CONSIDER HOW MUCH OF THIS IS ALREADY BAKED IN THE CAKE:

Hope He Can Change: An Obamaplosion (Victor Davis Hanson, February 3, 2009, Pajamas Media)

What happened? Count the ways, and then let us see what might be done pronto!

I. Obama claimed a new moral high ground, and the media seconded that. But nothing in his career—his failed congressional race, the divorce disclosures of his two Senate primary and general rivals, Rezko, Wright, Blago advisor, Ayers, etc.—had ever suggested he had on a single occasion challenged prevailing norms in efforts to raise the ethical bar.

Instead he was allowed to blather on about heaven on earth, while he was by needs governing from the corrupt cesspool of DC lawyers and lobbyists. So we got the worst of both worlds: the most exalted ethical rhetoric ever, and the greatest ethical lapses of any incipient administration in memory. [...]

II. Then there were the inflated lectures on historic foreign policy to be made by the clumsy political novice who trashed his own country and his predecessor in the most ungracious manner overseas to a censured Saudi-run press organ (e.g., Bush is dictatorial, the Saudi king is courageous; Obama can mend bridges that America broke to aggrieved Muslims [apparently Teheran hostages, Rushdie, serial attacks in the 1990s, 9/11, Madrid, London never apparently occurred, and neither did feeding Somalis, saving Kuwait, protesting Chechnya, Bosnia/Kosovo, billions to Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinians, help in two Afghan wars, and on and on]). It is always dangerous to suggest that ‘America then bad, America now good’—the former gives bad guys talking points, the latter reason to try something stupid.

III. Then there was the shrill, harsh campaign rhetoric of Bush shredding the Constitution–FISA, Guantanamo, Patriot Act, Iraq, renditions–followed by ‘all that for now staying the same’, inasmuch we haven’t been attacked in over seven years. This suggests either that Obama was disingenuous then or disingenuous now. Let us hope it was the former.

IV. The stimulus is an ungodly disaster–a trillion dollars to foster Democratic constituencies that will leave a generation to come with unsustainable debt. Listening to Reid/Pelosi has proven catastrophic. Necessary loan guarantees to stop meltdowns have morphed into a liberal wish list (cf. Emanuel’s ‘don’t let a crisis go to waste’) of a half century. Borrowing trillions to cure an economy that borrowed hundreds of billions and got itself into an abyss of debt makes no sense.

V Robert Gibbs, the new press secretary is, well, incompetent. He is a Scott McClellan nightmare that won’t go away—given his long McClellan-like relationship with the President (McClellan should have been fired on hour one on the job). When Davis now sorta blames Fox News for Obama’s calamities he is McClellan to the core. He is sounding as duplicitous, vague, and contradictory as Obama is supposedly transparent and bipartisan. The conflicting messages don’t mix. I think he is kind and a good person in a way McClellan was not (though not always so in the primaries), but Gibbs is not helping the President and absolutely exposing the press to ridicule, who otherwise would have ripped apart someone of his caliber long ago.

VI. True, Biden is just being Biden. But now he is Vice President Biden of our United States. Already, he’s ridiculed the Chief Justice. He has trashed the former VP. He has bragged on himself ad nauseam in very Bidenesque weird ways (best qualified VP in history he booms), and it has only been two weeks.

The UR realized Joe Biden needed to be hidden almost as soon as he mistakenly chose him and has bailed on the garbage he promised the Left just as fast as he could, but he's stuck with all these awful appointments for awhile now: the worst cabinet in modern memory; a frightening vp; a Chief of Staff with as little experience as himself; and no governing agenda to at least focus everyone's attention because he had to run on nothing but persona in order to win. But he really should avoid W's McClellan mistake and get rid of Mr. Gibbs posthaste. Indeed, the whole communications shop should be changed after the string of disastrous speeches Mr. Obama has given.

MORE:
Editorial: A troubling pattern with Obama picks: President burns goodwill on Daschle, other nominees. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, February 4, 2009)
Obama's Daschle debacle. What happened to the "no drama" team? (Lynn Sweet, February 4, 2009, Chicago Sun-Times)

Either the Obama vetting team knew about Daschle's tax lapses and didn't realize how politically damaging they would be -- or they didn't figure out that he had a problem. Either alternative is not good.

In unfortunate timing, the White House had lined up five major television anchors for Oval Office interviews Tuesday afternoon to help Obama sell the faltering stimulus plan. Of course they asked about Daschle.

How many ways can Obama say he made a mistake?

At least five: To CBS' Katie Couric; Fox News' Chris Wallace; NBC's Brian Williams; CNN's Anderson Cooper and ABC's Charles Gibson.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 4, 2009 11:08 AM