Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Obama anger thingy
Obama is heading in an odd direction with his pose as the angry yet impotent President. And Axelrod is right - this notion that people involved with bail out funds can't make money, and that Congress can rewrite any deal it decides it dislikes, is going to scare away a lot of potential investors who might otherwise be helpful in getting our economy going again.
And what sort of message is the media-savvy Axelrod putting out here? Not only is the President angry and impotent but his advisers are divided? How is that helpful?
There is also the thing about the famously cool Barack Obama blowing it over these bonuses. Seriously? This, of all things, made him get angry? Me thinks either the cool was fake or the anger is.
Anyway, I spent much of the last couple of days reading Tom Maguire's many posts on AIGgate, each of which is laugh-out-loud funny. At least if you, like me, usually see something funny even at funerals. Go the main page and just start scrolling.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Mar 19, 08:48:00 AM:
Many of you will think I'm wearing an aluminum hat, but I suspect that the AIG bonus story is part of a co-ordinated campaign by Obama & Co.:
Step 1: Use the AIG bonus story as a distraction from their failings on fixing the banks and to fuel populist outrage that they hope to channel into support for their budget -- Obama & Co were fanning the flames of this story beginning on the weekend.
Step 2: Have Barney Frank hold hearings. Saul Alinksy would be proud of the focus on exec comp at AIG -- a minor issue, but one that can fuel populist outrage. He'd also like the way the attacks were personalized.
Step 3: The Service Employees International Union is planning nationwide protests today at major banking institutions, with the express intent of turning populist anger at Wall Street into legislative action in Washington.
Step 4: Put Obama on Leno tonight. Look for this meme to develop: "The Republicans gave all this money to Wall Street, why not some for you." March on your representatives now to get the budget passed. Again, Alinksy smiles.
Step 5: From WaPo a couple of days ago ... "Obama Enlists Campaign Army In Budget Fight": President Obama will kick off an all-out grass-roots effort today urging Congress to pass his $3.55 trillion budget, activating the extensive campaign apparatus he built during his successful 2008 candidacy for the first time since taking office. The campaign ... will rely heavily on the 13 million-strong e-mail list put together during the campaign ... Aides familiar with the plan said it is an unprecedented attempt to transfer the grass-roots energy built during the presidential campaign into an effort to sway Congress ... Several people closely involved in this campaign's planning made it clear that they believe this is the moment Democrats have been waiting for since Obama's election -- the deployment of the volunteer army that helped catapult a freshman senator to the presidency.
This is running the Presidency as a community organizing exercise, with the immediate goal of getting an agenda-riddled budget passed.
Link
By , at
Thu Mar 19, 11:06:00 AM:
This just in: Right now, the U.S. House is considering a bill to tax the A.I.G. bonuses. Additionally, Rep. Brad Sherman, D. Ca., just said in a floor speech that next week they'll introduce legislation LIMITING ALL EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION. Wow. Bye-bye capitalism.
Can we stop hoping yet.....?
By , at
Thu Mar 19, 12:08:00 PM:
Okay, so we’re in the middle of a difficult recession, Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and Russia plans to place weapons systems in Cuba and Venezuela, and our president is focusing his attention on AIG bonus minutiae, a detailed analysis of his NCAA picks on ESPN, his book deal with Random House, and he has yet to prove he can give a one-minute speech without a teleprompter.
Seriously, Saturday Night Live and Will Ferrell can't find anything about Obama to mock? Just imagine the howls if Reagan or Bush were as scatterbrained as that and used a teleprompter for everything. The first skit on SNL would be Bush needing a teleprompter to talk to his family at a private dinner and getting lost in the middle of the conversation. Garafolo would be talking about how funny it was (“because it was true”) on her next Olbermann appearance.
By , at
Thu Mar 19, 12:31:00 PM:
Tiger,
The poseur-in-chief is a complete fake, from the top of his pointy head to the soles of his slippery feet. The faux anger is just another view of this fraud.
By 
MTF, at
Thu Mar 19, 01:23:00 PM:
Humor is finally returning to America. The Corner points today to his Teleprompter's Blog. If you scroll down a bit, you'll see a link to a call for the telepromter to resign over the Irish screw=up, a call the teleprompter dismissively and rightfully rejects out-of-hand as racist (just kidding about the racist part, CC).
By Cassandra, at
Thu Mar 19, 03:19:00 PM:
This is a man who just compared bankers to suicide bombers.
Sometimes, the comedy just writes itself.
By Viking Kaj, at
Thu Mar 19, 05:44:00 PM:
President Obama recieved $ 120,000 in campaign donations in 2008 from AIG and had $ 30 Million left at the end of the election cycle.
If you feel, as I do, that President Obama should donate that $ 120,000 to the US Treasury pleas start a write in campaign at www.whitehouse.gov.
They track messages carefully so don't think this is a wasted effort.
