Progressives Realize Obama Is Not A Policy Wonk

Matt Yglesias points out that Obama is not being truthful when the President says he was more focused on policy than politics.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was deeply shaped by a desire to avoid politically damaging accusations of waste, fraud, and abuse rather than shaped to maximun stabilization bang for the buck. The administration forgot to appoint anyone to FED vacancies for over a year. And the Affordable Care Act is providing zero (if not negative) short-term stimulus out of a politically motivated desire to achieve a deficit-negative 10-year CBO score.

Brad Delong, economist and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department, during the Clinton administration, wrote of Obama's failure to immediately appoint new members to the Federal Reserve governing board.

I think that the general rule in the future should be that nobody who has not served a full term as a state governor or managed a similarly large organization should be supported in any presidential run. FDR and DDE are certainly class acts of the twentieth century.

Joe Klein wrote in his book Primary Colors that Gov. Stanton (based on Bill Clinton) viewed Senators as "lesser breeds." Stanton thought Senators were unserious about governing. Obama is showing that trait. Obama can't be taken seriously about wanting the economy to recover if he can't even be bothered with FED appointments.

I talked to progressives on Twitter. I tweeted Jodi Jacobson of RH Reality Check

The preident that created this deficit commission and hired Lawrence Summers should not be called a policy wonk.

Jacobson's tweet back to me.

sir you are totally correct!

Steve Hynd of Newshoggers and I sent each other several tweets about Obama having no exit strategy for Afghanistan. I sent this tweet on Obama's lack of substance.

I think Dems elected their version of Charlie Crist. All feel good style and no substance. Obama('s) West Point speech was disaster.

Hynd tweeted me that he realized earlier that Obama lacked substance.

I said at the time they were electing another Tony Blair -say anything as long as you get elected

Doesn't not having an exit strategy for Afghanistan rule out being called a policy wonk? Especially since Obama has made it clear he intends to withdrawal troops from Afghanistan. To do that requires an actual plan for withdawal.

Obama cannot be taken seriously on financial reform when Lawrence Summers was his cheif economic policy adviser. In the Clinton administraton, Summers pushed for the the Commodities Futures Moderation Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The former barred derivatives from being regulated. The later repealed the Gless-Steagall Act and allowed investment and commercial banks to merge. Anyone paying attention knows derivatives helped lead to the 2008 Wall Street crash. The investment banks had to be bailed out because Americans put their savings accounts into the commercial banks whose investment branches made horrible deals. The Gless-Stegall Act was signed by Roosevelt to protect people from losing their savings. Obama went into the White House facing a financial crisis. The man he chose as his chief economic adviser was the person who helped laid the ground work for the 2008 crash. What serious policy wonk would put Summers back in power?

The reason many Americans can not afford health insurance is because of cost. Blue Cross and Blue Shield have raised premiums 20 percent this year. If you are counting on the state legislatures to set fair health insurance exchanges then you will be sadly disappointed.

"The pressure that the industry can bring to bear in state legislatures is unbelievable," said Robert Hunter, former insurance commissioner in Texas. "They pretty much get what they want."

The CBO never took in account the health insurance industry raising premiums. Obama never intended to lower the costs of health care. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington had to sue the White House to get visitor logs. What was revealed is that Obama met 27 times with health care industry lobbyists. Obama violated his own loobyist ban and vow for transparent government. The health care industry wanted an insurance mandate and a promise from Obama to veto Medicare being allowed to negotiate for lower drug prices.

This is not about a President being 100 percent progressive. Obama policies (or lack of) will keep troops in Afghanistan, will force Americans to buy increasingly expensive health insurance and ignores the financial problems facing America. Obama is turning out to be a horrible President. Mitt Romney could have made the same horrible health care reform and lack of seriousness on Afghanistan. The American public doesn't like Obama's health care or financial policies because they are bad. Not because the country misses George W. Bush.