Saturday, August 20, 2011

Who runs the White House? David Plouffe, whose job it is to make sure that every word, every action of the president is calculated for electoral gain rather than the country’s needs.


Disillusioned Democrats for whom? - Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post

This is one of the most forceful and devastating critiques I’ve seen of a president in over his head:
“We’re almost three years into this administration, and there’s never been a plan. And that’s what everybody feels. And the president didn’t lead. He waited. The quintessential image, sadly, of an administration that I supported and hoped for much better, is the president waiting by the phone to hear what Congress calls to tell him. It doesn’t work in this country that way. It’s not a matter that it’s August. It’s a matter that it’s August 2011. So we’ve been drifting for a very long time. And we’ve been drifting down. And we had a short-term plan that failed. A short-term stimulus that was supposed to get the economy back on track, but it failed. And now we have nothing behind it. And we have no agreements, and we have no leadership. And, frankly, I do think it’s pretty odd the president’s on vacation right now. Normally I wouldn’t care about such things, but the world markets are in deep crisis. It’s no joke. This isn’t just an up-and-down little blip. This is a very serious situation.”
It is all the more devastating because it comes from liberal economist Jeffrey Sachs, no slouch at Harvard and no conservative stalking horse.