«But at home Mr Obama has had a difficult start. His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped. Many of his strongest supporters—liberal columnists, prominent donors, Democratic Party stalwarts—have started to question him. As for those not so beholden, polls show that independent voters again prefer Republicans to Democrats, a startling reversal of fortune in just a few weeks. Mr Obama’s once-celestial approval ratings are about where George Bush’s were at this stage in his awful presidency. Despite his resounding electoral victory, his solid majorities in both chambers of Congress and the obvious goodwill of the bulk of the electorate, Mr Obama has seemed curiously feeble.
...
The failure to staff the Treasury is a shocking illustration of administrative drift. There are 23 slots at the department that need confirmation by the Senate, and only two have been filled. This is not the Senate’s fault. Mr Obama has made a series of bad picks of people who have chosen or been forced to withdraw; and it was only this week that he announced his candidates for two of the department’s four most senior posts. Filling such jobs is always a tortuous business in America, but Mr Obama has made it harder by insisting on a level of scrutiny far beyond anything previously attempted. Getting the Treasury team in place ought to have been his first priority.»
[Learning the hard way, Mar 26th 2009, The Economist]
«All this means that Mr Obama’s first two months in office are difficult to evaluate. But a few things seem pretty clear. This is a strikingly ambitious president: he wants to be “transformative” in more than just the sense of being the first black president. But so far his presidency has been vitiated by a combination of incompetence and a willingness to fall back on the very tactics that he denounced as a candidate. Indeed, his desire to be “transformative” may be contributing to his problems, distracting him from the economic crisis.
...
Mr Obama is now enthusiastically engaged in something that he foreswore as a candidate: the art of the permanent campaign. ... In other words, Mr Obama is squandering his political capital doing exactly what Mr Clinton did so often in his presidency: justifying his mistakes, trying to get the better of the 24-hour news cycle, and demonising opponents.
...
The result is a downward spiral: the more Mr Obama fails, the more he resorts to the permanent campaign, and the more he resorts to the permanent campaign, the more he becomes just like any other president.»
[Coming down to earth, Mar 26th 2009, The Economist]
[*] Citando Manuela Ferreira Leite a propósito da governação de José Sócrates, o que faz de Obama Barak uma espécie de Sócrates mais competente
Our Self: Um blogue desalinhado, desconforme, herético e heterodoxo. Em suma, fora do baralho e (im)pertinente.
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Pensamento em curso: «Em Portugal, a liberdade é muito difícil, sobretudo porque não temos liberais. Temos libertinos, demagogos ou ultramontanos de todas as cores, mas pessoas que compreendam a dimensão profunda da liberdade já reparei que há muito poucas.» (António Alçada Baptista, em carta a Marcelo Caetano)
The Second Coming: «The best lack all conviction, while the worst; Are full of passionate intensity» (W. B. Yeats)
Lema: A verdade é como o azeite, precisa de um pouco de vinagre.
Pensamento em curso: «Em Portugal, a liberdade é muito difícil, sobretudo porque não temos liberais. Temos libertinos, demagogos ou ultramontanos de todas as cores, mas pessoas que compreendam a dimensão profunda da liberdade já reparei que há muito poucas.» (António Alçada Baptista, em carta a Marcelo Caetano)
The Second Coming: «The best lack all conviction, while the worst; Are full of passionate intensity» (W. B. Yeats)
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