I
guess that it is inevitable in a context which has so many large
issues that are unresolved and punishing so many people that anxiety
is the culture of the ruling class as much as everyone else. You
see it and hear it in the remarks of even well-meaning media commentators
and analysts, to such an extent that someone defends the Administration
of Barack Obama in the welter of criticism it is a rare occurrence.
Otherwise,
the finger-pointing and second-guessing is rife, questioning every
move made or rumored and even some that have not been discussed
seriously by the White House (such as the prospect of a second Stimulus
Package). To purposefully bump it up, this culture of anxiety and
criticism is richly mixed by the views of Republicans who wish the
Obama administration ill and don’t have any good ideas, but who
are a convenient source of negative opinion nonetheless.
Thus
far, there is not an expert consensus that the Administration is
going south, but that appears to be the atmosphere that much of
the media is working hard to arrive at, as they are pained by the
continuing good favorable rating numbers put up by President Obama’s
leadership among the American people.
This
is strange because when Obama put together his Administration there
were ooohs and aaahs about the expertise he had surrounded himself
with, especially on the economic front, but now the journalists
are the experts and the views of the Administration are suspect
because they haven’s solved the economic crisis in 50 days. Only
TV comedian Jon Stewart tapped into a deadly serious moment when
he cussed out folks like CNBC’s Jim Cramer who has pilloried the
Obama economic team and its moves unmercifully. Lost in the criticism
is the almost miraculous passage of the $787 billion Stimulus package
in 30 days and the unleashing of another $75 billion addressed to
the Housing Foreclosure crisis and the third leg of the stool is
the work they are doing to address the financial system, getting
the banks back into the credit business more robustly.
Critics
seem to want an immediate formula to fix the financial crisis in
fifty days. But if the administration is to get the fix right,
they have to gather data (an operation that alone should take at
least a month) that tells them what has happened and something of
the scope of it. So, Treasury Secretary Geithner and his colleagues
need time. The Administration has also been hampered because it
has had to clean up the mess made by the Bush Administration’s bad
decisions that gave $350 billion to the banks without any accountability
and create a valid solution going forward. Symptomatic of this
is the amount of attention being given to developing regulations
promoting transparency in the use of these funds for AIG and other
financial institutions that are spending the peoples’ money like
it was their own, having lavish parties, giving themselves big bonuses.
This has given Republicans the opportunity to appear to be populist
on the side of average people who are angry at the fat cats who
are being bailed out while they suffer.
There
seems to be a big push to make the criticism of the Obama Administration
the rationale for shoving the whole financial mess on to his shoulders,
by trying to shorten the honeymoon (as Washington Post columnist
David Broder said) he should have with the political establishment
in the post-election period.
But
folks are just plain wrong when they suggest that the President
has too much on his plate. For anyone who knows government, they
should know that he hasn’t had much of a choice but to use this
extraordinary moment that cries out for change on many fronts to
crack the Champaign on the bow of many boats and get them moving
toward his goals. He has thirteen cabinet agencies and a host of
independent agencies to get going. What should he have done, wait
to give them their mission until the economic crisis is solved?
I think not and people who think that way are either ignorant or
suspiciously playing games.
So,
lets be clear that much of the criticism is coded opposition against
valid objectives such as fixing health care, education, employment,
energy, the environment, because those opposed to action on these
fronts want a clear shot at stopping them anyway. But the Obama
people wisely slipped them into the Stimulus Package.
I
was really surprised at billionaire Warren Buffet, a supporter of
Barack Obama, recommend to him that he should zero in on the economic
crisis “like a laser.” Well, where has he been? Even when Obama
was only President-Elect during the Transition period he was working
on the economic crisis, that leadership created the Stimulus Package
and the Home Foreclosure strategy. So, I guess that Buffet, who
has also lost billions, feels that Obama should spend his time helping
him get his money back rather than forming his entire government.
Finally,
the culture of anxiety has gotten so out of hand that even the downward
slide in the market was tied to Obama’s leadership, but when it
went up 600 points the week of March 8 all was quiet. So where
is the fairness? Lost in the current psychosis.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar,
Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor
of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College
Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (The Politics of Race
and Ethnicity) (Rowman and Littlefield). Click here
to contact Dr. Walters.
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