The Irate Nation Est. 2001

“All Campaign Hacks”

From Dan Gerstein at Forbes, "All Campaign Hacks:" ...the Obama White House's biggest weakness: The president's top advisers are not just overly political, they are almost totally political. Indeed, this West Wing is stacked with "hacks"--campaign professionals who are acculturated to think, act and win in the hothouse environments of elections, not to govern a bitterly divided country in extremely difficult times.

The whole article is very good, esp. as it does something I wish the right-wing blogosphere would do more of: offer criteria for what would make better governance. One problem with going to conspiracy theory to attack the White House is that if the White House does something right, it can't be given any credit. As of this writing, it is hoped President Obama will do the right thing regarding Afghanistan - there is an example of stunning success in governance and accountability there, though not widespread. It is also hoped he will stop pandering to the most rabid portions of the Leftist base and stop making cap-and-trade and health care reform a priority, and instead do his job and keep us safe; show trials of terrorists captured during the Bush administration are PR gimmicks, not serious policy. I can't conceive of him lowering taxes or cutting spending, but it would be nice to see him back away from spending that dwarfs the Bush years. I know that last wish is actually realistic, far more realistic than you would expect given the ranting right and left that occurs nowadays. All that has to happen is for the President to realize that his fellow Democrats in Congress are a bunch of losers, and stop giving them blanket support for pork. A quick look at how they handled the tea parties, the health care debate and these past elections goes a long way to proving that.

Off-topic: from my blog - Does Power Corrupt?