Legal Commentary

When MoDo Gets It . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

and the Democratic President does not, that defines a failed opportunity. MoDo wrote today:

[T]he prince got distracted, seeing Lincoln in the mirror, and instead gave the kiss of life to a bunch of flat-lining Republican tax-cut fetishists. Somehow the most well-known person on the planet lost control of the economic message to someone named Eric Cantor. In his first weeks padding around a White House that still has nails on the walls waiting for new pictures, and phone and e-mail kinks, Barack Obama could not locate the bully pulpit and ended up being bullied.

With a strong mandate for meaningful and effective economic stimulus, President Barack Obama failed to define the political debate. President Obama has done many good things in the start of his Presidency. But he bungled the economic stimulus plan. What is politics at its essence? Defining the middle:

[T]hat is FDR's lesson for Obama. Politics is not a battle for the middle. It is a battle for defining the terms of the political debate. It is a battle to be able to say what is the middle.

Some will not be able to acknowledge Obama's failure on this issue. But that does not change the fact that on the economic stimulus issue, President Obama failed.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 08, 2009 (boomark / email).