Where’s the proof that Obama is a master of public policy? To be sure there’s ample proof that he’s a master at talking about public policy, describing the problems, summarizing the current thinking, regurgitating all of the reigning clichés and platitudes. But where’s the evidence that he’s actually good at public policy?
It’s a sincere question: What have been the truly innovative, groundbreaking or even unconventional big public policy ideas to come out of this administration? Are there any? Because from where I sit, it simply looks like Obama takes existing, conventional, liberal ideas – some of them very, very old – off the liberal pantry shelf and hawks them like it’s new inventory. Where’s the evidence that Obama’s “mastery” over public policy has translated itself into creative approaches? Not in the stimulus from what I can tell. Maybe there’s something impressive to tout in ObamaCare, but Obama didn’t actually have much to do with the crafting of ObamaCare – a fact Wilson acknowledges. Was his genius to be found in shoveling cash into Solyndra and other embarrassing white elephants? Was he the guiding intellect behind a green jobs program that has produced dozens of jobs in places where it was supposed to create thousands?
And if he’s such a genius about public policy, why did it take him so long to discover that there’s no such thing as “shovel ready jobs”? You don’t have to be a Jedi Master of public policy to have known that.
Heck, if he’s spent so much time focusing on getting the policies right, why are things so bad? Why are they so much worse than he predicted? Why did it take him so long figuring out reality was sharply veering from his assumptions?
Here’s a thought: Maybe Obama is just a big fan of public policy the way I’m a big fan of movies? I can talk about movies all day long. I can discuss camera work, acting, story, directing etc. with some fluency. I can even talk about how movies are financed and the role of foreign markets. But you know what? I don’t have a frickn’ clue how to make a Hollywood movie (and I’ve actually made some documentaries).
Maybe he’s not a public policy Scorsese. Maybe he’s, at best, the Roger Ebert of policymaking – or more likely, just a policy buff.
My own take? He’s most like Matt Damon: his genius, such as it is, comes from having written a script in which he gets to play the role of a genius — then he relies on the public’s inability to separate out the fiction from the reality.
These will be the longest 15 months of Obama’s life.
At least he’s clean and articulate and authentically down for the struggle —unlike those enablers of racism, the unthinking Clarence Thomas and the never-had-to-think-about-feeding-people Herman Cain
And Matt Damon may not be a genius, but he’s the deadliest assassin to ever don buckskins!
No one I can think of could have as thoroughly screwed the pooch with the people of Iran and the people of Syria as Obama has done. That’s got to be some kind of genius right there, leaving a legacy of utter mistrust of any US leader to follow with the most adamant opponents of America’s actual foreign State enemies, surely? A genuine genius of incompetence at the least, if not a genius for undermining US security while pretending to uphold it.
Jonah links this article which is a must read.
he’s a master at talking about public policy
Why do people keep saying this? He’s not even good at that!
He only sounds good if you’re not listening to his words: the cadences might be pleasing to the ear, but he’s NEVER emitted anything but gobbledy-gook and double-speak and flat-out nonsense.
Maybe if you don’t understand English he sounds good; otherwise, WTF?
The esteemed Mr Goldberg — another Jooooo — wrote:
Kinda describes a lot of people. I can tell you how to throw a curve ball or a change up, but that doesn’t mean I could actually put one over the plate. (Of course, for me, a change up would be faster than my wicked 37-MPH fastball.)
Way back when, as a student at the University of Kentucky, my friends and I solved all of the world’s problems over coffee at the Student Center cafeteria; if only the people in power would listen to us. Well, Barack Hussein Obama is just one of us, sitting in the cafeteria solving all of the world’s problems over coffee and junk food, and glancing at the babes at the next table. (Oh how I loved the braless seventies!) Trouble is, almost seventy million people believed his cry that if we just put him in charge, everything would be fixed, even though he’d never run anything bigger than a vacuum cleaner in his entire life.
[…] would go from bad to worse. Posted by Dana Pico on 10 October 2011, 1:27 pm TweetVia Jeff Goldstein, I found this article by Jonah Goldberg which explains the Obama Administration: So what’s my […]
I’m uncertain about Jonah’s cred as a member of the Tribe. His mother is an Episcopalian. But, hey! Goldberg? Sounds pretty jooish.
“Maybe if you don’t understand English he sounds good; otherwise, WTF?”
Yeah, and watching him do the teleprompter two-step gives me a headache. Sometimes I feel like I should grab him by the nose and tell him “I’M RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF YOU KNUCKLEHEAD”