It’s interesting to watch these things evolve. Brooks last week:
But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.
Roger Cohen yesterday (via John and Kevin Drum):
But that does not change the fact that Obama, in his restorative counter-revolution, must be careful to steer clear of his French temptation.
“The financial [crisis] seems big enough,” Leno said. “[Obama is] also taking on energy and health care. Is he biting off too much? Should we just go, ‘All right, let’s fix the economy; next year we’ll talk about health care or energy.’ Should you pick one and focus on that? It’s like we’re doing everything all at the same time.”
But many of these governmental pros clearly are doubtful whether this administration — or any other — can make it work.
I’m still convinced the administration is trying to do too much too fast and that the hasty planning and execution of these complex policies will lead to untold problems down the road.
All of these critiques have one thing in common: they offer no substantive criticism of any particulars of any policy but rather an overall pessimism about the possibility of doing anything. In that sense, this is a classic example of a Beltway meme. It has no basis in any definable or quantifiable reality, but instead exists only as an unspecific reaction in the guts of various Beltway wisemen.
TenguPhule
Our MSM in a nutshell.
TenguPhule
*His* French temptation.
Cohen better be more concerned about our French Temptation, being an Enemy of the People and all that.
Quaker in a Basement
In the elevated lingo of punditry, this is called "channeling the Zeitgeist."
In high school, it’s called copying off somebody else’s homework.
Chuck Butcher
I guess the Administration is suspect because it doesn’t comply with the limitations implicit in their work and abilities.
MikeJ
There actually are times when the government needs to narrow its focus because of real material and personnel constraints. For instance, if you have bin Laden bottled up at Tora Bora, you wouldn’t want to do something stupid like remove troops from the theatre and send them to invade a country that isn’t a threat.
This is *not* the same thing as have two groups of people each writing legislation.
Ripley
Slower, Pussycat! Shill! Shill!
Ash Can
Memo to Brooks, Cohen et al.: The apparent fact that your minds are too small to reach all the way around what the Obama Administration is doing does not make what the Admin is doing impossible.
AnneLaurie
Also, if the Obama Adminstration were to actually succeed at making life slightly less nasty, brutish and depressing for those people not making at least $250k per annum, then the Republican Brand would never recover. If the "People Like Us" can’t manage to co-opt the new kids, at least they can use their yammer-talents as dead weights to try and obstruct any progress whatsoever. Better the whole American nation sink into Mad Max nightmares than the Robber Baron/Talibangelical/Warmonger Party and its pilotfish Media Village Idiots risk losing one iota of their money and power!
Ian
Hope! Change! Yes we can!
(I sure hope so)
Balconespolitics
Hey – Bush got to screw up everything at once. Why can’t Obama try to fix everything at once?
colleeniem
Why is Michelle Bachmann being cited on NPR as a credible critic about anything (in this case, the mortgage bailout)?
Fuck fuck fracktastic fuck.
Thanks, I feel marginally better.
JDM
Jay fucking LENO? STFU. Just STFU.
JDM
Jay fucking LENO? STFU. Just STFU.
JDM
Jay fucking LENO? STFU. Just STFU.
arguingwithsignposts
Why offer substantive alternatives when you can fling poo like a trained monkey and still get paid the same?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yeah and I’m sure a week before the first Brooksian Bell you posted it was: CAN OBAMA KEEP HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISES?!
The BobbbleHeads* are just pissed because their editors expect them to cover all of this and its cutting into their nap time.
And wtf is a French Temptation? Is that a sex toy or a dessert?
*I do not include Leno in this category, in part because his chin makes it impossible for his head to bobble.
valdivia
Nothing seems to surprise me anymore about this even if it makes me very angry. We finally have a president who works, is making sure govt works for the people and what do The Village Idiots say? Oh stop working you are doing too much. I guess after 8 years of Bush incompetence, competence is too much for these people to wrap their minds around.
I don’t remember the Burkean Bells ringing for brooks when Bush was busy destroying fuck all in one fell swoop. So he better get over it. Idiot.
Rick Taylor
Off topic, but via Josh Marshall of TPM, this article from Bloomberg.
Ok, senate Republicans, I’m hoping Tony Fratto is wrong and this is some simple goof up, but if this is why things are being held up then we’re really really sorry Reid played games with nominations during Bush’s second term. Now in case you hadn’t noticed, the world economy is melting down, and it’s very important that the President of the United States have the best advice possible as we figure out a way to avoid or at least mitigate an economic debacle. So could you please please please take the high road and confirm these nominations. Thanks.
Rick Taylor
And on this topic I can’t help but remember how one of the arguments of those who opposed invading Iraq was we were already in Afghanistan, and maybe we should put our resources there and be sure we got that right. The reply was, the administration could walk and chew gum at the same time. Of course now I understand we’re loosing in Afghanistan. Oh well.
maxbaer (not the original)
Another thing they have in common is that none of these guys is going to suffer, even a little, if the economy gets worse. Unless that French Revolution thing someone mentioned above becomes popular again.
valdivia
@Rick Taylor:
yes because invading two countries, one that had nothing to do with 9/11 and was done capriciously, is just the same as trying to tackle the biggest economic downturn since the depression by enacting policies that will prop up the economy.
bob h
And what is unsaid is that Bush negligence and incompetence lead to this situation in which Obama must attack so many problems at once.
How many of these Beltway sages have ever deplored the way Bush let the healthcare situation erode, how he minimized Federal oversight of the financial industry, how he blew a $5 trillion hole in our finances, how he he was just a totally negligent fuckup?
mama whiskers
I hate to say this, I mean it really *pains* me to say that I for once agree with these twits. I have concerns that he is taking on too much right now also. No, I don’t have any facts or figgers to back it up, either. Just a feelin’ — employment & health care should be the primary focus for the next few months, imo. Green energy will help with the employment part so I’m down with that. I want him to get Congress focused like a laser on those two issues.
But hey, I’m not a famous columnist.
Note to John: I’m glad you expressed that you were having problems with Firefox since you told me to use it so I could comment here (something I know all BJ’ers are most thankful for, heh). I’ve had a lot of problems with it so I’m glad it’s not just me. It’s just kinda funny you started having problems right at the time you told me to use it.
Right now, I’m using Windows Explorer to read BJ and Firefox to comment, since the comments take forever to post with Firefox.
Also, Tunch looks most awesome in his "roaring" state.
Lupin
Frenchy Obama to the Right: I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
Yes that works for me all right.
JL
@Rick Taylor: Why hasn’t Obama used the power of the microphone to help get his nominees through the Senate?
mama whiskers
@colleeniem:
Excuse me? Please tell me you were having auditory hallucinations. See, *this* is why I cannot listen to NPR either. They piss me off. They need to be publicly shamed for having that whacked-out bitch on their show unless they are discussing severe mental disorders in congress-people.
Serious, a lot of dopes that listen to NPR, I am sure, don’t even know who she is or anything about her. Having her as a guest to discuss *anything* besides her mental illness gives her credibility she does not deserve.
When will the madness end.
(Oh, oops. I note you said "cited" – I’m being a bit reactionary this morning as usual. Even so, she is at best, an unreliable source for anything of importance, except general repube hatred and they should not have used her, the crazy bitch)
jprice vincenz
Did you see that the AP (it looks like it’s originally from Politico) is running with the "he uses the TelePrompter too much" meme? Either the problem is too big for Broder to imagine a solution or, better yet, the problem is that Obama isn’t as charismatic/intelligent as he seems.
As Greenwald says, "this is the most corrupt and ignorant media we could get."
Xenos
French temptation? So close we get to comedic perfection-
mama whiskers
Talk about pulling stuff straight out of your ass. Ok, repubes helped him out with the Dems = French-ness back in ’04, but I really thot that particular meme had been discarded. So it’s doubly bad, unoriginal.
"Counter-revolution"? Huh, if only.
Montysano
I wonder how The Market is feeling today?
Is The Market happy or sad? Angry or glad?
I sure hope Obama doesn’t piss off The Market today.
Will The Market need its ass wiped with $1B T-bonds?
I’m getting a bit sick of The Market.
chrome agnomen
if only the MSM had been so perceptive as to tell the bush administration to only fuck one thing at a time up.
BruceK
Didn’t someone, somewhere, write something about opposition parties:
"The various political parties will naturally try to row the ship of state in different directions, but only a complete lunatic would blow a hole in the keel."
kommrade reproductive vigor
Heh.
But I must disagree. Bachmann is a perfect hybrid of Sarah Palin and unwashed kidney basin DeMint* and so makes an excellent poster child for the Republicons.
*Apologies for the link to the Washington Times.
camchuck
Yeah, Obama should take advice on what’s important from pundits who offered little critique in the run up to the Iraq war, the Pentagon propaganda scam and the shredding of the 4th amendment – but still find time to thoroughly vet Michelle’s sleeveless wardrobe. Wankers.
Atanarjuat
Dougj wrote:
During this period of economic upheaval, I think it would be decidedly strange for anyone to show giddy optimism rather than pessimism. That’s just human nature, Doug.
Would you prefer that all the columnists and pundits turn into a Disneyland version of Baghdad Bob?
No, I didn’t think so.
When the future looks uncertain while jobs and wealth are being shed at frightening speed, caution seems very much warranted to me.
-A
Napoleon
@colleeniem:
I heard that – just amazing. Almost more amazing is there is something on the front page of Kos quoting her about something where she happens to use the phrase "punctuated equilibrium". To f–en funny. You just know she must be a flat earth, anti-evolution, the Earth is only 6000 year old person, yet she reaches for a phrase associated with a concept used to explain how evolution works, and I bet she is too stupid to realize it.
John Cole
David Gergen was peddling this last night.
ChrisB
Needless to say, Obama is screwing up both ways. Not only is he trying to do too much, but he isn’t trying to fix all of our problems fast enough.
As MikeJ said above, how is it possible for the health care people to work on health care while the energy people work on energy? And then to have Hillary et al worry about foreign affairs, all at the same time? Impossible!
(But just for good measure, the Republicans will stall whatever nominations they can.)
El Cid
They may be saying similar things, but keep in mind, there are two completely separate groups at play here.
One group is outside-the-loop commentators (comedians, local anchors, average people) who are reflecting the generic ‘wow, this stuff is so big and politicians are all corrupt and incompetent’ notion.
The other group, however, is comprised of malevolents like Brooks who simply are using this meme as a technique to favor their preferred right wing politicians and parties.
Brooks isn’t spreading this sh*t because he thinks too much is being done too fast.
He’s doing it because he’s opposed to what Obama & the Democrats want to do and he thinks this technique may prove useful in getting in their way.
mama whiskers
Napoleon, not to mention she doesn’t know her adjectives from her asshole.
mama whiskers
kommrade reproductive vigor:
Oh, fuck DeMint with a wire hair brush, honestly! He is my senator, along with L Graham and Mark Sanford is my governor. Pity us SCians, we are one more bunch of fucked people and too stupid to know it.
Napoleon
This whole meme treats Obama like he is some average joe who wants to build his own 12,000 sq ft house all on his own at night after his day job and on the weekends, all during the coming construction season, not as the head of a huge bureaucracy with multiple departments, each of which is devoted to a particular function of the government.
Cat Lady
Jeebus, it was 8 years of being in Defcon 10 at the scope of Bush/Cheney malfeasance, in the economy, in conducting wars, in the DOJ, in surveillance policy, promoting anti-science, etc. etc. while the supine media let it all blow past them with nary a peep. Obama and Rahm are using the same approach now – just keep it all coming, blow it all past everyone while the gettin’s good, and let the press blow it out it’s collective ass. All the while, keep them talking about Rush, who is more than happy to oblige. This guy Obama’s pretty good.
Napoleon
PS, by the way, its glad to see our chattering classes are such strong believers in old fashion American Can Do. If these morons held sway in the capital in 1800 France would still be in Louisiana, Alaska would be in Russian hands, we would still be on the east side of the Appalachians and Lewis and Clark would have died in obscurity.
anonevent
@mama whiskers: That might even be remotely true if Obama were the only one doing everything, but he’s not. Even within his admin, he is setting goals, letting others do the work, and he then approves or disapproves of the results.
These issues are important, and so you can’t just put some aside to take care of the others. Imagine: "Sorry kids, stop being hungry until I get the bathroom remodeled."
bud
I don’t think it’s fair to include Leno. He was asking Maddow. She answered that all those things needed to be done because they were interconnected. The other bozos on the list are fair game.
mama whiskers
anonevent:
You may find this odd, but that analogy lays out exactly what I was talking about. Not sure what you don’t get about it.
mama whiskers
anonevent:
You may find this odd, but that analogy lays out exactly what I was talking about: the priorities of the humane. Not sure what you don’t get about it.
Also, I helped elect Obama, I have a right to voice concerns while I continue to support him 100% as I have no choice.
vishnu schizt
@bud: Things interconnected, HA HA HA? You liberul elitist! Things aren’t interconnected! It’s all black and white, with us or against us! What does healthcare have to do with Wall Street? What does having a beer have to do with being a cheese eating surrender monkey socialist? What does being a columnist have to do with thinking? What does Iraq have to do with terrorism? What does being a fat ass blowhard drug addict have to do with leading a vapid marketing, theater and window dressing organization? Interconnected my ass……
Mike in NC
Jeez, how long before an innocent shopping trip to Myrtle Beach with the wife turns into a scene from "Escape From New York"?
atlliberal
Nobody thought a first term African American senator with a name like Barack Hussein Obama would ever be able to evin win in the primaries against the former First Lady, let alone win the genral election.
For all of those who say we can’t do all of those things at the same time, my response is "Yes We Can".
He may not be able to do it by himself, but WE,as a country are certainly more than capapble of dealing with these issues all at once. The more the beltway crowd are wringing their hands, and the more unhinged the right wing gets, the more I’m convinced we are on the right track.
passerby
Here’s how Obama addressed this criticism yesterday at the closing of the Healthcare Summit:
"There’s been some talk about the notion that we’re taking on too much. That we’re in the midst of an economic crisis and that the system is overloaded and so we should put this off for another day.
Well, let’s just be clear.
When times were good we didn’t get it done,
when we had mild recession, we didn’t get it done,
when we were in peace time, we didn’t get it done.
There’s always a reason not to do it, and it strikes me that now is exactly the time for us to deal with this problem.
The American people are looking for solutions.
Bussinesses are looking for solutions.
And Government, state, federal, and local, needs a solution to this problem.
…So I would say, what better time than NOW?"
joe from Lowell
I find it fascinating how these memes spread among the wingnuts. It’s like they’re the Borg, all sharing the same brain. When I used to read Hit & Run, the right wingers could be counted on to all show up and say the same thing at the same time. I used to point it out.
It works the same way in reverse, too. After weeks when they would all write comments about ACORN and voter fraud, even when it was completely irrelevant, the day the story broke about the John McCain worker who was indicted for voter registration fraud, they all stopped at exactly the same time.
I just can’t understand renting our your brain like that.
ibid
Doesn’t citing Jay Leno cut against the argument that this is just a "beltway meme"? Late night hosts actually have a lot more power to shape conventional wisdom outside the beltway than the Broders or Cohens do. That typically takes the form of jokes, so I don’t think posing a question for Maddow to shoot down (and Leno may very well have known how she was going to answer it when he asked it) necessarily means that the idea of "doing too much" is taking hold outside the beltway. But it certainly isn’t evidence that this is just some insular beltway meme that has never occurred to the 99% of Americans who don’t read David Brooks.
CalD
Same thing with doctors. Patient comes into an emergency room bleeding to death from a severed arm and leg, prudence dictates that you should just really pick either the arm or the leg and just deal with that, right? Let’s face it, ER doctors are busy people and have you seen the prices of bandages and stuff lately?
I also imagine any firemen will tell you that when it comes to putting out a burning building, it’s always better to focusing on one or two rooms initially, then deal with the rest of the blaze later, at your leisure.
I hereby nominate Jay Leno for Sec. Treasury and Surgeon General and head of FEMA. Any seconds?
OriGuy
@Xenos: Ever since the Iowa caucus, I’ve been seeing parallels to Blazing Saddles. Now, we’re in the epilogue, where the people of Rock Ridge bursts into the studio and spoils the musical number of the poofs in tuxedos. Mel Brooks is the Nostradamus of our time.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Two things come to mind. One is Hillary Clinton’s speeches from a year ago: "Oh, there is a lot more to this than just being able to make fancy speeches ….." The whines of a person whose opponent is making better speeches than she was.
The other is the irony of a situation where an administration fucks up everything it touches, fries the government, guts its agencies, wrecks the economy, buries foreign policy, laughs at criticism and talks about big problems as being "something the next president will have to deal with," and then ……
When the new administration starts aggressively tackling the problems, we get pundits (some of the same ones who aided and abetted the earlier trainwreck) wringing their hands and crying "What are they trying to do, solve all the problems at once!?"
I am pretty sure that future American historians will look back on this period as an example of how a government is actually supposed to work for the people.
Geeno
To be completely fair to Leno, he may have been asked by Maddow to ask that question just set up her response to it. It would be unlike him to inject controversy (even small controversy) into his interviews without some preparation with the guest. He’s not there to make people look bad, just the opposite.
Geeno
To be completely fair to Leno, he may have been asked by Maddow to ask that question just set up her response to it. It would be unlike him to inject controversy (even small controversy) into his interviews without some preparation with the guest. He’s not there to make people look bad, just the opposite.
Chris Andersen
@Atanarjuat:
The Obama administration, and Geithner in particular, have been criticized by not being specific enough in some of the financial proposals. This criticism may or may not be legitimate, I don’t have the expertise to judge.
But if "specificity" is the standard by which Obama is to be judged then I think it is the same standard we should use with his critics. A general vague feeling of unease is not a specific criticism. It’s just a statement of how your gut feels and we’ve just spent the last eight years ruled by people who led with their guts. How did that work out for us?
General promises and vague plans are the things of political campaigns. To much specificity in a political race bogs down the electoral process. The average citizen just isn’t qualified to judge that specificity. Specificity, however, is required when the debate switches from politics to policy.
We already had a political debate in this country. Obama won. Now is the time for both Obama AND his critics to get specific. At this point, it seems like Obama is doing better at this than his critics.
I think that is what Doug was trying to get at.
Chris Andersen
Oh, and as to this:
That is true, for individual players in the economy. But when everyone starts acting with caution we get recession and depression. It is then when the government becomes the spender of last resort and has to hold the bottom up by being bold and decisive.
In a crisis, the last thing you want is leadership that appears to dither.
roseyv
Didn’t a stolen election, two unwinnable wars, and the rape of the Constitution seem like enough at the time? Wouldn’t you think well, let’s focus on ass-fucking America’s civil liberties first, and put off looting the treasury till later.
And yet, those ambitious and visionary Bushies had the entirely justified belief that destiny had called them to create every problem imaginable in the nightmarish hellscape of the most depraved lunatic.
Chris Andersen
@bud:
Sounds about right to me. A lot of people have legitimate concerns about the size and scope of Obama’s proposals. He shouldn’t be afraid of addressing those concerns.
But what a lot of the people on that list are doing are making the judgment that (1) there are concerns, therefore (2) Obama should scale back. One does not logically follow from the other.
Chris Andersen
@CalD:
The burning building analogy is a good one. If the fire department is called to put out a fire, they don’t first ask if the fire was caused by the owner falling asleep in bed with a cigarette and then adjust their strategy for putting out the fire accordingly. They just put out the damn fire. If they don’t, it will spread to neighboring houses.
Think of that when you hear people saying that we shouldn’t bail out homeowners OR banks because either of them made foolish decisions. That’s the kind of thing you can get them for later. Right now you just put out the damn fire.
Don
Wasn’t this same "oh no, too much at once" nonsense tossed around at the beginning of Clinton’s term as well?
AnneLaurie
Well, to be fair, it’s not like Brooks or Cohen or Broder were going to be using their own brains for much of anything. One reason they get the high-dollar rentals is that they’ve got so much prime real estate just standing empty for when the *right* bidder comes along…