The Leaky Cauldron Administration

It has been over two years since I first asked myself this question: how long can the bad news for Obama go on? I now think that the answer is: until November, and then maybe for four more years. It is still quite possible that Obama will win reelection, but it is becoming increasingly likely that it will be in spite of himself.

His most recent gaffthat the "private sector's doing fine,"sits quite comfortably on the shelf next to his campaign's retired memes. Once again, he spent more time explaining and walking back his comments than he did in making thema sure sign of an unforced error.

What bubbled up into the President's consciousness and then made a dash for his lips is a Krugman theme: we are in this pickle only because of a calamitous fall in public spending by the state governments. There is an argument to be made there, but not the sort that one can make in front of reporters. Does the President really want to say what Krugman apparently thinks: that what is wrong with the U.S. is that the states can't run deficits the way members of the European Community can? What he has to say is that he really didn't mean to say what he did say and believed.

Just in time comes a second disaster, which I will call the Leaky Cauldron scandal. Both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are boiling made about leaks to the press. A treasure trove of details about American and Israeli intelligence operations have been printed in the New York Times. Republicans accuse the Administration of leaking the information for political gain. Regardless of the motive, there seems little doubt that the leaks come from the White House. The NYTs says that the White House wrote off on the final articles. Somebody is lying. 

Prominent Democrats on both committees, including Senate Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein are pushing for an investigation. Attorney General Holder has appointed to prosecutors to investigate, though they are not "special". That means he can control them.

Either the Administration leaked this information intentionally, or it leaked it carelessly, or the New York Times has moles in the White House. Whichever it is, it doesn't make the White House look like a trustworthy custodian of sensitive information. That is a scandal.

Finally, I note the recent CBS/New York Times poll on ObamaCare.

A new CBS News/New York Times poll reveals that nearly seven in ten Americans want the Supreme Court to overturn either all or President Obama's health care law or strike down just the individual mandate.

In the poll released on Thursday, 41 percent of those polled think Mr. Obama's health care law should be overturned completely by the Supreme Court, with another 27 percent of respondents saying they want the court to keep the law but overturn the mandate.

Nearly one-quarter - twenty-four percent - of respondents want the entire law upheld. The margin of error is three percentage points.

Okay. So the President's signature piece of legislation, the one that he spent the most time and political capital on, the one that was not in any sense forced by events, is supported by "nearly one-quarter" of the people polled. Nearly 70% want the Court to strike it down in whole or in part. So much for the view that the Court will act in defiance of American Democracy if it does strike ObamaCare down.

Allow me to review. The President cannot manage to speak coherently about the economy without shooting himself in the foot. His Administration can't seem to conduct covert operations without informing the whole world about what it is doing. His one big piece of legislation is firmly supported by twenty-four percent of the people. Maybe this is all just bad luck. President Obama continues to blame previous Administrations and Europe for our misfortunes. Common sense suggests that, when the team keeps blowing it at every stage of the game, the solution is to fire the coach.

Comments

[A.I.]

Once again you misrepresent Krugman by taking comments out of context. If "we are in this pickle only because of a calamitous fall in public spending by the state governments." is a direct quote from Krugman, it would be against the backdrop that private sector job creation has been reasonably good over recent quarters but is offset to a great extent by loss of state and local government jobs. Rectifying that situation would require federal assistance for state and local grovernments which, absent increased tax revenue, would resulting in greater federal debt. It has nothing to do with states taking on debt. It has to do with saving jobs.

Nor does Krugman say the initial economic collapse was the result of low government spending at any level. He only says once the collapse occurred, business and personal spending shrank meaning the only segment of the economy left to spur growth was (and is) increased government spending. And once private sector economic activity reaches a reasonable level, he advocates reduced federal spending and deficits.

[Ken Blanchard]

A.I.: when I quote someone, I use quotation marks or other unmistakable devices. I think I get Krugman right. The crisis in Europe is a result of easy credit lent to Greece et. al. by the EC. Krugman wants the Fed to pour billions into the states so that they can spend it on what? High speed railroads between ghost towns?

Yes, Krugman says that we should begin spending responsibly in the future, just not now. The things you believe.

[Donald Pay]

The problem is KB sees no difference between Greece and the United States. Most sane people do. KB climbs aboard one of Europe high speed trains, and that's where he goes off the rails.

So, we've had the high speed rail discussion before, and KB is basically right about that. It's really not worth dumping money into, except as a pilot project in a dense corridor. But weaning ourselves off oil and coal is something worthwhile.

But where are we to look for KB's answer to all our problems? Well, to the "courageous" (KB's word) Scott Walker who frittered away all those supposed "savings" from robbing state workers on tax breaks and give aways to the wealthy and corporate elite, not on balancing the state budget. Yes, all that supposed savings went to fill the hole Walker made by reopening the Nevada loophole, where funds are shifted to Nevada or the Cayman Islands to be laundered so it won't show up as taxable income in Wisconsin.

So what did Walker do to make the budget look balanced. He did what KB says he shouldn't do--he put it all on the credit card. Does KB not understand his heros are spend and borrow liberals?

[Ken Blanchard]

Yeah, Donald. It's me and the CBO and the trustees of Social Security and Medicare vs. all you sane people. I can hardly resist your logic. US is not Greece; ergo, US doesn't have to worry about debt.