Shocka! Another Decider Having Second Thoughts About The Messiah

This time, it's Howard Fineman.

• The $787 billion stimulus, gargantuan as it was, was in fact too small and not aimed clearly enough at only immediate job-creation.
• The $275 billion home-mortgage-refinancing plan, assembled by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, is too complex and indirect.
• The president gave up the moral high ground on spending not so much with the "stim" but with the $400 billion supplemental spending bill, larded as it was with 9,000 earmarks.
• The administration is throwing good money after bad in at least two cases—the sinkhole that is Citigroup (there are many healthy banks) and General Motors (they deserve what they get). [...]
• A willingness to give too much leeway to Congress to handle crucial details, from the stim to the vague promise to "reform" medical care without stating what costs could be cut.
• A 2010 budget that tries to do far too much, with way too rosy predictions on future revenues and growth of the economy. This led those who fear we are about to go over Niagara Falls to deride Obama as a paddler who'd rather redesign the canoe.
• A treasury secretary who has been ridiculed on "Saturday Night Live" and compared to Doogie Howser, Barney Fife and Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone"—and those are the nice ones.
• A seeming paralysis in the face of the banking crisis: unwilling to nationalize banks, yet unable to figure out how to handle toxic assets in another way—by, say, setting up a "bad bank" catch basin. [...]
• Obama is no socialist, but critics argue that now is not the time for costly, upfront spending on social engineering in health care, energy or education.

Funny. Other than Brooks, more liberal pundits are having second thoughts than RINOS like Buckley, Frum, Noonan, or Allah.*

*Yes, that is a gratuitous cheap shot at the blogger most detested by his own side. But, you know what? Fuck you, Allah! You were no help last year, so you deserve what you get. And your arrogance (along with your girlish running to Malkin or Ace to defend you) isn't endearing either.

Posted by: eddiebear at 12:27 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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