Joan Walsh, Salon: Obama just doesn't get it [View All]

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Monday, Aug 30, 2010 14:50 ET

Joan Walsh

Obama just doesn't get it

Unemployment is a catastrophe, the recovery is stalling, but the president says his priority is "debt and deficits"

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/barack_obama/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/08/30/obama_debt_and_deficits



I have underestimated President Obama more than once, starting when he was candidate Obama. At a few points when his campaign seemed shaky – the Jeremiah Wright fiasco, the serial defeats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and more at the end of the primary season; the post-Palin surge after the GOP convention – he turned things around, becoming a tougher candidate better able to reassure voters he understood their anxieties about the country, and that he would fight for their future.

So I hope I'm wrong this time. But even after his Martha's Vineyard vacation, and what he described to NBC's Brian Williams Sunday as days of reading, thinking and relaxing, here's what Obama said were his priorities for doing his "job"for the rest of his term:

"I think the next couple of years, we've got to focus on debt and deficits. We've got to focus on making sure that we make the recovery stronger. And a lot of that is attracting private investment. Making sure that these companies who are making good profits are actually seeing the opportunities out there in a whole range of new areas and new ventures."

He mentions debt and deficits first, and emphasizes "private investment" as the way "to make the recovery stronger?" These disappointing remarks came the same day former Clinton economic advisor Laura Tyson declared with convincing detail, "Why we need a second stimulus" in a New York Times op-ed, while the paper's main editorial, "Waiting for Mr. Obama," sounded a similar alarm about the economy. Running down the list of truly terrible recent economic news – stubbornly high unemployment, weaker growth than projected, a surprising new drop in housing sales – the paper suggested: "If President Obama has a big economic initiative up his sleeve, as he hinted recently, now would be a good time to let the rest of us in on it."