Rookie mistakes. Exactly what people expected when they criticized Sen Obama as too inexperienced.

What has he run before? His campaign? That's tautological. He has no experience running anything.

While I certainly want him to succeed as President, I have no confidence that he will. He's in over his head.

Change? What a crock...

The US government is the only consumer of note left standing in this fair country of ours. If the stimulus bill fails, please could the last one to leave America turn off the lights?

i could forgive him if these mistakes didn't involve clinton retreads or long time demo cronies !

What gives? Obama has put out a plan but all the Republicans are doing is saying over and over it "is a spending plan not a stimulus plan" Well it may well be but I have yet to see a solid suggestion from a republican on TV, Fox, on the internet or a major newsmagazine. If they want me to be a conservative they better give a solid suggestion. Sure maybe condoms aren't going to make my veterinary business take off but what do the Republicans have in mind that will. Either give some solid factual suggestions or shut up and vote with the guy.
The republicans are just adding to the the negative feelings of the country which is probably their core program in hopes things will fail and they can win. Over my dead body!

Soon after the first Muslim president is sworn in, the only female Jew sitting on the SCOTUS mysteriously takes ill. A conspiracy is afoot.

Clearly, the Muslim fifth column in Washington is getting busy.

Many times before the election i told the same story,just another slick politician but with no experience.Just some more change we can believe in?

I have a completely different read. I think Obama is doing am impressive job so far, following through on campaign promises. He's ending torture, restoring respect for the Constitution, staffing national government, initiating peace negotiations in Gaza, addressing the Muslim world, generally sending out a clear and decisive shift in direction on many fronts. (By the way, Lady Be Good, please tell me you were joking and that you know Obama happens to be Christian.)

He's had some stumbles and has handled them with admirable directness and candor.

Yarrow -

I appreciate your point, but your examples are like Sen Obama's campaign promises --- empty rhetoric.

Do you have any specifics? "Ending torture, restoring respect for the Constitution, staffing national government, initiating peace negotiations in Gaza, addressing the Muslim world, generally sending out a clear and decisive shift?" There's no "change" there.

I absolutely do not believe that there is any more or less torture by the CIA now than there was one month ago. Guantanamo Bay is still open --- call me when it actually closes, not when a decision to close is announced.

Respect for the Constitution? What's that mean --- when a judge ignores the text or original meaning of the Constitution and applies his own views of justice? That's what Sen Obama said he wanted to see in Supreme Court justices. That doesn't sound like respect to me.

Secty of State Rice began the Gaza peace process. Remember that? Pres-Elect Obama was silent while the Israelis were killing hundreds of Palestinian women and children.

Staffing national government? You mean with Bill Richardson, tax dodgers Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle and Blago's crony Rahm Emanuel? You sure you want to give Pres Obama credit for that?

That reflects our Social Conditions.
On one hand we want to be Democratic with humanity and free human society.
On the other hand, the Capitalism want to rule the society like Master/Slaves, the Barbaric way, like we suffered for the last eight years.
May be the Biblical Christianity, like historically spread Slaver all over the world, plays a dominant role, but not true Jesus Christ fellow-ship of Human Freedom, Equality, Human Dignity and Human Freedom.

I missed something. I could have sworn that in an earlier column Ted commented that the New Deal was indeed "working" and that contrary to conventional wisdom, the country was finding its way out of the Depression before WWII. Oh yes, that wasn't Ted. That was Paul Krugman. My opinion, as I've said before, is that the Dust Bowl was a major factor prolonging the Depression. Slower and more devastating in the long run, global warming is our Dust Bowl and stimulus money might - MIGHT - help us survive. Yet the starve-the-beast Republicans simply don't believe global warming is real or at best if it does, it has nothing to do with human activity and cannot be stopped or slowed no matter what we do. Ironically, these ostriches are citing the ice storms in Kentucky and the record snows in the Northwest as evidence that global warming is a myth. They haven't read, or don't understand, what the scientists have written: the first major symptom we'll see as a result of global warming will be major upheavals in normal weather patterns - more violent and both colder and hotter - as wind patterns and ocean currents are disrupted. Back to the stimulus package: for the planet and for the economy, we better hope President Obama succeeds in getting large amounts of money into the pipeline.

Since hope is not my drug of choice, I cannot be disappointed. Yes, Clinton retreads, the same guys who created the forty trillion dollars toxicities that have ruined the whole world's economy are now supposed to detoxify? First of all for their own ruling class. Coming next week the second big bail out for them, courtesy of Mr. Geithner who let Lehman fail while protecting the ass of Goldmann Sachs.
No new ideas on A'stan. A community organizer is not the one to take real charge. I can't live from a better rhetoric. The real changes are all very minor, but it is not enough to be thankful for small changes. Remember the emperor Septimus Severus I say!

I really liked this piece, Ted. Lots of smart analysis and your background at the highest levels of government really give it the ring of reality. I agree with your major conclusions and appreciate your writing.

Appreciate, as always, the comments of Arizonan and others. Some of the comments reflect the problem Obama now faces. Our economic house is on fire. Immediate, focused action is needed to put out the fire. If Obama succeeds in that effort, the American people will be grateful and inclined to support his other proposals---including those for action on climate change and other issues.

But Obama's present and future agendas will be crippled if a short-term stimulus package is loaded up with long-term spending proposals which do little to help the economy in 2009 and 2010. Serious measures are needed now to alleviate a serious situation.

To use the fire analogy again: We need, right now, a powerful, directed
stream of water applied to a house on fire...not a broader spray of water directed not only to the house but to the yard, out-buildings, and alley beyond.

Arizonan: Sure, spend money like a drunken sailor, on every pork barrel project Congress can come up with, that's the answer -- what dramatic "change". But as Speaker Pelosi warned in front of the TV cameras yesterday, unless that package is passed, "500 million Americans" will lose their jobs. New math? Perhaps an honest mistake? If that had been said by someone on the other side of the aisle, the majority of the media would be roasting her big time. But that wouldn't be PC, would it.

Hold on, richardinSeattle. As I recall the big discussion at the end of the Clinton years was what to do with a close to a $600 billion surplus. Eight years later after the Constitution was trashed, seasoned bureaucrats replaced with doctrinaire Bush loyalists with pudding for brains, and our regulatory systems trashed or ignored, we now find ourselves in the biggest economic mess since the 1930s. Wake up, Richard. Unless you are a multimillionaire yourself, you're betting on the wrong horse. And, of course, you've never misspoken yourself. I can only assume you do very little public speaking.

Mr. Van Dyk,

Why don't you spend an equal amount of time and verbiage critiquing the hostile partisan environment President Obama finds himself in? Some of us (perhaps naively) expected that the GOP's trouncing would lead to real bipartisan cooperation.

What we see instead, in spite of Obama's reaching out and being helped by only a handful of Republican moderates, is the minority's cynical and disingenuous efforts to derail the stimulus plan and not improve it. It seems that they are following the Limbaugh script "I hope he fails", and are clearly betting the ranch on that, at the risk of bringing down public confidence and the economy even further. So they might be able to say before the 2010 election: "if you would have only listened to us and not all those ivory-tower Democrat economists people would have jobs."

You need to specifically mention Sen. McCain, who some of us thought might play a major role in mediating across the partisan divide. Instead he's pushing a stimulus package at half the amount that most experts think is necessary. And he exposed his true motives when he disparaged the plan to ramp up weatherization programs, which is an example of quick job creation and long-term national benefits (lower energy costs and less oil dependency). When challenged by CBS News anchor Katie Couric to justify his position on this one small piece of the stimulus package, all he could come up with was: "I do not believe that you can stimulate the economy and create jobs with programs like these. So, I have criticized these programs, which are there, and proposals which do not have an immediate effect on our economy to create jobs."

Perhaps he (and you) should check with Seattle City Light and find out what their estimate is of the number of homes and owners who would benefit from an energy audit, weatherization, and more efficient energy-consuming systems. And he might ask them if they are geared up to deliver the services, if Home Depot has adequate supplies, and if small contractors are ready to do the work.

You seem to be an expert in what really will jump-start the economy. And you say it should include "immediate business and personal tax cuts." This is the Republican mantra. This in spite of evidence and estimates that much of the tax cuts will go into savings and paying down debt, and not into purchases of goods and services. Where is your evidence to the contrary?

So how about ending the sniping and instead doing some balanced news analysis and reporting on this #1 issue?

I believe that Mr Van Dyk's piece is thoughtful and on point. I say that as somebody who regularly disagrees with him.

DN's post is naive and itself partisan. I think that Pres Obama has been, generally, bipartisan, and has reached across the aisle to get Republican suppport. I admire that.

It is the House and Senate Democrats who have been astonishingly partisan, particularly in view of the President's actions. Pelosi refused, REFUSED, to accept any Republican input re the stimulus package. Didn't even let the House Republicans see a draft of the bill before it was introduced. Reid said that he was going to do what he wanted, regardless of what the President said.

Perhaps these actions are being justified by saying that it is no worse than the Republicans did from 2002-2006. OK. So how does that benefit the American people? Is that the kind of "change" that then-Sen Obama promised?

I don't see any problem with the underlying policies and approach to government and the economy. So I'm willing to give a presidency that isn't even a month old a fair bit of slack on its superficial "communication problems." I think most people willing to give a fair bit of slack. I think it's disingenuous to confuse the communication problems with the underlying approach. After all, the TARP disaster was pushed through without careful thinking by an allegedly experienced eight-year-old administration. I rather prefer President Obama's frankness, and he has admitted goof-ups so far. That's super refreshing.

Tax cuts, incidentally, are a form of spending (the stimulus package's tax cut add-ons are responsible for $100 billion of its current cost). The difference between government spending on capital projects and tax cuts is that tax cuts don't efficiently stimulate an economy: they go into savings accounts and sit there, or they pay down existing debt. That's not stimulus. I'm not saying I wouldn't like a tax cut, but I'm not naive enough to think that millions of people having an extra $500 to pay a credit card statement or stick in a savings account will stimulate the economy. Businesses do the same with their tax cuts: you don't really think that Starbucks or Boeing will rehire 1,000 people because it's getting a (temporary) tax cut, do you? Businesses don't work that way, and no MBA worth her mettle would plan so myopically.

If I had to choose between $100 billion in tax cuts and $100 billion in capital projects funding as a way to efficiently *stimulate* the economy, I--and most economists--choose the latter. It is true that increasing personal savings and reducing excessive and irresponsible credit remains a critical long-term societal goal, I don't see the tax cuts that would bring that about as being anywhere near the focus of what needs doing right now.

dn: What I am doing is providing balanced analysis but you apparently cannot recognize it. There is plenty of criticism due on all sides
on the stimulus issue. But my piece dealt with Obama and his early troubles. McCain's proposal was defeated and had no chance in the first place.

I am a lifelong Democrat who has served in Democratic administrations and national campaigns. But I recognize that Republicans, right now, are not just blindly opposing the stimulus package on some partisan basis. They have legitimate concerns about the package. Moderate GOP Senators are working, right now, with concerned Democrats to try to produce positive legislation.

Any economist or experienced public-policy person, of any political persuasion, will tell you that business and personal tax cuts must be part of any jump-start of the economy...debate will be about the types of cuts and their proportion of the overall plan. Tax cuts create fewer immediate jobs than spending projects but they create them far sooner. The infrastructure and other spending in the present plan are estimated to create few jobs until the end of 2010.

Important to get past partisanship and sloganeering on this vital issue.
The question: What is the quickest and most effective way to pull the economy out of the ditch?

A typo in my comment, above. I say that "tax cuts create fewer immediate jobs than spending projects." I meant to say "tax cuts create fewer jobs than spending projects." The major point is that tax cuts create an immediate jolt whereas it takes public-works and other programs a long time to generate jobs. We need both.

Mr. Van Dyk,

I withdraw all of my nasty aspersions, and defer to Paul Krugman. His article (On the Edge) in today's NYT nails the Republican's machinations on the stimulus plan much better than I did. But I do appreciate that a Nobel winning economist reaches the same conclusion regarding their hypocrisy and the danger it poses to the world economy.

Krugman is a vicious partisan. Of course he is supporting the fiscal stimulus package, and using his typical intellectually dishonest arguments. He cites Fisher to make a point, but Fisher would be appalled by what is proposed. He cites "most economic forecasts" and "many economists" without specifics or even acknowledging that there is a counter argument. Even the Congressional Budget Office determined that the short-term effect of the House plan would be minimal.

And don't give the Nobel prize too much weight - it was for Krugman's work in other areas of microeconomics (as opposed to the macroeconomics on which he writes here). I can trot out Gary Becker's Nobel, which was on point --- and Becker is adamantly opposed to this plan.

PJS: Rice's attempts to negotiate a truce in Gaza were undercut by Bush. I think the new administration stands a much better chance of doing some good there. And you can dismiss everything Obama says as empty rhetoric, but I think stating an intention of closing Gitmo is meaningful and substantive. I think that even with the problems with a few appointees, the professionalism of Obama's appointments is one or two orders of magnitude greater than Bush's appointees. I'd rather call an Obama FEMA in the next earthquake than a Bush FEMA. Other moves Obama has made include his ethics requirements for staff--a dramatic and pragmatic move--and his instructing his agencies to comply with, not resist, the Freedom of Information Act. Et cetera, et cetera. If you really think nothing Obama has done so far counts, well, we disagree very much.

Ted--

This is good stuff. Great analysis. A poll today indicates the public is still with Obama so maybe people get the joke. Every president makes mistakes but can they learn from them and can they ultimately meet the challenges they face? There is no blue print for this job.

Having a voice like yours in our community is a real gift. Keep it up.

Earth to The Press: Obama is merely human.

Obama was elected president not king. Why blame him for the behavior of congressional and senate troglodytes - they all won their elections too and have their own motives for digging in for what they want.

And why blame Obama for the failure of Daschle to come clean during the vetting about his untaxed driver?

Obama has to make >1,500 appointments; how can one seriously argue that a few that don't work out constitute a shaky beginning?

And the author of this article endorsed the republican candidate for governor!! Why should we take him seriously?

Many useful and informed comments in this dialogue. Thanx to Ammons and Mikos for their compliments.

One point should be made: We are in the midst of the most serious financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. It is not a time for careless, business-as-usual politics or bloggery.

I urge some of the commenters regarding my article to please devote some time to informing themselves about the various tax, spending and other options on the table in the still-evolving economic stimulus package.
Forget personalities. Try to consider the measures which would best lift the country out of economic distress.

Same for the upcoming Financial Rescue Package Two, to be publicly released in the next few days. How will its provisions help or hinder
financial recovery? Study the proposals; think them through. If you feel you lack sufficient knowledge to do that, do a range of readings to help you with background.

We have the same problem at state and local level, where big and expensive public decisions often are made without any real understanding of their
consequences by complacent voters.

I am not singling out Breneman and Ragtop. They only happened to be the last two comments in this sequence. But Breneman: of course Obama is merely human. That is true of all of us. I strongly support him. But, in this crisis, we should understand how his early decisions and appointments evolved. Ragtop indicates Obama is not to blame for Daschle's failure to come clean about his income/taxes. Of course a President is to blame if his staff fails to carefully vet the backgrounds and qualifications of Cabinet and sub-Cabinet appointees. No appointment, in fact, should be announced until vetting has been satisfactorily completed. It is not just Daschle, as I pointed out, but Richardson as well who have been dropped from the Cabinet. Geithner would also have been dropped, were the financial crisis not so deep that Senators were willing to overlook his tax problems in order to keep him at Treasury.

I mentioned earlier Obama's having to drop Johnson as chair of his VP-search committee. It was clear that he knew little of his background.
I cited the Sims appointment as being completely inappropriate. Sims certainly is qualified for a federal appointment, but not as the principal
management officer of a huge department traditionally plagued by scandal.
Management has been his weak suit as King County executive.

These are serious times requiring serious leadership. As I stated,
I have faith that Obama will be successful over the longer term. But, in the short term, we need public decisions which are beyond partisanship and based on sound financial/economic principles. Let us spend our time considering what those decisions ought to be.

If you're going to blame Obama for not vetting every aspect of every job seeker's life, why not at least acknowledge that Richardson, Daschle and perhaps others too actively concealed relevant facts about their background from the transition team? And then explain how you, a veteran of national government, would have done it differently in their cases? Otherwise, one comes off as potshot-taking crank who professes the old days to have been better.

Ragtop: It is normal procedure, when any administration is formed, to be sure that vetting has been thorough and complete before any announcements have been made. Bill Clinton had the same experience in 1992 as he prematurely announced two AG candidates who then had to be withdrawn.
Has nothing to do with the old days. It has to do with professionalism.
The same procedure is quite normal in naming of corporate, sports-team, labor-union, academic and other executives: Don't announce appointments until everything is nailed down.

Perhaps Daschle, Richardson, Geithner, et. al. did not readily volunteer their problems. But they later became apparent, both to Obama and to
Senators considering their confirmation, with ensuing and needless embarrassment to the new President. It was the W.H. staff's job to review the documents thoroughly and to press the prospective nominees hard regarding any apparent problems---such as obvious ones involving non-payment of taxes. Richardson's problem also was apparent. The ethics investigation which triggered his withdrawal had been ongoing for a long time, and in the daily newspapers, in N.M.

Would prefer that you address the issues involved and not throw personal insults. I am not a "potshot-taking crank" and I would like to think you are not the uninformed fool your comments suggest that you are.

Why so many stumbles for Obama? I would encourage everyone to look back at the first 100 days of Bush and Clinton both. Both nominated some poor choices that were vetoed. The big difference here is THESE nominees have some honest experience in the areas they are being nominated for, and in the hyper aware and partisan climate, transgressions are focused on that would have been considered positive accolades under the last administration.

Far more honest vetting. Far LESS bending of rules, even at the loss of good people. Something WE demanded as voters. I am willing to give the man a few more days. Inexperience? Please... Anyone remember the man who could not run a horse club who was the head of FEMA? THAT was CONFIRMED in the last administration. Nice work Brownie?

I can give this president some slack. He is doing fine, and working hard. The last administration set a record for vacation time, and a record for investigations and corruption. I would rather have a few rejections now than what we got last time round.

Prior to Bush, this country has NEVER fought a war and simultaneously gave tax CUTS. That’s how you go Trillions in the RED. To those who think FDR's recovery was overstated, please take up your arguments with the GAO, and the vast majority of economic experts.

From a submission at Daily Kos: (with full color graph using US Chamber of Commerce numbers!)

" ...From the moment FDR began to enact the programs of the New Deal, the economy began its recovery. After four years of steady declines, Roosevelt's programs brought on an immediate improvement in the national fortune. Within three years, the national GDP exceeded the level in 1929. By the time the bombs fell at Pearl Harbor, the GDP had been up every year but one since 1933, and that one downward tick in 1937 marks the exact point at which budget hawks forced cuts in the New Deal programs."

"That's the story the numbers tell. The New Deal worked, worked well, and worked quickly. These days, we define recessions as two consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product. By that measure, when did the Great Depression end? One quarter after Roosevelt took office, that's when."

"Yes, it took years to repair the damage of the anything goes marketers, but the recovery started the moment the New Deal started..."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/9/01244/95631/561/695061

The difference with Obama is that the press has so much invested in his success that they don't know how to handle his mistakes. "Uh, wait - This isn't supposed to be happening here" seems to be the response. The honeymoon will certainly end eventually, but underneath all the hype, he's a politician. He's going to reward cronies. He's going to try to get away with dubious dealings. He's going to want to punish those he defines as adversaries. Every time a member of the press starts to write an article about this president, he should pause and ask himself "Is this the way I'd cover the same story in the Bush administration?" If he can honestly answer that question in the affirmative, he'll be doing the country a service. If he can't, he's just another groupie.

The slobbering over Obama will not cease in the press. What we see is the bustle of various journalists trying to get a little more towards the endless line of people willing to personally fellate the President.

Vanderleun -

Are you writing metaphorically, or do you know something that the rest of us do not? Something Clintonesque, perhaps?

;-)