The end of the magical mystery tour

Charles Krauthammer (via NRO)

[M]ore damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination… The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington…. After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell — and that this president told better than anyone. I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

I thought Obama's stimulus speech yesterday strange. It sounded more like a campaign speech than a leader speaking to Americans. He would go off script into sort of a "regular joe speech" and then back to text. It made it seem a bit schizophrenic and disjointed.

The Obama team is still running with the whole "perception" and "PR" thing. That works in campaigns, but not in leadership. This is mainly why they seem to be screwing up so much imo.

Meanwhile, Popular Mechanics has even gotten into the fray, writing a piece about how the stimulus bill could make infrastructure worse. (via Fausta)

SIGN THE PETITION against this bill!!