Is the beginning of the end of the feel-good, but tragic, farce known as the Obama presidency? In my New York Post column today, I take a look at the avalanche of economic bad news we got this week:
Private-sector job growth is anemic, new jobless claims are still well over 400,000, the unemployment numbers are grim, manufacturing has slowed to a crawl, home prices are falling again, the dollar keeps sinking, 44 million people are now on food stamps, layoffs continue, consumer confidence has hit the skids and the stock market lost 280 points Wednesday and 38 more yesterday.
Welcome to Recovery Summer II…
For what it’s worth, Moody’s is warning that, absent some agreement to avoid short-term default, it may downgrade the nation’s credit rating. “We are on the verge of a great, great Depression,” charged analyst Peter Yastrow.
It’s hard to think of an upside to all this, other than the complete debunking of Keynesian economics and a massive repudiation of the Democratic party in the next election. But for more than two years now, suffering Americans have been asked to swallow the excesses of Obamaism, including its frank advocacy of crony capitalism/socialism, its corrupt functionaries, its overweening arrogance, its crushing regulations, and its complete ineptitude in matters of war, peace, and the economy.
And where was President Obama as this disastrous week began? Just back from a European mini-vacation, he was out on the links again on Memorial Day, playing his 70th round of golf since he took office. Leading from behind, anybody?
“Leadership should come from the top,” Rep. Paul Ryan is said to have told Obama the other day, when the president met privately with congressional Republicans to discuss deficit reduction.
Others in the room characterized the talks as “frank” and “productive” — diplomatic speak for contentious and heated.
Good. This is an argument the country desperately needs to have.
Watching my favorite TV show, Morning Joe, this morning, I was struck once again by the consensus advice of the bien-pensants (except Pat Buchanan) — that the candidate the Republicans need is the one least likely to inflame passions; you know, like Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman.
That’s right — what America needs now is a calm, sober, reasoned chin-puller, thoughtfully pondering alternative strategies when the nation’s hair is on fire and the other side is still dousing it with kerosene and playing with matches:
“Leading from behind” — a phrase used by an anonymous Obama adviser in an interview with The New Yorker — is not getting the job done. After two years of unelected czars, increasingly burdensome regulations, executive orders, unread bills rammed through Congress, photo ops, White House parties, international vacations and an endless succession of speeches as the solution to every ill, Americans are hungering for leadership.
The candidate who can best frame the argument as one of national economic survival — and who won’t hesitate to take the fight to the other side — is the one who will be the next president.
Because leading from the front beats leading from behind every time — especially when the fate of the nation is at stake.
What the country needs now is not Omar Bradley but George Patton, and the first candidate who grasps the swagger stick not only wins the nomination, but cruises to victory in the next election.