On Obama’s flip-flop on renegotiating NAFTA, Jake Tapper wants to know:
Are we supposed to act as if things politicians say during primaries are irrelevant and meaningless? Are we supposed to just accept as fact that politicians say things in the heat of the moment that they don’t mean and thus we should should just collectively self-induce amnesia?
Well, we could at least give up the pretense of there even being any New Politics. It is not the hypocrisy that is so grating, so much as the sanctimoniousness. Had Obama not styled himself as the savior of American politics it might not be so noteworthy when he does as badly as, or worse even, than other politicians when it comes to ethical slip-ups, the lobbyists’ revolving door, and bald-faced policy reversals.
That said, the broken campaign promises (e.g. NAFTA renegotiation, immediate Iraq withdrawal, end all Bush anti-terrorism policies) are the best part of this administration. So maybe we shouldn’t knock hypocrisy. It’s better than the destructive policies articulated for the sake of getting elected. And that explains, I suppose, why politicians get away with this sort of thing: their opponents are happy with the policy flip-flops and their supporters (in general) aren’t intellectually honest enough to object.
As Instapundit would say: ‘Heh. Ouch. Indeed.’ Or some combination thereof.
Maybe the market will begin to rally on the notion that this guy and his gang have no chance of effectuating the top-down transformation of a great nation. Incompetent government might even turn out to be the next best thing to divided government: Not much change after all, therefore some hope for a resumption of normalcy.
“Incompetent government might even turn out to be the next best thing to divided government: Not much change after all, therefore some hope for a resumption of normalcy.”
Yeah, this is what it’s come to, in just 45 days of the Obama Presidency: we have to HOPE for incompetence, so that the CHANGE they want is ineffectual and doesn’t wreck our economy, our freedoms, and our way of life.
So you’re saying he’s suffering from peregruzka?–overload, that is, as in an overloaded airplane.
Geithner would have to IMPROVE his performance in order to rise to the level of useless.
Normally, I would agree with reader avwh in that a government that cannot get out of its own way also cannot get in ours. Unfortunately, we have this big banking mess to clean up and it is only fair the government do it since they did so much to create it. But, maybe if their incompetence proves to be permanent and debilitating, it may be the best thing for the country in the long run. It will give the rest of the country a chance to solve our problems in a realistic way without interference from bureaucratic idiots. We can only hope.
They are so incompetent they are going to destroy the currency. get ready . get gold . get a gun .
Twisted Tim Geithner
“incompressible”?
in that use incompressible is incomprehensible, isn’t it?
Godel’s theorem for dummies such as I, don’t you know, I must say