOTUS is so aggressively dishonest. Surely, we can count on the MSM to report on how his words do not quite match up with his proposals.

    JD (df4164)

  35. Yeah, like right after they tell us we lost in Iraq.

    Pons Asinorum (11a0ef)

  36. I like this one better (Unlike the Obama campaign clip, this one does not contain any lies).

    From HotAir – (warning, Jon Stewart video)

    I guess now, we find out which liberals really do care for this Country and which ones don’t. Perhaps Obama will unite us after all, but not in the way he was thinking.

    Pons Asinorum (11a0ef)

  37. Pons – Barcky should be embarassed to make that speech given what his administration has proposed. Should be.

    Deacon JD, C.O.R. (df4164)

  38. WOW! If Jon Stewart is off on POTUS, then he is in real trouble.

    Bored Lawyer (bc8f63)

  39. I agree, and for me that is so spooky.

    He has lied about so much stuff: ethics reforms, transparency, earmarks, “stimulus” for the economy, veterans…

    He does it so smoothly, without any hint of shame or embarrassment—totally devoid of any sense of honor.

    And so far, he has been getting away with it…so far.

    Pons Asinorum (11a0ef)

  40. Just a thought, I think Jamie Gorelick is presidential material. The libtard twat was instrumental in implementing the infamous gorelick wall that was so helpful pre-911 and then managed to serve on the 911 commission while being absolved of any blame. Along comes Fannie Mae and she manages to help fuck that all upwhile pocketing a $24.7 Bonus. Of course Barkacky’s pal Franklin Raines managed $95 mil bonus from same kind of efforts at Fannie Mae. Will Teh One ask THEM to give back THOSE bonuses? Yeah, and think of the imagery of licking algore.
    Someone was saying 24 is off the wall with unbelievable terrorism scenarios. Given O’s stance on the whole terror thing, how many people get the feeling we’re in for some troubling times ahead? I don’t recall all the saber rattling during Bush’s terms or at least bending over to to get sodomized by Iran, N. Korea, Russia et al. Bush II is such a pussy though, unable to speaak truth to Obama’s power now, unlike the courageous stands against W by Carter, Gore and the Clintons.

    aoibhneas (0c6cfc)

  41. Karl – The above linked speech from Barcky stands in stark contrast to his policy proposal. The abject dishonesty of his words linked above would make an interesting post, no? 😉

    JD (fecec9)

  42. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/18/aig.bonuses.congress/index.html

    Ooops, we lied (again).

    They may go down as the most corrupt and incompetent Presidency ever.

    Jimminy'cricket (637168)

  43. Even if the politics Obama favors was less foolish, I still would have a hard time understanding his appeal. And that’s assuming I’d also have no reason to doubt his integrity and background in general. I mean I just watched a speech given by the guy, and his demeanor still comes across to me as that of a smart-alecky lightweight, and shades of his dialect — or vocal patterns — contain an “I’m a big-talker urban-black dude!” tone about them.

    Mark (411533)

  44. Bored Lawyer @ 10:12 AM – Barcky wanted to spend more money on condoms than was given out in bonus money from AIG. But the bonus money is worthy of the Demon of the Week from the kids on Pennsylvania Ave.

    Deacon JD, C.O.R. (df4164)

  45. Completely off the rails inside of 60 days. That’s got to be some kind of a new record.

    Congrats to the dirty socialist President and his enablers.

    Where’s Lovey to bask in this glory?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  46. Franklin Raines — the former CEO of Fannie Mae — did have to give back some of his $90 million.

    There were some “irregularities” in how Mr. Raines kept his company’s books and he had to pay back:
    $24.7 million in cash
    $2 million fine
    $15.6 million in stock options (value at the time of the penalty)

    The tally is a take-home check of just under a $50 million (not bad for a dishonest days work).

    Pons Asinorum (11a0ef)

  47. Karl @ 6:24 am

    For example, Obama’s dishonorable trial balloon to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries has enraged veterans’ groups and even Congressional Democrats, who must be stunned at the political tone-deafness.

    The veterans did not really vote for Obama, so I guess its payback time.

    Pons Asinorum (11a0ef)

  48. Trainwreck

    http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/18/top_brass_disturbed_by_gop_stalling_of_iraq_ambassador

    “There’s one as yet unremarked constituency increasingly disturbed by some Republican senators’ efforts to block the confirmation of former North Korea envoy Christopher Hill to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq: the U.S. military.

    Sources tell The Cable that Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, top Iraq commander Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are frustrated by the delay in getting a U.S. ambassador confirmed and into place in Iraq, and support Hill’s confirmation proceeding swiftly.

    Opposition to the Hill appointment has been led by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Brownback has called Hill’s past dealings with Congress over North Korea “evasive and unprofessional.” In a joint statement last week, McCain and Graham wrote that Hill had a “controversial legacy” on North Korea, and added, “The next ambassador should have experience in the Middle East and in working closely with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations. Mr. Hill has neither.”

    Since the previous ambassador, Ryan Crocker, left the job Feb. 13, Odierno has complained of doing double duty: serving as the commanding general and the de facto ambassador.”

    You want him to fail!

    joker (e8c8f2)

  49. So, not confirming an ambassador who is, from all appearances, dishonest and unfit for the job is a trainwreck on Republican’s part?

    Amazing.

    All you’ve got is tu quoque, joker. Care to comment on the meat of the thread?

    Steverino (69d941)

  50. Where’s Lovey to bask in this glory?

    Comment by daleyrocks — 3/18/2009 @ 10:48 pm

    Achmed must be keeping her on double shifts. The poor goats!

    nk (0a1ba0)

  51. [Pelosi] told veterans that Obama decided to scrap the proposal “Based on the respect that President Obama has for our nation’s veterans…”

    …..

    Then why did he propose it in the first place? She lies like most people breathe.

    NewEnglandDevil (f56925)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.1158 secs.