With nearly 3/4 of the Obama Administration's first 100 days behind us, it's now possible to gauge the political trajectory of our 44th President, and surely I'm not the only pundit, blogger, whatever to notice the similarity to Bill Clinton's first days in office. Just like the Big Dawg, Obama has been more than prone to making grandiloquent pronouncements only to backtrack towards the political center when actually implementing policy. First there was "I will close Guantanamo" (actually, it'll take a year provided we can find countries willing to take detainees {excluding Venezuela, of course} and obviously only after consultations with "my commanders on the ground"). Next there was "we will withdraw all fighting forces from Iraq in 16 (18?) months" (actually we'll leave a "residual force" of 50,000 troops whose mission will be reclassified leaving no "combat troops" in country. And if the aforementioned "commanders" see fit to break the Status Of Forces Agreement and remain in Iraq beyond 2011, well, that's the way it is.) Update 4/9/09 - Today President Obama asked Congress to approve an additional $83.4 billion to continue financing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the same type of "pay as you go" war funding resolution that Obama vehemently opposed when he was a senator. Recently the President was ready to flog AIG bonus-takers in the square of public opinion when that scandal became front-page news, even though the Administration had known for months in advance about the AIG payoffs. Funny how the far more egregious Merrill-Lynch bonuses were hardly mentioned 'till AIG hit the fans.
Okay, so Obama is a master of prevarication. But his centrist instincts truly falter when it comes to dealing with the global financial meltdown. By allowing Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to restart "the casino", AKA the housing bubble with the help of $12.8 TRILLION of the taxpayers' money Obama reveals just whose financial interests he's protecting, namely the shareholders and counterparties enmeshed in our biggest financial institutions. That's why even temporary nationalization of "too big to fail" zombie banks is so off the table, because any major restructuring of Big Finance would entail a nasty haircut for some very powerful individuals. However, this way forward is indeed perilous, which makes it absolutely critical for Obama to keep ahead of public outrage over Geithner's toxic asset bailout proposals. When average Americans get wind of the fact that PPIP is simply an acronym for nearly risk-free investing and profit-taking for hedge funds and wealthy private investors they will be righteously pissed. But wait, now comes news that ordinary joes will be able to invest in PPIP. I wonder if over 90% of their venture capital will be guaranteed just like the big boys!
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