Healy is the author of The Cult of the Presidency, which argues that that particular branch of the government has gained dangerous amounts of power and popularity. This book was written and published before the '08 elections, though it does have an afterword about Obama in later editions. Thus, it may not be entirely correct to attribute his beliefs to just another variant of the “Savior Obama” theme.
What is the actual danger for Obama here? If that’s too little of a question for you, feel free to apply opinions on Healy’s larger beliefs (as reflected in his book) to the current administration.
The article looks like typical right wing hyperbole about how the people who voted for Obama look at him as a messiah. That’s an accusation leveled by the Right, not the reality. Basically an example of Freudian projection, since that’s exactly how the Right looked at Reagan and Bush II; as literally God-anointed champions.
Wow, a libertarian economist expecting Obama to fail. What a shock!
He’s expanding the power of the presidency by taking over banks? The FDIC has done that since FDR, and Bush started it. yawn I’ve been reading about the dangerously increasing power of the presidency since Nixon. A Kingdom? Didn’t Reagan say we were a city on a hill? Obama used the excitement he caused during the campaign? What a dumb idea! It’s almost like he wanted to win or something.
When you’ve got a country in trouble, you need to take risks, and when you take risks someone is going to yell about the inevitability of failure. And especially from someone who supports the policies that got us into this mess. We’ll see what he says if by December unemployment has turned around (though still high) the Dow is at 12K, and leading indicators continue to improve. Then he’ll say inflation and health care costs will kill us all, now doubt.
That article is kind of a mess. It talks about the growth in power of the Presidency, but also that Obama won’t be powerful enough to meet his supporters expectations, and also that the federal gov’t in general is growing. It’s a bunch of semi-related ideas, some of which are close to being contradictory (Obama is too powerful, but also not powerful enough), and the article just sort of points them out and says they’re related. Maybe it made more sense but got edited down before it went to print.
Also, I wish the idea that legislators don’t have time to read the energy or health care bills before voting on them would die. The energy bill was introduced more then a month before it was passed (and a first draft of it was released before that) and the health bill still hasn’t passed. I’ll easily believe that legislators don’t read the bills, but it’s not because they don’t have time to do so.
Nobody ever really viewed Reagan and Bush as “Literal God-Anointed Champions” other than a handful of deluded Freepers…for you to claim so is disingenuous.
And there are certainly an equal number (a handful) of people that voted for Obama that believe the same (The Messiah), and will be bitterly disappointed when the reality of business as usual (which is the only bi-partisan rule) sets in.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, only he talks a more eloquent game. Big difference.
Sure, anything is possible, and Obama’s popularity is on a downwardstrajectory(1. expected, 2. inevitable given his original ratings). Most of Obama’s policies have yet to take effect, which could push the ratings either way but given the fact that vague plans sound better than concrete ones will probably decrease approval ratings. Carter and Bush were popular at this point in their presidencies, etc. Even so, I think “least popular” is unlikely. “Unpopular” is quite possible.
I think the only way he can really come out of the other end of this presidency stinking is if Afghanistan gets WAY worse (not totally unlikely, but I don’t know that it’s particularly likely, either.) Even if the economy continues to tank, at least half the country will eventually fall back to “the president doesn’t control the economy” and he’ll still look better than Bush.
Oh, please. The sentiment that both of them were Sent By God was a strong one ( and especially for Reagan still is ). Churches all over pushed their people to vote for Bush, and implied or outright said that not doing so was a sin. The religious nuts are not the Republican fringe; they are a major chunk of the Republican base.
As of today the Dow’s gone back up over 9,000, a 30 or so percent rise since the start of the year, and yet, somehow, the people who shouted back in January about how every slump in the S&P 500 was Obama’s fault are awfully quiet now. I guess they’re too busy bashing ObamaCare or wielding whatever the President-bashing club du jour is.
If the Dow is a reliable indicator that the economy is turning around, and the recession can be seen to be abating within the next year, I think he’ll be over a major hurdle.
If the recession is a memory by the end of his first term then his detractors will just have to accept that they’re going to have to eat shit. There will be no denying he’s done a bang-up job and no stopping his re-election.
For that matter, a lot of renowned economists will have to eat shit. I’m very interested to see how this plays out.
Having dated both a tree huggin hippy leftist chick and a Baptist, and being a betting man, I’d be prepared to wager the hippy chick throws a superior orgy.