How very concise and to the point: Althouse: How Obama lost me.. Of course, Obama lost me long before he was elected.   Nevertheless, like many conservatives, I was cautiously optimistic about the incoming president’s potential.

Despite worsening poll numbers and increasingly negative perceptions, it’s too early to write off this presidency as a single-term Carter-esque failure.  Anything can happen in the next 2+ years, and public opinion can change rapidly, even if that change isn’t sustained.  However, the rivets on the keel of ship Obama are popping off.  In what seems like a mea culpa Ms Althouse echoes one reader’s comments:

1. He did not understand economics, the most important issue.
2. He [never had] the ability to make the experience argument.
3. He never defined himself as a principled [liberal].
4. Erratic and incoherent, he lack[s] sufficient [courage].

Point number 2 is obvious. No need to discuss it here. That economics is the most important issue of the day needs no debate either.

It’s not that the president and his advisers did not understand economics – they don’t understand economics or else they would cease pushing for broad health care reform and mentioning a second stimulus package. Like many liberals, the president has surrounded himself with people who think they will be spared the deleterious effects of their policy prescriptions. Who in the White House has struggled to meet a payroll? Do any members of the senior staff have real market experience? As for health care, spare me the reasoning that he’s just trying to address our system’s inherent inequalities and make it more humane. Has any member of the president’s staff talked with a doctor in a hospital in a country with socialized medicine and been told that the hospital can’t afford the medicine needed for their loved one? I have. It’s not humane.

The economic failure of what has come to be called Porkulus, however, has a much to do with points number 3 and 4, which are interrelated. Liberal or conservative, principles give rise to courage, and thus to a coherent plan of action. The apparent ineffectiveness of the first stimulus package is a result of its lack of focus on creating jobs where they are most needed. A leader with principle, courage, and an understanding of economics would have ensured the expected returns were consistent with an investment that mortgages a multi-generational future, instead of working with Congress to pander to the perpetual cry-babies of the left.

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