{"id":14151,"date":"2012-05-11T01:05:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T05:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=14151"},"modified":"2012-05-11T01:05:30","modified_gmt":"2012-05-11T05:05:30","slug":"ask-obama-whose-idea-was-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/14151\/ask-obama-whose-idea-was-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Obama: Whose Idea Was That?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reason<\/a> has a great review of a new book on the Obama economic advisers who tried and failed to spend and regulate the economy into recovery.\u00a0 But for all the space devoted to those around President Barack Obama, it’s the way he treats them – and wants them to treat him – that is most disturbing:<\/p>\n

But Obama was not exactly a man without a team. He was loyal to the cult of policy smarts. He may have even been its high priest. As Scheiber reports, outside analysts reporting to the president were advised to highlight their expert credentials so he would know he wasn\u2019t talking to cranks and dummies. Obama also wanted his inner circle to credit his own abilities: The president, Scheiber writes, \u201ccraved intellectual affirmation\u201d and often badgered his lieutenants into acknowledging when his own ideas were perceived to have succeeded. Obama \u201chad a habit of prompting his aides to acknowledge his wisdom and foresight,\u201d Scheiber writes. The president would sometimes wonder aloud, \u201cWhose idea was that?\u201d when he deserved credit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whatever is Obama’s conscious motivation for overemphasizing credit and credentials at every turn, this window into his personality reveals a deeply insecure person.<\/p>\n

Remember, this is the same man who’s boasted about being a better campaign manager than the one he employs, a better speechwriter than his scribes, and so on.<\/p>\n

If this is the way the President wants to play it, why not let him own every decision by his administration?<\/p>\n

$787 billion in stimulus spending and no change in the unemployment rate – Whose idea was that?<\/em><\/p>\n

A federal takeover of the health care industry that raises the deficit while reducing services – Whose idea was that?<\/em><\/p>\n

Selling thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels so they could be traced to crime scenes – Whose idea was that?<\/em><\/p>\n

The list could go on and on and on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reason has a great review of a new book on the Obama economic advisers who tried and failed to spend and regulate the economy into recovery.\u00a0 But for all the space devoted to those around President Barack Obama, it’s the way he treats them – and wants them to treat him – that is most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,19,2847,12,179],"class_list":["post-14151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barack-obama","tag-economy","tag-fast-and-furious","tag-health-care","tag-stimulus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14151"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14156,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14151\/revisions\/14156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}