Barrel Strength

The reality is slowly starting to dawn even among the Obama-nuts like Time magazine which opines on how Obama has become “Mr. Unpopular”.  This is a far cry from articles which proclaimed “Barack Obama’s surprisingly non-ideological policy shop” when examining his economic policies as well as comparing him to FDR, Lincoln and Kennedy.

A forthcoming book by administration’s former car czar should shed more light on this topic.  One of the things that others have noted is that in previous administration the policy makers have been on the inside and pollsters on the outside.  Obama has inverted that structure but that shouldn’t be surprised because when Obama supporters, like the resident commenter Oban, were asked about his executive experience the only thing they were capable of pointing to was his experience in running his campaign.  If that is the sum of your experience then that is all you are going to do going forward.

Some of the points noted by Rattner, the car czar include these.

• When Obama was told of the plan to pay GM CEO Rick Wagoner a $7.1 million severance package after Obama ordered that he be sacked, Rattner writes: “Suddenly I felt that I was indeed in the presence of a community organizer…”
• Rattner describes presidential political adviser David Axelrod coming to car
  meetings armed with poll data to support the takeover and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel identify Congressmen in whose districts large Chrysler facilities were located.
• “[Obama's economic team] veered dangerously close to having the government take control of the two most troubled banks, Bank of America and Citigroup.”
• Rattner said Obama was frustrated with the auto companies from the start: “Why can’t they make a Corolla?” he has Obama asking.