Told You So

Obama admits 'tactical lessons' but concedes nothing.

He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works.

He had too little experience for the job and still has too much arrogance to admit he was wrong about the promises he made. Those are not "tactical lessons."

It's not a tactical lesson when you spend nearly a trillion dollars to "create millions of new jobs" and unemployment doesn't budge and the recession isn't stimulated. It's not a tactical lesson when you plow ahead with and agenda that pushes deficits into the stratosphere despite the people telling you they don't want it. It's not really down to inexperience alone. It's also about a bull-headed determination to pursue the goals of his revolutionary mentors, Saul Alinsky, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. It's hard to say that we were deceived. The truth is that those who elected him were voting based on hope, rather than reality. They did get change, but I doubt it was the kind they were expecting.

The truth is that Obama doesn't just "look too much like 'the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat;'" he IS one, and he's deceiving himself and us by denying it. At best he's a lethal new variant, "the spend us into bankruptcy liberal Democrat." I'm sure the plan was to put the spending in place and then raise taxes later to pay for it, but he probably won't have that option now.

The other "tactical lesson:"

He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works.

That's not tactics, it's ignorance, arrogant ignorance. He assumed that once the Stimulus Bill was passed, the jobs would just pop up like mushrooms. That's what comes from trusting ideologically driven economists. The Keynesian theory is that deficit spending will stimulate the economy by spurring consumer spending, but that isn't the case when the boost to income is temporary. Knowing that the economy is down, people will use the money to pay down debt or just put it in savings. In this case, a lot of the stimulus was spent on saving jobs of unionized labor. But we can't do that every year.

And remember that he pushed stimulus on the heels of TARP, which itself proved to be a big boondoggle. If the banks needed liquidity, TARP should have provided a temporary credit line and a pass on some regulations rather than an investment.

And remember, as well, that he followed stimulus with Health Care Reform which will be hugely expensive, if the history of other entitlements is any indication, especially since so much effort went into trying to hide the real costs.

And remember lastly that his determination or bullheadedness has created a huge amount of uncertainty for businesses and others who will be affected by these huge changes. He at least could have kept his promise to make everything transparent. Either he never intended to keep it, or he got buffaloed by Congress who hid everything under a bushel to obscure all the sausage making. He had the prestige to demand that the process be open and bipartisan, but didn't seem to give a hoot. Meanwhile, fearful voters went from worried to angry and began to show up at town hall meetings and "tea party" demonstrations and rallies only to be insulted and written off as radicals and crazies. That's some tactical error. Note: don't stir up hornet nests when you're remodeling the house.

The biggest insult in calling these bungles mere tactical errors is that it proves that he still doesn't get it. He has no remorse, and he hasn't learned a thing. He's impervious to experience. He went to Columbia and Harvard, after all. Real life doesn't count.

The NYTimes reporter does his best to doll up this porcine performance, but it won't work. People have other sources of analysis than the New York Times.