Karl Rove

Obama's 'Come Home America' Speech

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0500

At times Tuesday night, it sounded as if President Barack Obama didn't know what kind of speech he wanted to give. Was it a foreign policy address aimed at assuring a world-wide audience of America's resolve in the war against militant Islam? Or was it an election stump speech to confirm to voters that the economy is job No. 1 for this president and his party?

The speech's best moments were those praising the commitment, courage and sacrifice of America's military. The president powerfully said that "our troops are the steel in our ship of state," and all who serve join "an unbroken line of heroes that stretches from Lexington to Gettysburg; from Iwo Jima to Inchon; from Khe Sanh to Kandahar."

For someone who had been such a vocal war opponent, he was generous in acknowledging what our troops accomplished—defeating "a regime that had terrorized its people" and helping "Iraq seize the chance for a better future." Because of our troops, he said, "Iraq has the opportunity to embrace a new destiny, even though many challenges remain."

As a foreign policy address, however, the speech missed the mark. While Mr. Obama did acknowledge that the U.S. "intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership" in the world, most foreign observers will probably remember the president's tone of haste, withdrawal and even retreat. His phrase, "It is time to turn the page," caught many an ear around the world—and not to America's advantage.

Mr. Obama's was not the confident voice of Harry S. Truman promising to protect Europe and Japan against "outright aggression and . . . the threat of further armed attack." Nor did the president sound like the determined Dwight Eisenhower explaining America's commitment to South Korea's transition to democracy after the Korean War by saying, "We may not now relax our guard nor cease our quest."

Instead, Mr. Obama's address was more reminiscent of Sen. George McGovern's plea in the 1972 presidential campaign to "Come home, America." It sounded like he couldn't head for the Iraq exit door quickly enough.

Imagine if after World War II, America had left Europe in the face of the aggressive Soviet threat. What would Asia look like now if, following the Korean War, the U.S. had set a quick date for withdrawal from the peninsula?

As much as he may wish, Mr. Obama cannot ignore Iraq or withdraw prematurely from Afghanistan. He has ownership of both wars; it's part of his job description. He will share in the wars' success or be blamed if they are lost. And he will have a better chance of succeeding if our friends and enemies sense resolve, rather than weariness.

The world needs a determined United States. It is in the security, diplomatic and economic interests of our nation to provide to Iraq and Afghanistan the same patient leadership we provided in Europe and Asia. We face new threats from Iran. China and Russia are both flexing their muscles. Telegraphing to the world that America is no longer a dependable ally is the worst possible message a president can send.

Tuesday might have been better spent visiting not just Fort Bliss but other military installations as well to honor all the services. Then Mr. Obama could have given an Oval Office address when the new Iraqi government is formed, pairing progress on security with political success.

Mr. Obama suggested that a trillion dollars had been squandered to no good purpose in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade. Are removing murderous regimes that were threats to peace and stability, catalyzing change in the Arab Middle East by expanding democracy, dealing a brutal blow to al Qaeda, protecting the American homeland, and diminishing the threat of transnational terrorism really of so little value to the president?

Speaking of trillions, have we prospered because of the trillion dollars Mr. Obama is spending on stimulus? Are we more confident of our country's future because Mr. Obama will lay out two-and-a-half trillion dollars in ObamaCare's first decade of operation? Do back-to-back-to-back deficits under this president—each of more than a trillion dollars—give us comfort about his fiscal leadership?

All issues pale compared to the question of U.S. leadership. America can either shape the world's agenda, or wait for direction from international organizations.

Suggesting that only by withdrawing from the world can a president "jump-start industries," reform education, and make "tough decisions" about issues at home leaves the impression that Mr. Obama has little interest in being commander in chief, that his real passion is domestic issues and his goal to mold America into a European-style social democracy.

Presidents can simultaneously pursue international and domestic agendas. In dangerous times, it is vital that the president use America's power to shape the world.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, September 1, 2010.

Honey, I Shrunk My Approval Ratings

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In what will rank as one of the all-time presidential PR disasters, we're now well over half way through what the White House called "the summer of recovery." And what a recovery it's been.

Earlier this month, first-time claims for unemployment hit a nine-month high. The unemployment rate remains at 9.5% and 18.4% of workers are out of a job, can only get part-time work, or have given up looking for a job altogether. Sales of existing homes dropped 27% from June to July, hitting the lowest point since data were first collected in 1999. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 50.4 in July, continuing a slide that started in February. And the stock market is down 11% from its peak in April.

All of this has helped shatter public confidence in the president. In early May, Mr. Obama's approval on the economy in the YouGov/Polimetrix poll was 42%. By mid-August, it was 35%—a frightening number for Democrats less than 70 days from a midterm election. According to this week's Reuters poll, 72% are "very" worried about jobs and 67% "very concerned" about government spending.

Mr. Obama's credibility is crumbling, and for good reason: He and his people are saying things people don't believe. At the start of his summer of recovery road show, the president flatly asserted that last year's massive stimulus package had "worked." Vice President Joe Biden, not to be outdone, promised monthly job gains of up to 500,000 and insisted that the recovery's pace "continues to increase, not decrease" as stimulus spending was "moving into its highest gear."

It's slightly surreal. "Who are you going to believe," as Groucho Marx once said, "me or your own eyes?"

The administration's claims have collided with reality in other instances as well. Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer—speaking before the 2009 stimulus was approved—said unemployment would top out at 8% by the third quarter of 2009 and decline to less than 7% by the end of 2010. Even the White House now admits that the unemployment rate will stay at or above 9% through 2011.

The White House also frequently asserts that "between 2.3 million and 2.8 million jobs were either saved or created" by the $620 billion in stimulus money spent by June. Set aside the absurdity of the administration inventing the "saved" category and then pretending it can ascertain, with scientific precision, the number of jobs that have been "saved." Since the stimulus passed, 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs and 1.2 million people have given up even looking for work.

Mr. Obama and his people also mischaracterize where most stimulus dollars go. Their constant prattle about "shovel ready projects" is an attempt to leave the impression that most goes to bricks and mortar. Not true: Only 3.3% of the $814 billion stimulus went to the Federal Highway Administration for highway and bridge projects.

The administration's misleading statements and obfuscations aren't limited to the economy. On health care, for example, Mr. Obama continues saying that (a) health-care reform will reduce costs and the deficit, (b) no one who wants to keep existing coverage will lose it, and (c) the law's cuts in Medicare won't threaten any senior's health care. These assertions are laughable.

The president's habit of exaggeration and misstatement has infected other Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, routinely talks about how the recently passed "Stimulus II" spending bill protected the jobs of police and firemen.

But it didn't.

Stimulus II consisted of two parts: $10 billion for education and $16 billion for Medicaid. States can't spend Medicaid money for anything but Medicaid, and they can only spend the education money on education, i.e., they can't shuffle state funds around. Language allowing Stimulus II dollars to pay for police and firemen didn't make it out of the Senate. Yet Democratic leaders persist in saying that their latest stimulus has helped keep police and firefighters on the job. The claim is flatly untrue.

By overselling the stimulus before its passage in 2009 and exaggerating its benefits with layer upon layer of slippery half-truths in 2010, Mr. Obama has made voters angrier. This is not America's summer of recovery; it is a summer of economic discontent that will ensure that Democrats take a pounding in the midterm elections.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, August 25, 2010.

Deconstructing Harry Reid

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can say the darndest things. He certainly did last week when he proclaimed: "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican." That must have thrilled his son, Rory, who's trailing a Hispanic Republican, Judge Brian Sandoval, in the Nevada governor's race by 16 points in the most recent Mason-Dixon poll.

Mr. Reid can also do inexplicable things, such as tentatively schedule a floor debate in September on extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that expire on Jan. 1.

There are many ways this debate can hurt Democrats in November's election, such as deepening their image as tax-and-spend liberals. There are only a few ways it could help, such as if they agreed with Republicans to keep the Bush tax cuts in place. Rightly sensing trouble and trying to protect vulnerable House Democrats from yet another unpopular vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that her chamber would take up the issue only if the Senate passed a bill first.

That's unlikely. At least three Senate Democrats support renewing the Bush-era tax cuts: Sens. Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad and Ben Nelson. This puts Mr. Reid at least four votes short of gaining cloture on any tax increase he'd pursue.

By arguing that now is not the time to raise taxes, Messrs. Bayh, Conrad and Nelson may be out of step with their Democratic colleagues and the White House, but not with the American people. The Aug. 5-9 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reported 71% of Americans favor extending the tax cuts for at least a year, while only 24% said permanently eliminating all the tax cuts was acceptable.

The Wall Street Journal's recent survey of 53 economists also found that only three supported allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire, while 32 favored keeping them. Eleven backed President Barack Obama's position of continuing them for individuals making less than $200,000 a year or families making less than $250,000.

Mr. Reid will not only face opposition inside the Democratic caucus from his right. Liberal senators might follow the lead of Iowa's Tom Harkin, who wants to preserve tax cuts only to those earning $150,000 or less.

Mr. Reid also has the problem that God so loves middle-class taxpayers that he created a lot of them. Individual filers who make $200,000 or less and families who earn $250,000 or less received the lion's share of the Bush-era tax cuts. The "cost" (to the government) of keeping tax cuts in place for them would be $1.29 trillion over the next 10 years.

Yet Mr. Reid, Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats have vowed to "pay" for any tax cuts with offsetting tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere—a policy called pay-go. Abandoning pay-go on some tax cuts now will make it hard for Democrats to resurrect it later. But raising taxes and cutting spending will gore a lot of oxen weeks before the midterms, driving everyone who faces a tax hike to vote Republican in order to keep House Democrats from passing any Senate bill.

The GOP will seize this opportunity to argue that the country should not absorb history's largest tax increase as the economy is struggling to get airspeed and altitude. In a June Rasmussen poll, Republicans already enjoyed a 52-to-36 lead on the question of which party can be trusted on taxes. A September tax debate will only strengthen the GOP's standing.

With tiresome predictability, Senate Democrats will attack GOP colleagues for protecting tax cuts for the rich. But Republicans have a very strong small business card to play. Raising the top income tax rates would increase taxes on small businesses that report profits as individuals. Higher income tax rates would raise taxes on 54% of Subchapter S small companies, 33% of sole proprietorships, and half of all small business income. Affected firms employ a quarter of all small business workers.

Small business owners are already jazzed about this year's elections. An assault on them in September will only increase their agitation, making it more likely they share their concerns with employees, suppliers and customers.

Democrats are in a terrible bind. Having pursued policies that have made our fiscal situation unsustainable, they are now reverting to old habits, trying to raise taxes to pay for their profligacy.

Mr. Reid is drawing attention to some of his party's very worst impressions. Already facing the prospect of huge election losses in November, many Democratic candidates may find themselves victims of their majority leader's extraordinarily bad judgment if he follows through on his decision to schedule a tax debate next month.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, August 18, 2010.

The Blame Bush Strategy Won't Work

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

To save themselves in the midterm elections, Democrats are counting on selling two themes: The state of the economy is all George W. Bush's fault, and Republican policies will take us backwards. President Obama relished going to Texas this week to blame his predecessor for the current bad economy.

Nice try, but it won't work. Don't take my word. This is what Mr. Obama's pollster, Joel Beneson, has found. The Benenson Strategy Group wasn't exactly quite this blunt in its report for the "Third Way," a centrist Democratic organization. But its data was.

In its poll released in July, Benenson asked, "Generally speaking, who is more responsible for the recent economic recession—President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush?" The answer was Mr. Bush 53%, Mr. Obama 26%, and "Don't know" 21%.

But answers to important issues like who's responsible for the recession are rarely binary. Buried in the "Third Way" data was a different answer that went unmentioned in its covering memo. The question of who's responsible for the recession was asked a second way, with more possible culprits.

Here the biggest blame for the recession went to "big banks and Wall Street" (34%), followed by "American consumers who lived beyond their means" (24%). Thirteen percent blamed Mr. Obama, 20% blamed Mr. Bush, and 9% were still in the "don't know category." Put another way, at least 80% didn't blame Mr. Bush, as Mr. Obama obsessively does.

More importantly, Americans simply won't fall for Mr. Obama's claim that if empowered, congressional Republicans would only return to "policies that crashed the economy . . . undercut the middle class . . . [and] mortgaged our future."

Here Mr. Obama's polling firm is more direct, warning "two-thirds of Americans now see congressional Republicans and their economic ideas as new." It's hard to argue with widely held impressions like this, especially with 81 days left until Election Day.

In this fall's contest, the GOP has a strong hold on the banner of change. Republican candidates can strengthen that claim by emphasizing a positive agenda of reform, fiscal restraint and economic growth while beating up Democrats for their miserable two-years of economic stewardship.

Mr. Obama and the Democrats are in a pickle because Americans don't like what they've done. This was brought into sharp relief this week in a poll of likely voters in 13 states with hot U.S. Senate races.

The poll was sponsored by American Crossroads, a political group involved in the midterm election that I support. Democrats now hold eight of these Senate seats while Republicans hold five. (The poll can be found at the website of American Crossroads.)

By a 61%-33% margin, voters in these battlegrounds believe America is on the wrong track. Republicans lead on the generic ballot in these Senate races by 47% to the Democrats' 39%.

The poll also tested each side's arguments, offering a choice between what Democrats and Republicans are saying about the economy, health care, financial regulation and the country's future. Republicans win all four arguments by margins of five to eight points.

If this holds up (as I believe it will) and if GOP candidates have adequate resources to make their arguments (this remains unclear), Republicans have an outside chance of taking control of the Senate. They need 10 more seats; since World War II, the average number of Senate seats the out-party has gained in an administration's first midterm election is three.

For Mr. Obama and his party, all the escape hatches are shutting at the same time. Blaming Bush and harping on the GOP's driving abilities is not a good strategy, but it may be the best Mr. Obama and his beleaguered party have.

Democrats can't sell themselves as "the results party," as Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine proclaimed in April. Nor do they have an attractive or popular policy agenda moving forward. Mr. Obama's fixation with blaming his predecessor has badly weakened him. Constantly engaging in the blame game makes the president look enfeebled and whiny rather than sturdy and confident. One of any president's most important possessions is his reputation for strong leadership.

Democrats are likely to lurch from one approach to another. Candidates on the ropes often do. At this stage, though, it doesn't much matter what they decide on. The narrative for this election is firmly in place.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, August 11, 2010.

Will the GOP Storm the Statehouses?

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0500

It must have been gloomy for Democrats when the nation's governors met last month in Boston for their annual summer get-together. The reason: If congressional races look bad for Democrats, the 37 gubernatorial contests are even worse.

A quick survey of the political landscape shows six of the seven Democratic governors running for re-election are polling under 50% and in danger of losing, while all six GOP incumbents seeking re-election are expected to win. In the 24 open gubernatorial contests, Republicans lead in 15 and are tied in three others.

More than half of Americans are likely to have a new chief executive for their state come November. Democrats are burdened by President Barack Obama's low approval ratings and, in some open races, by widespread public dissatisfaction with the state's retiring Democratic incumbent.

That's not to say the GOP has had all smooth sailing. In Colorado, plagiarism charges have crippled Republican frontrunner Scott McInnis. Less dangerously, Florida Republicans are locked in a bitter primary. But these are the exceptions.

The GOP's edge in statehouse contests could have major ramifications for a long time to come, including next year's redistricting of the House of Representatives. The more GOP governors, the stronger Republican dominance of the process will be. Eighteen of the 21 states that could add or lose congressional seats have governors' races this fall. There also will be a lot more Republican legislators after November to help draw redistricting lines for the coming decade.

Republicans are poised to elect a new generation of leaders. After this fall's election, the GOP could have two Indian-American, two Hispanic, and as many as seven women governors. This would provide powerful evidence of the GOP's diversity and help refurbish the party's image.

More importantly, the GOP's crop of new governors can demonstrate that conservative ideas work. Just as GOP governors helped lay the foundation for the Republican resurgence in 1994 by pursuing far-reaching reform of welfare, education and taxes, so could new policy-minded chief executives reinvigorate the Republican Party's reputation as the "party of ideas."

Already, the GOP victors in last year's gubernatorial contests are providing powerful contrasts to Mr. Obama's policies. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell erased his state's nearly $2 billion deficit without raising taxes. Facing a $13 billion shortfall, a hostile Democratic legislature and more than $7 million in negative ads launched against him by labor unions, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie nonetheless balanced the budget while cutting taxes.

Governors also have far more electoral impact on their states than do distant, often-absent senators and congressmen. Since 1994, Republicans have won 26 Senate seats previously held by Democrats. Twenty of those pickups were in states with an incumbent Republican governor or a GOP gubernatorial candidate who won that same day. Governors matter even more when it comes to picking a president. When George W. Bush won the White House in 2000, there were GOP chief executives in nearly every important battleground, helping move swing states like West Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas into his column. By comparison, the only major swing-state the GOP controlled in 2008 was Florida.

The GOP wave is so strong right now that Republicans could simultaneously win the governorships in the critical Great Lake battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. And the GOP is likely to win the governorship in other presidential battlegrounds like Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon.

If this comes to pass, it will be no accident. Under the remarkable leadership of the Republican Governors Association chairman, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and his wunderkind executive director Nick Ayers, the RGA has turned into a political juggernaut.

At the end of June, the RGA had $40 million in cash, even after spending nearly $11 million earlier this year to aid GOP challengers. In Ohio, for example, the RGA spent $2.8 million to blunt a $3 million Democratic effort to trash former Ohio Congressman John Kasich. Mr. Kasich now leads Democrat incumbent Ted Strickland by eight points.

And in Wisconsin, the RGA has helped put Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker ahead of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett by eight points in the latest Rasmussen poll by outspending the Democrats 3 to 1 on television ads.

Political change comes more powerfully from the bottom up, not from the top down. The election of reform-oriented conservative Republican governors can shake America's political firmament. It would have profound implications on the GOP's reputation and the outcome of the 2012 election.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, August 4, 2010.

The Missing Word in Our Afghanistan Strategy

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500

What President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron didn't say during last week's joint news conference may have mattered more than what they did say. The omissions could lead to a grave setback in the war on terror and deadly results for the Afghan people.

The president and prime minister declared their solidarity on the Afghanistan war. Both leaders "reaffirmed our commitment to the overall strategy," in Mr. Cameron's words. Mr. Obama said that approach aimed to "build Afghan capacity so Afghans can take responsibility for their future," a point Mr. Cameron called "a key part" of the coalition's strategy.

All well and good. But neither leader uttered the word "victory" or "win" or any other similar phrase. They made it sound as if the strategic goal was to stand up the Afghan security forces, leave as soon as that was done, and hope the locals were up to keeping things together.

Neither man called for the defeat of the Taliban or declared its return to power unacceptable. Instead, Mr. Obama offered a lesser goal, namely to "break the Taliban's momentum." That is hardly a strategy that will galvanize people—as the King James Bible expressed it, "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?"

Nor did Messrs. Obama or Cameron emphasize, as their predecessors did, the importance of liberty and human rights in Afghanistan. One of the remarkable achievements of the removal of the Taliban was the emergence of a nascent (if still imperfect) Afghan democracy, one that respects the rights of Afghan women. It would be a brutal betrayal to allow these rights to be extinguished.

Wars involve tactical shifts and adjustments. But they also involve "red lines"—and in Afghanistan, the red line must be to defeat al Qaeda and the irreconcilable elements of the Taliban, and to keep them from seizing power again.

The American and British people who are being asked to support this costly effort must know that is our objective. So must the Afghan people, who have seen much the last year to raise doubts about our resolve. And so must the Taliban and al Qaeda. America's enemies need to understand one thing above all else: They cannot outlast us and, if they try, they will be broken and defeated.

Victory in Afghanistan requires two things: the right strategy and the resolve to see it through. Mr. Obama wisely recruited Gen. David Petraeus to head the Afghan campaign. There is no one better equipped to execute a successful counterinsurgency campaign. He is both the father of the "surge" in Iraq and the person most responsible for implementing it. If Gen. Petraeus has the time and support he needs, he can bring similar success in Afghanistan.

But is Mr. Obama's heart in this fight? The commander in chief has said stunningly little about the war. He rarely explains to the American people what is happening or asks for their support.

Some congressional Democrats are growing restive, speaking more often and more loudly against the war and now voting against its funding. Ordinary Americans will also come to question the mission if the goal is not victory. Mr. Obama needs to deal with this by making it clear that when it comes to Afghanistan, he's all in.

Winston Churchill demonstrated that in war, words matter. They signal resolve or weakness, fortitude or doubt. Right now, the uncertain trumpet of Mr. Obama's words—those he has said and those he has chosen not to say—is emboldening adversaries, alarming allies, undermining confidence in the U.S., and dispiriting those who fight in dark and dangerous places for our security and liberty.

The president can and must correct those impressions—beginning with an unambiguous statement that America will stay and get the job done. Only the president can reassure our partners and allies, and strike the fear of God into our enemies. The world is looking for him to act as a commander in chief.

Mr. Obama has acted impressively so far on Afghanistan. He changed strategy based on facts on the ground, increased our troops by tens of thousands, and picked exactly the right man to lead our military into battle.

The president has the right pieces in place. Now he needs to signal to the world that he believes in the cause with all his heart. Let's hope he does.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, July 28, 2010.

Friendly Fire on Capitol Hill

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Describing the White House last week, Congressional Democrats used words like "ineptness," "neglected" and "disconcerting," and phrases like "isn't aggressive enough." President Barack Obama has only himself to blame for these protests.

Well, maybe more than just himself. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs may have spoken the truth when he admitted Democrats could lose the House. He forgot that White House staffers are expected to be advocates, not prognosticators, when their party faces electoral defeat. Mr. Gibbs need not lie, but he could have been discreet.

While an angry response to Mr. Gibbs from Hill Democrats was expected, several factors produced an unusually fierce reaction. First, Democrats in Congress feel underappreciated for having cast tough votes. True, they wanted to pass health care, the stimulus, record deficits, and cap and trade. They thought these would be political winners. But now they feel exposed for supporting unpopular policies they consider poorly explained and badly defended by the administration.

Then there is the White House's practice of outsourcing the drafting of major legislation to Democratic chairmen. This has made congressional Democrats more sensitive when Mr. Obama exerts himself, as he did with a threatened veto of a spending bill that trimmed his education priorities. One Democratic committee chairman (George Miller) affected by the veto threat complained, "there's no strategy there," while another (David Obey) fumed, "there's a lot I don't know about this administration."

Third, Hill Democrats were upset when the president brought up immigration reform without consulting them. Vulnerable Democrats know this issue may help Mr. Obama in the long run, but it jeopardizes them in this midterm. Obama aides stoked their ire further by boneheadedly conceding this point to reporters.

Then there is the record of Mr. Obama's short stint in the Senate. Congressional Democrats saw that he didn't apply himself to the business of legislating, nor lead any major battle. Instead, he was singularly focused on winning the presidency. They applaud him for winning, but they neither fear nor respect his legislative skills and now ask why he gets the credit while they receive the public blame.

Mr. Obama's arrogance, coolness and diffidence also make it difficult for him to nurture close friendships, personal trust and mutual respect with the poobahs on the Hill. And so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the president's press secretary "politically inept" and condemned the "friendly fire" from the White House. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid snapped, "I do not work for Barack Obama, I work with him."

This problem is exacerbated by the poor or nonexistent ties between many of Mr. Obama's top aides and Democrats on the Hill. Some of his aides were Congressional staffers, but senior advisers David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett are virtual unknowns to Congress. And while Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was the congressman who chaired the Democrats' campaign that reclaimed the House in 2006, he is not known for his warmth, empathy and easy working relationships.

Then there's a belief around Capitol Hill that the White House is already pointing the finger at them for the coming fall's losses. That's in keeping with a pattern: After all, Team Obama publicly trashed its gubernatorial candidate in Virginia last fall and its Massachusetts senatorial hopeful last winter, weeks before their elections.

Congressional Democrats also worry the president is insufficiently concerned about the November election. Maybe the White House believes Democrats have seats to give, that its agenda may be more achievable with fewer moderate Democrats, or that Mr. Obama can win re-election in 2012 more easily with a Republican Congress to blame.

Finally, congressional Democrats are frustrated the president doesn't do more to help them. The problem here is that he can't. His approval rating was 54% when his party was walloped in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts last fall. Now it's 47% in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls. Mr. Obama's presence will hurt more than help in many swing races. Even his fund raising isn't going as well as expected. A recent presidential fund-raising event in Missouri had to discount tickets to fill otherwise empty chairs.

The White House's appearance of institutional and personal arrogance has left congressional Democrats divided and discontent going into the midterms. It weakens Democratic efforts not only this year, but well into the future. Having once fostered the impression that it's every Democrat for himself, the president will find it hard to undo the damage when his own name is on the ballot.

Mr. Obama is already learning from his own party the meaning of payback.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, July 21, 2010.

My Biggest Mistake in the White House

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Seven years ago today, in a speech on the Iraq war, Sen. Ted Kennedy fired the first shot in an all-out assault on President George W. Bush's integrity. "All the evidence points to the conclusion," Kennedy said, that the Bush administration "put a spin on the intelligence and a spin on the truth." Later that day Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle told reporters Mr. Bush needed "to be forthcoming" about the absence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Thus began a shameful episode in our political life whose poisonous fruits are still with us.

The next morning, Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and John Edwards joined in. Sen. Kerry said, "It is time for a president who will face the truth and tell the truth." Mr. Edwards chimed in, "The administration has a problem with the truth."

The battering would continue, and it was a monument to hypocrisy and cynicism. All these Democrats had said, like Mr. Bush did, that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD. Of the 110 House and Senate Democrats who voted in October 2002 to authorize the use of force against his regime, 67 said in congressional debate that Saddam had these weapons. This didn't keep Democrats from later alleging something they knew was false—that the president had lied America into war.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham organized a bipartisan letter in December 2001 warning Mr. Bush that Saddam's "biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs . . . may be back to pre-Gulf War status," and enhanced by "longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Yet two years later, he called for Mr. Bush's impeachment for having said Saddam had WMD.

On July 9, 2004, Mr. Graham's fellow Democrat on Senate Intelligence, Jay Rockefeller, charged that the Bush administration "at all levels . . . used bad information to bolster the case for war." But in his remarks on Oct. 10, 2002, supporting the war resolution, he said that "Saddam's existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose real threats to America."

Even Kennedy, who opposed the war resolution, nonetheless said the month before the vote that Saddam's "pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated." But he warned if force were employed, the Iraqi dictator "may decide he has nothing to lose by using weapons of mass destruction himself or by sharing them with terrorists."

Then there was Al Gore, who charged on June 24, 2004, that Mr. Bush spent "prodigious amounts of energy convincing people of lies" and accused him of treason, bellowing that Mr. Bush "betrayed his country." Yet just a month before the war resolution debate, the former vice president said, "We know that [Saddam] has stored away secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Top Democrats led their party in making the "Bush lied, people died" charge because they wanted to defeat him in 2004. That didn't happen. Several bipartisan commissions would later catalogue the serious errors in the intelligence on which Mr. Bush and Democrats relied. But these commissions, particularly the Silberman-Robb report of March 31, 2005, found that the "Bush lied" charge was false. Still, the attacks hurt: When they began, less than a third of Americans believed the charge. Two years later, polls showed that just over half did.

The damage extended beyond Mr. Bush's presidency. The attacks on Mr. Bush poisoned America's political discourse. Saying the commander-in-chief intentionally lied America into war is about the most serious accusation that can be leveled at a president. The charge was false—and it opened the way for politicians in both parties to move the debate from differences over issues into ad hominem attacks.

At the time, we in the Bush White House discussed responding but decided not to relitigate the past. That was wrong and my mistake: I should have insisted to the president that this was a dagger aimed at his administration's heart. What Democrats started seven years ago left us less united as a nation to confront foreign challenges and overcome America's enemies.

We know President Bush did not intentionally mislead the nation. Saddam Hussein was deposed and eventually hung for his crimes. Iraq is a democracy and an ally instead of an enemy of America. Al Qaeda suffered tremendous blows in the "land between the two rivers." But Democrats lost more than the election in 2004. In telling lie after lie, week after week, many lost their honor and blackened their reputations.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, July 14, 2010.

A Growth Agenda for the GOP

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500

During the last week, President Barack Obama doubled down on a losing political bet, further cementing the Democratic Party's reputation as the champion of bigger deficits, higher spending and more government. He did so just as the public is crying out for lower deficits, less spending and less government.

In his Saturday radio address, Mr. Obama attacked Republican opposition to additional stimulus spending, saying they "just don't get it." Maybe they do get it. The first, $862 billion stimulus bill of 17 months ago has after all failed to work the president's promised magic.

Last Thursday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined the president in his bad bet by offering up the economic gem that extension of unemployment benefits "creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name." Really? Faster than, say, cutting personal income tax cuts or slashing the corporate tax rate?

Rank-and-file congressional Democrats do not seem eager to follow Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi down this road. For example, the House barely passed its $127 billion "Stimulus II" spending bill in late May by a vote of 215 to 204, with 34 Democrats joining all but one Republican in voting no. At least 20 of those Democrats come from districts at risk this fall. Democrats who represent swing districts are increasingly wary of supporting higher spending, taxes and deficits, or ceding greater power to the federal government. These issues are driving independents and other swing voters into the GOP column.

To maximize their gains, Republicans must go beyond promising to slash Democratic spending and reverse the Obama agenda (as important as these are). They also need to offer a competing agenda for increasing jobs and prosperity, and outline the concrete steps they will take to get back on the track for economic growth.

Republicans have a receptive audience: Americans overwhelmingly believe prosperity comes from entrepreneurs and free enterprise, not government. Republicans must emphasize that they stand for small and medium-size business—and stand foursquare against crony capitalists who seek advantage by partnering with big government.

A GOP growth agenda would keep intact the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Tax reform and simplification—including the flat tax and cutting the corporate tax rate—can also be winning issues if advocated by Republican candidates with authenticity and passion.

Laying out a positive agenda also requires GOP candidates to connect the dots between public policies and real-world consequences. So Republicans must make a compelling case that allowing the tax cuts to expire will result in history's largest tax increase—killing jobs, punishing hard work and enterprise, damaging growth, wounding small business, and postponing the moment government finally restrains spending.

They need to explain that raising taxes on dividends and on capital gains would lower economic growth for years to come. Retirements would be less secure, capital more expensive for every enterprise from manufacturing to commercial real estate, and investment in American jobs and companies less attractive.

A jobs, growth and prosperity agenda is a natural complement to austerity policies. It offers hope as well as sacrifice. And growing the economy makes reducing deficits more manageable.

The GOP must also be a critic of obstacles placed by foreign governments on the sale of American goods and services. We are 5% of the world's population—we cannot remain prosperous by simply doing our own laundry. The countries with which the U.S. has trade deals represent 4% of the world's population, but 38% of our exports. Even Mr. Obama pays lip service to increasing U.S. exports.

The GOP should also pledge to oppose power grabs by unions, especially those dominated by government workers. Voters increasingly understand labor bosses make American enterprise less competitive. Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin's threat to pass "card check" in a lame-duck session must be taken seriously.

Some will argue this set of issues isn't entirely new. But efficacy matters more than novelty. And in today's environment, tested and timeless ideas look attractive compared to the radical transformation Mr. Obama is imposing on America.

Rarely has a political party faced a more receptive public. Mr. Obama's brand of liberalism has given Republicans the opportunity to make a confident and bold case for conservatism. They need only to make it.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, July 7, 2010.

Obama and the Fiscal 'Road to Hell'

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500

At last week's G-20 meeting, President Barack Obama achieved a two-fer. He suffered a significant international defeat, and he increased the chances his party will suffer a major domestic one this fall.

Mr. Obama's international defeat was self-inflicted. He went to Toronto to press other major nations to do as he has done: Expand government spending, or suffer, in the president's words, "renewed economic hardship and recession."

Canada, Germany, Great Britain and most other countries declined Mr. Obama's invitation. The German economic minister "urgently" prodded America to cut spending at a press conference on June 21, prior to the G-20 meeting. The president of the European central bank took direct aim at Mr. Obama's argument, telling the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on June 16 that "the idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect."

The European Union president, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, tore into Mr. Obama's stimulus and other spending policies in a stunning address to the European Parliament in March 2009, calling them "the road to hell" and saying "the United States did not take the right path."

If it sounds strange to have European leaders lecturing the U.S. about fiscal restraint, it should. But that is where America finds itself after Mr. Obama's 17-month fiscal orgy.

The other flaw in his G-20 appearance is domestic. The president's statements that more deficit spending was "necessary to keep economic growth strong" and his cautioning against "the consequential mistakes of the past" when stimulus spending "was too quickly withdrawn" puts his administration and party squarely in favor of policies unpopular with most Americans.

Since 2000, the Gallup organization has asked voters what they believe will be the most important problem for the U.S. in 25 years. This year Americans are saying the challenge will be the deficit. And last month, almost eight in 10 voters surveyed by the Associated Press called the federal budget deficit an "extremely" or "very important" issue.

There was more bad news Tuesday for Democrats from recent focus groups conducted in battleground congressional districts in Iowa, Ohio, New Jersey, Arkansas and Florida.

A report on these focus groups issued this week by Resurgent Republic (a group I helped found) showed that both political independents and tea party participants passionately denounced federal spending and deficits, using words like "reckless," "out of control," "unnecessary" and "unhelpful." The evidence suggests that both groups remain deeply skeptical of Mr. Obama's stimulus package and are unpersuaded by the administration's arguments in its favor.

The authors of the Resurgent Republic study concluded that both independents and tea party voters believe "nearly unanimously" that reckless government spending, not lack of tax revenues, is responsible for the deficits. This goes to the very heart of the modern Democratic agenda with its guiding philosophy of bigger government and higher taxes.

All of this negative news is wearing on the president. At the G-20's concluding news conference, Mr. Obama—brittle and petulant—attacked GOP critics "who are hollering about deficits," saying he would be "calling their bluff" next year by "presenting some very difficult choices." Then "we'll see how much of . . . the political arguments they're making right now are real, and how much of it was just politics."

The president's problem is largely a mess of his own making. Deficit spending did not begin when Mr. Obama took office. But he and his Democratic allies have supported, proposed, passed or signed and then spent every dime that's gone out the door since Jan. 20, 2009.

Voters know it is Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders who approved a $410 billion supplemental (complete with 8,500 earmarks) in the middle of the last fiscal year, and then passed a record-spending budget for this one. Mr. Obama and Democrats approved an $862 billion stimulus and a $1 trillion health-care overhaul, and they now are trying to add $266 billion in "temporary" stimulus spending to permanently raise the budget baseline.

It is the president and Congressional allies who refuse to return the $447 billion unspent stimulus dollars and want to use repayments of TARP loans for more spending rather than reducing the deficit. It is the president who gave Fannie and Freddie carte blanche to draw hundreds of billions from the Treasury. It is the Democrats' profligacy that raised the share of the GDP taken by the federal government to 24% this fiscal year.

This is indeed the road to fiscal hell, and it's been paved by the president and his party. Voters will have their chance this November to render their verdict on the Obama years. No wonder Republicans feel confident these days.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, June 30, 2010.

Obama and the Woes of the Democrats

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Democrats are acknowledging they'll lose ground in the midterms. The only question is how much. Today, the evidence points to quite a lot.

The most important indicator is the president's job approval. In the Real Clear Politics average of the last two weeks' polls, President Obama has a 48% approval and 47% disapproval rating. This points to deep Democratic losses. The president's approval rating last November was 54% when his party was trounced in New Jersey and Virginia.

On the economy, a mid-June AP poll reported that Mr. Obama has 45% approval, 50% disapproval. That's a dangerous place for any president when jobs are issue No. 1.

The problem is worse in swing areas. Last week's National Public Radio (NPR) poll of the 60 Democratic House seats most at risk this year showed just 37% of voters in these districts agreed Mr. Obama's "economic policies helped avert an even worse crisis and are laying a foundation for our eventual economic recovery"; 57% believed they "have run up a record federal deficit while failing to end the recession or slow the record pace of job losses."

Mr. Obama also suffers because his handling of the catastrophic Gulf oil leak has undermined perceptions of his competence. Both national and Louisiana polls rate Mr. Obama's handling worse than the Bush administration's Katrina response, widely viewed as a tipping point in that presidency.

Mr. Obama's failures mean he can't lift his party by campaigning. A Public Policy Poll earlier this month reported that 48% said an Obama endorsement would make them less likely to vote for the candidate receiving it, while only one-third said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by the president.

Republicans jumped into the lead last November in Gallup's party generic ballot match-ups among all voters, and since March the GOP has led or been tied every single week except one. In the Rasmussen Poll's tracking among likely voters, Republicans have been ahead by an average of seven points, 44% to 37%, since March. This reflects a significant political development—independents breaking for the GOP.

Then there is the intensity gap, which is particularly important in midterms. In Gallup, 45% of Republicans are "very enthusiastic" about voting this fall versus 24% of Democrats. This staggering 22-point gap is the largest so far this election year. And in the NPR survey of 60 swing Democratic districts, 62% of Republicans rated their likelihood of voting as 10, the highest. Only 37% of Democrats were similarly excited.

All these trends are influencing individual races. Though twice as many Republican Senate seats are being contested in November, state-by-state surveys show if the election were today, 49 Democrats and 43 Republicans are poised to win. Eight races are too close to call, but Republicans lead in five.

House races are historically much more difficult to predict. But the NPR survey found in the 30 Democrat seats considered most at risk, the GOP leads 48% to 39%. This nine-point margin points to Republican winning virtually all 30 seats. In the next tier of most vulnerable Democratic districts, Republicans lead 47% to 45%, meaning the GOP could take many of those 30 seats. By comparison, in the 10 Republican districts thought at risk, Republicans lead 53% to 37%. Republicans should hold virtually all of those.

It will take a net of 10 Senate and 40 House seats for the GOP to win control of the legislative branches. These are big numbers—but they are within reach.

Democrats do have some advantages. Unlike 1994, they wouldn't be caught unprepared. And they've stockpiled money. The Center for Responsive Politics reports the average Democratic Senate candidate has $2.1 million on hand to the average Republican's $1.4 million; in the House, Democrats average $504,000 to Republicans' $239,000.

But cash won't save the Democrats. Complex combinations of factors decide elections, and this year the driving forces are the president's low standing, his mishandling of the economy, his failure to respond to the oil spill, and the interconnected issues of jobs, spending, deficits and ObamaCare.

It is an explosive mix for Democrats. All these measures—from his job approval to handling the economy and the Gulf oil leak to the generic ballot to intensity—will remain roughly where they are unless a dramatic event causes a shift. That's unlikely: The president can do little to radically improve the landscape.

It has taken a year and a half of bad policies to put Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats in their precarious position. As voters hold them accountable for misdeeds, mistakes and misjudgments, Democrats will endure a beating this year they are not likely to forget soon.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, June 23, 2010.

The Bad News About ObamaCare Keeps Piling Up

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In his brilliant exposition of why sweeping policy changes often have unintended consequences, the late sociologist Robert K. Merton wrote that leaders get things wrong when their "paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes the consideration of further or other consequences" of their proposals. This leads policy makers to assert things that are false, wishing them to be true.

Which brings us to President Obama's many claims about his health-care reform. Take his oft-expressed statement that if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. That sounds good—but perverse incentives in his new law will cause most Americans to lose their existing insurance.

This was brought home to me when I asked the CEO of a major restaurant chain about health reform's effect on his company, which now spends $25 million a year on employee health insurance. That will jump to at least $90 million a year once the new law is phased in. It will be cheaper, he told me, for the company to dump its coverage and pay a fine—$2,000 for each full-time worker—and make sure that no part-time employee accidentally worked 31 hours and thereby incurred the fine.

Employees who lose coverage get to select a policy from a government-sponsored insurance marketplace called the "exchange." This will be subsidized by taxpayers. Depending on his income, a worker will have to pay between 8% and 9.8% of the cost.

But there are a few hitches. Employers now pay for employee health plans with pre-tax dollars, but workers who buy into one on the exchange pay with after-tax dollars. Families making less than $30,000 and individuals making less than $15,000 a year will be dumped into Medicaid, widely viewed as second-class health care.

Either Mr. Obama was stunningly blind to these perverse effects when he promised people could keep their coverage, or he felt that admitting his plan would collapse employer-provided health coverage could keep it from passing. Either way—self-deception or deliberate deceit—health reform is going to turn out far differently than was promised. And because more workers will be dumped into subsidized coverage, taxpayers are likely to pay much more than the $1 trillion-plus price tag claimed by ObamaCare advocates for its first 10 years.

It doesn't end there. Another way the new health reform will have consequences that are the opposite of what was promised can be found in new draft regulations (its Interim Final Rule) from the Department of Health and Human Services. The proposed rules could cause as many as half of all workers to lose their existing coverage.

Health-care plans that existed before the new law are "grandfathered" with regard to some of its provisions. The rules released Monday spell out how little these plans can change without losing their protected status.

Health plans would no longer be grandfathered if a business changes insurance companies (a common practice when employers shop for lower prices), raises deductibles more than 5%, drops any existing benefits, or even increases co-pays by as little as $5.

Complying with these new rules would raise costs for companies who provide coverage, reduce competition among health insurance companies, and discourage efforts to make employees more price conscious. The Obama administration itself estimates that these draft rules could cost up to 80% of small employers and 64% of large employers their grandfathered status. This translates to between 87 million and 115 million Americans losing their current coverage. Companies and insurers promise a hardy fight on the proposed regulations, but repeal of the provisions that authorized them are the only guarantee of their defeat.

ObamaCare generates more bad news every month. On top of sluggish job creation, burgeoning deficits, out-of-control spending, and a miserable response to the Gulf oil leak, the Obama presidency may be reaching a tipping point. His competence is being called into question and his credibility undermined. Either one is bad for any president. Both can be politically lethal.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, June 16, 2010.

Reasoning Arizona

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500

President Obama is using the new Arizona immigration law to advance a central White House preoccupation: his reelection. At a town-hall meeting in Iowa last April, the president warned Hispanic-Americans that the Arizona statute would open them up to being “harassed” when “you took your kid out to get ice cream.” In remarks at a White House Cinco de Mayo reception, he argued that Arizona’s law would “undermine fundamental principles,” turning Latinos “into subjects of suspicion and abuse.” But will Latinos in Arizona be routinely tormented?

Even a quick reading of the statute shows that police can question someone about his or her immigration status only if three conditions are met. First, there has to have been a “lawful stop, detention, or arrest” to enforce another law. Second, during the course of that stop, detention, or arrest, a “reasonable suspicion” has to exist that “the person is an alien.” And third, law enforcement “may not consider race, color, or national origin…except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution.” This is a tight and reasonable standard.

The Arizona law is so narrowly drawn that it’s hard to see how it will affect many people. Those whom it does concern will already have been stopped, detained, or arrested for other lawful purposes. Given Obama’s hyperventilation about the law, it’s fair to ask: what is Washington’s standard for allowing federal law enforcement to ask about immigration status?

When my office put this question to Customs and Border Protection (CPB), we were pointed to “Securing America’s Borders at Ports of Entry,” a document from the CBP’s Office of Field Operations. It says that before asking a person’s immigration status, “CBP personnel must effectively blend their own observational techniques and interviewing abilities with situational awareness.” This is a lower, less-precise standard than the Arizona law. So if the president considers the Arizona law racist, what does he consider the federal standard? If Obama believes the strict Arizona conditions are likely to lead to racial profiling, what about federal guidelines his administration now enforces?

The Arizona bill’s passage in an election year provides a racial wedge to inflame tensions between Latinos and Republicans. Obama would rather do this than the hard work needed to pass comprehensive immigration reform. As president he hasn’t laid a foundation for progress on the issue. For example, he devoted only 38 words out of the 7,290 in this year’s State of the Union address to the subject. Nor has he tried hard to garner bipartisan support. One Republican senator at the center of the issue confided to me that his last—and only—contact with the White House on the matter was 10 months ago. And the senator, who didn’t want to be named discussing private conversations with the administration, says he was the one who raised the topic. (The White House declined to comment for this piece.)

Criticized by Hispanic groups, the president recently held a meeting on immigration with South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, and then he raised the issue with the GOP Senate caucus. Both were public relations gestures, not serious talks. Three senior Republican aides on both sides of Capitol Hill, who didn’t want to be identified talking about a sensitive issue, say there have been no substantive discussions between the White House and Republican congressional leaders on the topic since (or before) the drop-by.

The president has also offered conflicting messages on immigration. Threatened with the loss of Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s vote for health-care reform, Obama on March 19 called for “Congress to act at the earliest possible opportunity” and pledged two days later “to do everything in my power to forge a bipartisan consensus this year.” But once health care passed, with Gutierrez voting aye, Obama reversed course, saying on April 28 that “there may not be an appetite immediately to dive into another controversial issue” and cautioning that “midterms are coming up.” The resulting controversy led Obama to say on May 5, “I want to begin work this year.”

Rather than forge a coalition on reform, Obama is content to use the issue to secure Latino votes—if not for Democrats in this fall’s contests, then for his reelection. He willingly mischaracterizes the Arizona law because doing so benefits his party and himself. But on matters involving race, the president’s obligation is to unify America, not add to tensions. Obama’s political handling of this sensitive issue is shameful.

This article originally appeared on Newsweek.com on Thursday, June 10, 2010.

Obama and the Trouble With Voting 'Present'

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500

When Barack Obama announced he was running for president in February 2007, Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report wrote "Obama's history of voting 'present'" in Springfield, Ill.—even on some of the most controversial and politically explosive issues . . . raises questions . . . Voting 'present' is one of the three options in the Illinois Legislature (along with 'yes' and 'no') but it's almost never an option for the occupant of the Oval Office."

Mr. Gonzales's words were prescient. Barack Obama may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present. That has been the case with his response to the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. The president was late recognizing the disaster's magnitude, late in visiting the region, late in approving requests by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and late in feigning outrage. He has never offered an independent plan to stop the leak.

Mr. Obama also seems disinterested in hearing from experts about the spill. The White House's "Deep Water Horizon Response Timeline" doesn't list a single meeting between Mr. Obama and industry experts, though he did send Energy Secretary Steven Chu and others to Houston May 12 to meet with BP and others.

Yet while the president says his Noble Prize-winning energy secretary has been "examining every contingency," Mr. Chu was clueless about BP's plans to install a cap over the well to funnel oil to a vessel on the surface. As the New York Times reported last Saturday, "After the cap was successfully placed, Mr. Chu wondered aloud why oil was still spewing." BP engineers had to explain that oil was still coming from vents that "would be closed very slowly to ensure that mounting pressure would not force the cap off."

Even now, Mr. Obama looks like a spectator, albeit an angry one, barking at White House aides to "plug the damn hole" (now that's a good idea no one has thought of) and telling NBC's Matt Lauer he's in search of an "ass to kick."

But the main political behind that's being kicked is Mr. Obama's. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll says Americans give the federal government a 69% negative rating for its handling of the spill, compared to a 62% negative rating for Washington's handling of Katrina in August 2005.

This pattern of being merely present has been apparent almost since the first days of the Obama presidency. He may unveil his mighty teleprompter to help pass what Congress has drafted, but this White House seems strangely disconnected from crafting legislation. For example, last year's stimulus was largely drafted by House Appropriations Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, one of Congress's most liberal members. As a result, what passed was a wasteful spending bill rather than an economic growth package.

And faced with a growing mountain of debt, Mr. Obama passed the issue off to an ineffectual commission whose report is due after the election. After growing the size of the federal government by a quarter in just over a year, he now says he'd like agencies to try to find 5% cuts in their budgets.

On other controversies—the attempt of high-ranking aides to entice candidates not to challenge incumbent Democratic senators, the details of cap-and-trade legislation, the resolution of big conflicts between the House and Senate versions of financial regulation, and the drafting of comprehensive immigration reform—Mr. Obama appears to be removed, distant and detached, unwilling or unable to provide the adult supervision Washington requires.

The result is that he receives a 38% approval and 52% disapproval rating on his handling of the economy in the latest Economist/YouGov poll. The GOP enjoys a nine-point lead over Democrats in Rasmussen's latest generic ballot.

This is causing the public to revisit concerns it's had about Mr. Obama since he clinched the Democratic nomination in March 2008. Then the ABC/Washington Post Poll reported that 46% of Americans found him too "inexperienced" to be an effective president, the highest number ever for a major party presidential nominee. In October, just before the election, ABC/Washington Post asked the question again: 44% called Mr. Obama too inexperienced. On issue after issue, Mr. Obama is providing plenty of evidence to validate those concerns.

Americans might hope the president's diffidence when it comes to the hard work of government might mitigate his more extreme liberal tendencies. No such luck. Mr. Obama is an odd mixture of passivity and radicalism. He's happy to be a cheerleader for policies (like nationalizing health care) that many Americans find dangerously liberal.

The country has had another president both weak and radical at the same time: Jimmy Carter.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, June 9, 2010.

ObamaCare's Ever-Rising Price Tag

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod argued earlier this year that health-care reform would become more popular after it passed, boosting Democrats in the midterm elections. "We have to go out and sell it," he told the National Journal, adding in an interview in Newsweek that "people [will] see the benefits that accrue to them."

That's not quite how it has worked out. ObamaCare is becoming more, not less, unpopular. The Rasmussen poll reported the week after health reform's passage in March that 55% of likely voters supported its repeal while 42% did not. A Rasmussen poll last month showed that 56% backed repeal; 39% did not.

Some may argue that President Obama has been able to extol the legislation's supposed virtues only sporadically, instead having to confront other challenges from the Gulf oil spill to foreign policy controversies. But the real problem is ObamaCare's substantive defects, some only now coming to light. Consider the April 22 analysis by Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, which blasted to smithereens many of Mr. Obama's claims for the bill.

For starters, Mr. Foster estimated Americans would pay $120 billion in fines for not having adequate insurance coverage and that 14 million people would lose their coverage as rising costs led companies to dump it. Those effects are not in keeping with Mr. Obama's promises that if people liked the health insurance they had they could keep it, and that the reforms would provide universal coverage.

Finding it hard to cover costs under the bill's formulas, according to Mr. Foster's analysis, doctors would refuse new patients and one out of every six hospitals and nursing homes could start operating in the red. And while Medicaid would cover 16 million more people, there might not be enough doctors to treat them.

Because of new taxes, Mr. Foster rightly claimed that sick people would face "high drug and device prices" and everyone would pay higher premiums—again, exactly the opposite of what Mr. Obama said.

Then in May, the Congressional Budget Office updated its cost projections. It found that the new health legislation would cost $115 billion more than estimated when it was enacted.

That's not the end of the bad news. October will see the first round of Medicare cuts. Up to half of seniors will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage (a program that allows seniors to receive additional services through a private health plan), or at least some of their benefits under this program. Watch for the administration to try to keep companies from notifying their customers of benefit cuts or premium increases before the election. Meanwhile, the Daily Caller website reported yesterday that the administration has missed deadlines for issuing four sets of regulations specified by the bill and lacks a master time-line for the other required regulations.

Drug and medical device companies are already making provisions for the new taxes that kick in next year. This means less investment in plants and equipment and smaller R&D budgets. Big layoffs, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, will result as companies confront this expensive new reality.

All of this represents a great political challenge to the administration and the Democratic Party this fall. Doctors, nurses and hospital workers impacted by health-care reform's adverse effects will speak more often to more people and with greater passion and credibility than will the president and his allies. So too will the millions of people who work for insurance companies, drug companies, device manufacturers and other health-care providers.

Then there are employers and their workers. According to a survey by Towers Watson, a human resources consulting firm, 88% of companies plan to pass on increased health-care benefit costs to employees, 74% plan to reduce benefits, and up to 12% will drop all coverage for employees. Retirees won't fare well either: 43% of employers that now provide retiree medical benefits are likely to reduce or eliminate them thanks to the new health legislation.

Employers will not wait until the last moment to spring changes on their workers. They understand it is in their best interest to full educate employees about the ramifications of the new health-care bill. Many have already begun helping employees understand why companies are being forced to make inevitable changes.

The health-care concerns of millions of Americans will ripple through the electorate before November. When joined with other voter concerns on jobs, spending and deficits, these ripples are likely to create what analysts call a "wave" election, which will wash away effective Democratic control of Congress.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, June 2, 2010.