Down the road that's paved with 'Magnificent Intentions'

George Will laments today that so far with the Obama administration, there is no "there" there.

Five months after enactment of TARP, a plan for unfreezing the credit system remains, like Atlantis, rumored but unseen. Twelve months after the government brokered the marriage of Bear Stearns and J.P. Morgan Chase, the government is recapitalizing financial institutions that the market has said should be shuttered. Lawrence H. White, economics professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, denies that financial institutions ever were "unregulated." Hitherto, such institutions were "regulated by profit and loss":

"The failure of Lehman Brothers and the near-failure of Merrill Lynch raised the interest rate at which profit-seeking lenders were willing to lend to highly leveraged investment banks. The market thereby forced Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to change their business models drastically and to convert to commercial banks. If that isn't effective regulation, what is? Protecting firms from failure (Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup) and mitigating their losses with bailouts renders this most appropriate form of regulation much less effective."

The president's confidence in his capacities is undermining confidence in his judgment. His way of correcting what he called the Bush administration's "misplaced priorities" has been to have no priorities. Mature political leaders know that to govern is to choose -- to choose what to do and thereby to choose what cannot be done. The administration insists that it really does have a single priority: Everything depends on fixing the economy. But it also says that everything depends on everything: Economic revival requires enactment of the entire liberal wish list of recent decades.

The implausibility of this opportunistic hypothesis is deepened by Obama's rhetoric, which says "catastrophe" impends unless everything is done simultaneously. But his budget, in effect, says the danger will soon be gone and the new risk will be whiplash from the economy's sudden acceleration. Although only a small fraction of the supposedly countercyclical stimulus will be spent by the end of the year, the budget assumes that by then the economy will have perked up, and that it will grow robustly -- 3.2 percent, 4 percent and 4.6 percent -- in the next three years. Growth supposedly will cut the deficit in half -- growth and the $1.6 trillion "saved" by first assuming, and then "canceling," a 10-year continuation of the surge in Iraq. Why, one wonders, not "save" $5 trillion by proposing to spend that amount to cover the moon with yogurt and then canceling the proposal?

The first president whose campaign was his qualification for office continues to campaign. And he is overexposed. His schedulers should remember what a contemporary said of Thomas Babington Macaulay, a prodigiously articulate but oppressively constant talker: "He has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful."

One afternoon last week, cable news viewers saw, at the top of their screens, the president launching yet another magnificent intention -- the disassembly and rearrangement of the 17 percent of the economy that is health care. The bottom of their screens showed the Dow plunging 281 points. Surely the top of the screen partially explained the bottom.

I, for one, would love to hear just a few "occasional flashes of silence" from Obama. He has already talked me nearly to death and so far all his words have added up to exactly -- nothing.

And speaking of all talk and no action, Ann Coulter gives us a math lesson this morning. Everybody knows Obama and the liberals are the champions of the poor and downtrodden and Bush and the conservatives are heartless, cold, rich, uncaring misers, right? Wrong again.

If liberals are going to show how in touch they are with normal Americans by demanding a Marxist revolution against the rich every time they control the government, how about taking a peek at the charitable giving of these champions of the little guy?

According to their tax returns, in 2006 and 2007, the Obamas gave 5.8 percent and 6.1 percent of their income to charity. I guess Michelle Obama has to draw the line someplace with all this "giving back" stuff. The Bidens gave 0.15 percent and 0.31 percent of the income to charity.

No wonder Obama doesn't see what the big fuss is over his decision to limit tax deductions for charitable giving. At least that part of Obama's tax plan won't affect his supporters.

Meanwhile, in 1991, 1992 and 1993, George W. Bush had incomes of $179,591, $212,313 and $610,772. His charitable contributions those years were $28,236, $31,914 and $31,292. During his presidency, Bush gave away more than 10 percent of his income each year.

For purposes of comparison, in 2005, Barack Obama made $1.7 million -- more than twice President Bush's 2005 income of $735,180 -- but they both gave about the same amount to charity.

That same year, the heartless Halliburton employee Vice President Dick Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity. The following year, in 2006, Bush gave more to charity than Obama on an income one-third smaller than Obama's. Maybe when Obama talks about "change" he's referring to his charitable contributions.

Liberals have no intention of actually parting with any of their own wealth or lifting a finger to help the poor. That's for other people to do with what's left of their incomes after the government has taken its increasingly large cut.

As the great liberal intellectual Bertrand Russell explained while scoffing at the idea that he would give his money to charity: "I'm afraid you've got it wrong. (We) are socialists. We don't pretend to be Christians."

And speaking of "change" guess which former President's policies are being tossed aside as President Obama busily enacts his agenda to change America into a socialist state? Hint, it's not President Bush, it's President Clinton. Really. Emmett Tyrell, who was Bill Clinton's fiercest critic during his White House years, is now extending the olive branch to that former President.

With all of this hurly-burly going on, I hope my new friend is not going to suffer the blues. In less than four years, his presidency is going to be looked back on fondly by Democrats and even by me. I think it is increasingly evident that Bill's Democratic successor is the most ill-prepared man to serve as president in a long time. My mind goes back to former President Abraham Lincoln's abrupt successor, Andrew Johnson. Mr. Obama's problems in staffing his government suggest as much, as does the low quality of many of his nominees, at least the nominees who were not dropped for tax irregularities or for being under grand jury investigation. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner looks and sounds like an undergraduate. His colleague Peter Orszag is hardly better. In the months ahead, we shall see what other duds the president has brought aboard.

His White House staff seems particularly inept. In a matter of days, led by our novice president, his staff got in a no-win row with Rush Limbaugh. Then the White House offended Prime Minister Gordon Brown with an amateurish reception that roused the ire of the British press and, I should think, the prime minister, too. The British press already was spreading rumors that Obama is anti-British because of his staff's unceremonious return of a Winston Churchill bust that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair sent to the White House on loan after 9/11.

So cheer up, Bill. Your legacy is going to look fine, save for that unmentionable run-in with … what was her name again? Already things are turning against the Prophet. Just the other day, Howard Fineman, writing on the Newsweek Web site, said, "The American establishment is taking (the president's) measure and, with surprising swiftness, they are finding him lacking." Bill, let's have a beer.

OK, let's take a break from Obama bashing and take a swipe at our Modern-Day Marie Antionette, Speaker of the House Nancy "Let 'em fly commercial" Pelosi.


And just to be "fair and balanced," have you heard the latest scandal about a Republican Congressman? Nathan Tabor reports U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana has been caught red-handing doing what few if any liberals in Congress would ever admit to doing publicly -- praying.

Congressman Mike Pence represents the 6th district of Indiana. In his speech to CPAC, he spoke of U.S. News & World Report calling to check out a rumor that he opened his staff meetings at the House Republic Conference with prayer.

“Only in Washington, D.C.,” Pence said, “is being caught in private prayer a newsworthy event.

“We told them, ‘Yes, the Congressman does open meetings in prayer. We pray for the President, for colleagues in both parties, and sometimes we even pray for the press!’

“The truth is that in times like these it is good to ‘remember what your knees are for.’”

Pence recalled how our founding fathers believed firmly in prayer. Prayer was also an important part of the administration of one of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln:

“At the height of a civil war and on the eve of a bloody battle on a field in Gettysburg, President Lincoln fell to his knees and prayed. Lincoln later recalled to a Union general, ‘I don't know how it was, and I cannot explain it, but soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His hands and that things would go right.’”

The fruit of prayer is service. Is it any wonder that Pence, a man of prayer, is also one of the most outspoken champions of the right to life? As Pence told CPAC, “We must stand for the sanctity of life. Ending an innocent human life is morally wrong.

It is also morally wrong to take the money of millions of pro-life Americans and use it to promote abortion at home and abroad.

“The largest abortion provider in America should not be the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X. The time has come to deny any and all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America,” Pence added.

As Americans, we are facing some of the greatest challenges in our nation’s history. We are fighting two wars abroad and economic ruin at home. Terrorists continue to harbor blood-thirsty hatred against us.

At times like these, we have no alternative but to place our trust in God. We must rely on Divine wisdom to guide us in the many difficult decisions that come our way. Our public officials should follow the lead of Congressman Pence, and start each day with an appeal to the Almighty. This is a country founded on God, and only in God can we prevail.

If we had a few more in Congress like Mike Pence, perhaps there would be hope for our nation.