Howard Fineman has a realistic article up at Newsweek. He lays out point by point, showing why those with ridiculously high expectations for Obama are delusional. And he even leaves out some of the main reasons when considering each issue. First, he looks at the stimulus package. Fineman notes that it will be delayed by Republican opposition. Hopefully that will be true. What he doesn't mention is that the stimulus is likely to just be a giant pork project that won't help the economy, and will probably be counterproductive.
He moves on to talk about "bailout money," and predicts that there will be opposition from Democrats to spending the other 350 billion on the financial sector. We can only hope. And we can also hope there won't be still more bailouts. Fineman also forsees a bureacratic fight between established agencies and new "oversight jobs" within the White House. That's one of the problems of big government. The more government you create, the more its parts clash with each other.
Fineman moves on to foreign policy, and the ugly world picture facing the new president. There's the new hostile, Soviet Union-lite Russia, the giant mess that is Pakistan, and of course the unsolvable Israel-Palestinian situation. He doesn't even mention the still delicate problem of Iraq, or the huge challenge of Afghanistan, among many other foreign policy issues.
Fineman's article would be useful reading for anyone still enamored with their "hope and change" visions. For those of us with already low expectations for Obama, it just reinforces a few key points.
No comments:
Post a Comment