Buyers’ Remorse ? - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 03-03-2009, 11:50 AM

I’ve reminded you before of NYTimes’ columnist David Brooks’ boneheaded Ivy League ejaculations about the Obama administration on Nov. 21 of last year. Seems like eons ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/op...=1&ref=opinion

Here’s a bit of Brooks’ paean to The One :

Quote:

Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.).

The domestic policy team will be there, too, including Jason Furman (Harvard, Harvard Ph.D.), Austan Goolsbee (Yale, M.I.T. Ph.D.), Blair Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszag (Princeton, London School of Economics Ph.D.) and, of course, the White House Counsel Greg Craig (Harvard, Yale Law)…

… Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus. Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists. They typically served in the Clinton administration and then, like Cincinnatus, retreated to the comforts of private life — that is, if Cincinnatus had worked at Goldman Sachs, Williams & Connolly or the Brookings Institution. So many of them send their kids to Georgetown Day School, the posh leftish private school in D.C. that they’ll be able to hold White House staff meetings in the carpool line.

And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons (not to mention the incursion of a French-style government dominated by highly trained Enarchs), I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition…

Most of all, they are picking Washington insiders. Or to be more precise, they are picking the best of the Washington insiders.

Obama seems to have dispensed with the romantic and failed notion that you need inexperienced “fresh faces” to change things. After all, it was L.B.J. who passed the Civil Rights Act. Moreover, because he is so young, Obama is not bringing along an insular coterie of lifelong aides who depend upon him for their well-being.

As a result, the team he has announced so far is more impressive than any other in recent memory…

…Believe me, I’m trying not to join in the vast, heaving O-phoria now sweeping the coastal haute bourgeoisie. But the personnel decisions have been superb. The events of the past two weeks should be reassuring to anybody who feared that Obama would veer to the left or would suffer self-inflicted wounds because of his inexperience. He’s off to a start that nearly justifies the hype.

Now, the once-enamored Kool-Aid drinker admits his cult leader is not the man he knew: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/op...er=rss&emc=rss

Quote:

But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.
.... So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new.
.... Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative, in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice. As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget “contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.”

....The first task will be to block the excesses of unchecked liberalism. In the past weeks, Democrats have legislated provisions to dilute welfare reform, restrict the inflow of skilled immigrants and gut a voucher program designed for poor students. It will be up to moderates to raise the alarms against these ideological outrages.

... But beyond that, moderates will have to sketch out an alternative vision. This is a vision of a nation in which we’re all in it together — in which burdens are shared broadly, rather than simply inflicted upon a small minority. This is a vision of a nation that does not try to build prosperity on a foundation of debt. This is a vision that puts competitiveness and growth first, not redistribution first.

Jolie Rouge · 03-03-2009, 11:53 AM

Robert Stacy McCain’s expletive-filled smackdown is the only appropriate and satisfying response. http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/03...ourselves.html

On a related note, remember the “Sorry Everybody” campaign of leftists apologizing to the world for George Bush?

Doug Powers has launched the perfect spoof on behalf of Obama supporters suffering buyers’ remorse everywhere. http://directorblue.blogspot.com/200...ess-their.html A sample:

LuvBigRip · 03-03-2009, 11:53 AM

LMAO. It's funny, but it's not.

whatever · 03-03-2009, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuvBigRip

LMAO. It's funny, but it's not.

Makes you wonder how many who voted for him would like a do over. Which is why I wish some would have put more thought into it. And not just listened to his "change" message. Cause they are now finding out that could mean anything!

LuvBigRip · 03-03-2009, 12:38 PM

I saw at the top of one of the pages one of those links that pop up here. It said Do you regret voting for Obama yes or no.

Jolie Rouge · 03-03-2009, 12:46 PM

Great idea ! I added a poll ...

LuvBigRip · 03-03-2009, 12:48 PM

Jolie, you need a choice that says even if I did I wouldn't tell you because it would make you right.

Jolie Rouge · 03-03-2009, 12:49 PM

I didn't think of that one ... and now I can't add it

pepperpot · 03-03-2009, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

:

whatever · 03-03-2009, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuvBigRip

Jolie, you need a choice that says even if I did I wouldn't tell you because it would make you right.

LOL Your right. I doubt most would admit it here.
I don't blame people for the most part. He talked a good game. And alot of people just really thought he would change washington or whatever. And he is just (IMO) bringing the wrong change he said he would.

pepperpot · 03-03-2009, 01:14 PM

For those who say "no"...is it because they thought McCain would be so much worse or that Obama is doing a such wonderful and splendid job?