Obama at the precipice?

Two posts from David Sirota that are worth reading, one on the Obama administration’s unexpected tin ear on the AIG fiasco and the other on the odd respect still accorded to the Federal Reserve despite its very public failure of oversight.

The first post outlines the mixed messages that are coming from the administration — with his chief of staff and chief political advisor downplaying public anger while the president himself acknowledges it — and points out the potential damage to its credibility this could create:

I get that nobody in Establishment Washington genuinely cares that taxpayers are being ripped off, and I get that the super-wealthy political class from millionaire investment banker Emanuel to millionaire consultant Axelrod to millionaire banker Tim Geithner gives much of a shit that our taxpayer dollars are being used to make new millionaires on Wall Street. But their boss, President Obama, is right: The majority of Americans, most of whom are not millionaires, is really angry and has a right to be angry.

These latest mixed messages are yet another indication that a the White House is creating a major economic credibility gap for itself. On the biggest economic issues of the day, the administration is saying contradictory things, and if it doesn’t get out of the tone deaf D.C. echo chamber and get back on message, my bet is that very soon Republicans’ faux populism that portrays Democrats as part of the problem is going to start getting traction.

I’m expecting that, given the president’s words, the administration will unify its message and reclaim the populist mantle on the economy — especially because I am fairly confident that Obama understands the dangers of ceding it to the Herbert Hooverites in the Republican Party. He can’t afford to waste his high approval ratings and let the GOP up off the floor, creating a possibility of a rerun of the 1994 anti-Clinton backlash.

And, make no mistake, the Clinton reference is apt because the Clinton presidency was a failed presidency, his third way nothing more than moderate conservatism dressed up in Democratic stylings, his social liberalism a smokescreen for fiscal policies friendly to big money as opposed to working people.

The second post focuses on Barney Frank’s oversight plan, pointing out the basic problem:

Seems to me that if a secretive regulatory agency falls down on the job and then proceeds to waste trillions of dollars on no-strings-attached bailouts, Congress might want to look to better, more publicly accountable agencies to become the chief regulator.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet