SocraticGadfly: Obama – ‘I’m an eternal optimist but not a sap’

February 14, 2009

Obama – ‘I’m an eternal optimist but not a sap’

That direct quote is President Barack Obama’s bottom line for how he’ll play the cards of bipartisanship in the future.

Also, White House staffers are busy redefining bipartisanship as promoting more civility in dialogue rather than actually trying to acquire GOP votes in Congress.

Smart move, especially inasmuch as it reflects recent polling on the civility issue.

In the first-linked story, Obama also candidly described Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s TARP 2.0 rollout as work in progress, but, despite the clamor from economists from around both the political and the economic expertise spectra, he doesn’t see anything wrong with that:
“It is going to take time to lay out every aspect of this plan, and there are going to be certain aspects of any plan... which will require reevaluation and... some experimentation.”

But, most economists say Geithner hasn’t rolled out ANY aspect of a plan; on NPR Friday, Megan McArdle called it “the plan to have a plan.”

And, Obama continues to diss “the Swedish model” for renovationg U.S. banks by repeating the “they only have six banks” line. Well, we have more than half of U.S. banking assets controlled by just six banks now.

That said, interviewer Ronald Brownstein notes this oft-repeated comment of Lincoln’s:
“My policy is to have no policy.”

To which I would reply, are we talking about policy tactics or policy strategy?

Because, on TARP 2.0, Obama, sub specie Geithner-Summers, still has no policy strategy, not just a lack of tactics.

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