The Economist Pans POTUS

The Economist endorsed Obama for POTUS in last year’s presidential campaign.  I’m going to say that up front because  reading my print edition (slightly soggy from today’s rain) would have lead me to another conclusion. Each article in this week’s (March 14, 2009)  United States section took a jab at something POTUS either said or did.  Either the Brits are really mad at the Gordan snub last month, the koolaid has worn off overseas, or they’ve finally seen into the empty suit.  All I can say is here are the links, read for yourself.

Article one was  “Pursued by Obamabears“.  This was an analysis  subtitled “Investors fret that Obama’s crisis  response is not up to task.”  It also had this nifty graphic.  You can read the entire thing and we’ve discussed the bear market that just recently experienced a brief relief rally.  This point was the money maker for me.

Whatever the cause, the strain on the Treasury is encouraging the view that Mr Obama’s agenda is being driven by political advisers and Congressmen, both more attuned to voters’ rage than to market confidence. Chris Dodd, who faces a battle to retain his Connecticut Senate seat in 2010, inserted tough new restrictions on bankers’ pay into the fiscal stimulus package despite the administration’s objections. Since then, a series of mostly small banks have said they will return bail-out money, frustrating the plan to increase the banking system’s capital and lending capacity.

There was also an interesting quote from a former aide to Bill Clinton who was quoted as having ‘two equally depressing” hypotheses on why team Obama appears to be not ready for prime time.  I also liked it.  The comparisons to Carter have started already.

“Either they do not know what to do, or they do not believe they can muster the political support to do what they know needs to be done.” He advised Mr Obama to focus his attention on the crisis, or risk the loss of confidence Jimmy Carter suffered three decades ago. That would bring Obamabears out in droves.

So, that article was not all that unexpected.  Every one has been talking about the fact we don’t have a clear plan for changes in banking regulations or rules, that the market keeps voting no confidence to every announcement, summit, and congressional hearing, and every economist keeps adjusting their forecast down.  But then, I moved to the science  article, the education article, and the Africa policy article.   Ummmmm, it gets worse.  Science first.

This one is entitled “A new era of integrity, sort of” with the subtitle “A science friendly president overstates his case”.   We all know that teleprompter rhetoric is the sole talent of POTUS so even the subtitle didn’t throw me.  However, some of the content made the headline seem understated.  Have a look.

Politics and science will still clash, however. Reasonable people disagree about what kind of research is moral. Mr Obama, for example, thinks that the use of cloning for human reproduction is “profoundly wrong”. Plenty of libertarians disagree. Many of Mr Obama’s supporters believe that experiments on animals are immoral. Resolving such disputes is a job for elected politicians, informed by science but not dictated to by scientists

Mr Obama likes to duck the thorniest disputes, for example by leaving it to the National Institutes of Health to decide what kind of embryos can be used in federally-funded experiments. Should researchers use only embryos left over at fertility clinics, which would otherwise be discarded? Or may they create embryos specifically to experiment on? Mr Obama did not say.

Other controversies loom. Many scientists doubt that “clean coal” technology is a practical way of tackling climate change. But there are coal mines in swing states, so Mr Obama loudly supports it. Drug firms say Mr Obama’s efforts to squeeze drug prices will deter innovation. A recent Supreme Court ruling could do the same: it allowed a patient to claim damages from a drug firm when, despite six warnings not to inject an anti-nausea drug into an artery, a doctor’s assistant did just that.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama’s vow never to fiddle data rings a little hollow. Last week, for example, he declared that “[t]he crushing cost of health care causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds.” The Economist credulously repeated this claim. But it is false. The study on which it is based found that number of bankruptcies in 2001 from all medical-related causes, not just the cost of health care. That includes people who could not work because they were sick. In politics, all too often, eloquence trumps accuracy.

Well, there we go again.  With POTUS, it’s always in the fine print, isn’t it?  Announce the grandstand but back it up with nuanced action that undermines the rhetoric.  So, let’s go on to education.  Certainly, this has to be more upbeat.

This article was called “The Teacher In Chief Speaks” with the subtitle “Will the States Listen?”  Surely, we have more than rhetoric on education.  After all, the President has experience as a Lecturer at a university so he must have some idea of how to work out issues there.

For those who listened carefully, that was the underlying theme of Barack Obama’s big schools speech on March 10th. He promised that “America’s entire education system [will] once more be the envy of the world.” But the plans he laid out for achieving this goal consisted largely of pleading with states and school districts—which actually run the show—to do a better job.

Hmmm.   Lets see.  He called for longer school hours and merit pay for teachers.  That sounds oddly Republican.  He urged states to stop restrictions for numbers of charter schools.  Yup, Dubya liked that too. Wait, wait here’s one that sounds remotely democratic.  Let me quote on that one.

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress quietly voted to kill a voucher programme that allows around 1,700 students, mostly black, poor or both, to escape Washington, DC’s, awful public schools and attend private ones. Mr Obama supports killing the programme, but his flacks say he wants the students currently enrolled in it, who include two at his daughters’ excellent private school, to be allowed to complete their studies. How kind.

Oh, dear.  Certainly Potus will fare better on African Policy.  The article here is entitled:  “Don’t expect a revolution” and its subheading is “Barrack Obama may differ little from George Bush in his approach to Africa.”  Wait!?!  Is this “Change we can believe in”?   Let’s see. Certainly he’d be interested in getting right on top of things by say, appointing some one to look into genocide and problems in the area. Right?

Mr Obama has yet to name his assistant secretary of state—the top appointment—for Africa; other assistant secretaries, for apparently higher-priority regions, have already been tipped.

Okay, well, he’s been busy with the economy.  (Let’s just overlook all those empty desks at Treasury also.)  So let’s see, there must be some consistency in some of his other appointments.

Mr Obama brings with him some big figures with strong opinions on one of Africa’s bloodiest conflicts, in the Sudanese region of Darfur. Joe Biden, his vice-president, has called in the past for a threat of military action against the Sudanese government to stop the killings there. Mr Obama’s ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, has backed the threat of force too. Samantha Power, who has joined Mr Obama’s National Security Council, is a historian of genocide who, though she believes in toughening sanctions and divestment from Sudan, opposes military intervention. If the conflict worsens, Mr Obama could face difficult choices.

I’m just waiting for the G-20.  I’m thinking we’re going to see some interesting things.  Economist columnist Lexington in “Le vieux canard” has this to say about our POTUS and his exposure to Europe and Europeans.

For all Europe’s Obamamania Mr Obama is, in fact, one of the least European-minded of American presidents. JFK studied at the London School of Economics with Harold Laski, a leading British socialist. Bill Clinton went to Oxford University and surrounded himself with Rhodes scholars who liked to discuss the German educational model. John Kerry was famously not just French-speaking but also “French-looking”.

Mr Obama’s roots lie in Kenya, Indonesia and Kansas—any continent but Europe. His two books hardly mention Europe at all. “The Audacity of Hope” includes a disparaging reference to the idea that America should “round up the United Kingdom and Togo” as supporters—and then do as it pleases. The only European country that gets a mention in the index under “Foreign policy, US” is Ukraine—and that nation gets less space than Indonesia.

I’d say POTUS is heading for a much tougher audience than the ones he faced in Europe last summer.  After all, I doubt Europe’s top bands will be playing before the G20 summit meetings, there will be no teleprompters during meetings and no one else will use them during press conferences, and well, let’s face it the Brits are not known for their cuisine so who even cares if it’s free?    This is just one of these things I’m so looking forward to.