Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Harsanyi on Obama's urgency

The Denver Post's David Harsanyi notices that of late Barack Obama has been sounding "a lot like one of those fiscal he-devils the Democrats have been warning the nation about for years."

For the first year--you mean it hasn't been longer than that?--Barack Obama has not listened to the concerns of the people he purports to represent.

But sounding like you mean it is half the battle — as the Republican Party has learned over the past 15 years. And one of the major political missteps of the Obama administration has been confusing the agenda of the progressive left with that of the American electorate.

A new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, for example, finds that over 80 percent of adults believe that jobs and the economy should be the two top priorities of Washington — issues that were used to further the administration's no-serious-crisis-left-behind project and little else.

To my astonishment, nowhere in the Pew poll could I find the words "Copenhagen," "worldwide presidential apology tour," "Chicago Olympic bid," "social justice," "bankers make too much dough," or even "bail out GM, America needs the Acadia." Still, these subjects were a matter of considerable urgency and expended political capital in Washington this year.

Perhaps it's self-delusion. After all, the number of times Obama has affixed the word "urgent" to his own agenda is unquantifiable.

I think it's urgent--for real--that something is done to reduce the deficit, one that Obama's "urgent" spending has launched into the stratosphere.

I'm urgently awaiting the fall election.

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