The Dems Try And Drag Obama Into The Auto Swamp

Franklin Roosevelt, despite overtures from Herbert Hoover, famously refused to engage the issues of the Great Depression until after his inauguration. Roosevelt reasoned, politically correctly, that the road to collaboration would brand him sooner than necessary with the incipient disaster. Barack Obama is doing the same but unfortunately he does not live in a simple age. The forces of the media are much stronger and are pushing him towards engagement.

The crisis du jour is the auto mess and his own party seems to be dragging, or at least trying to drag him into the middle of it. Yahoo! News, admittedly not the best source but certainly one that has been pro-Obama, has an article this evening that seems to hint at a bit of frustration over the fact that he is not more involved. The article is ambivalent at best but if you read between the lines, this appears to be an issue which the Obama camp wants to avoid at all costs. The worst possible outcome would be to push him towards a forcefull advocacy of a bailout to a couple of companies that eventually ended up in the bankruptcy courts.

I don't blame Obama for sitting this one out. He can't control the debate or the outcome so any action on his part is filled with nothing but downside. I do blame the press and some in his own party for trying to force him to jump into a fight in which they are trying to protect too many constituencies. Either the greens, unions or the Midwestern voters who put the Democrats and Obama over the top are going to have to be stiffed. Obama is right to let the lame ducks do the stiffing.

Tom Lindmark