Obama Already An Abject Failure?

I couldn't sleep last night because I had dinner with a very convincing gloomy-gus (who's lost 30% of his retirement in the last six weeks) who said if Obama was any kind of leader he'd have named a Treasury Secretary and given the market some kind of signal he wasn't going to destroy the economy instead of yammering on about his puppy in his first press conference.

Said my buddy: either he's deliberately allowing everything to fail so he can toss his hands in the air and say not my fault and take over the entire economy as we panic, or he is impossibly dithering and weak. Right. As Mr. W. says about the "Which Obama will show up?" meme, there's no good Obama, only bad and worse Obama.

Related: Bush Shows Obama The Way:

George W. Bush came out fighting for free markets with a strong and stirring defense of American capitalism on the eve of the G-20 World Economic Conference. Stocks soared 550 points Thursday as Bush’s luncheon speech was played live on all the major cable networks. It was as though Mr. Bush was trying to leave an economic-primer to his successor-elect Barack Obama. Markets cheered because it’s the best thing they’ve heard in many weeks.

If they rallied to a policy that will be over in six weeks, the market, like the law, is an ass. But I'll take it. Meanwhile, the press is starting to hint there will be no tax cut.

People want the tax cuts promised during the presidential campaign, but may be willing to wait while President-elect Obama takes on the larger issue of fixing the economy.

Eighty percent say trimming personal tax rates should be a goal when the new president takes office in January, but only 36 percent say the cuts should a very top priority, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. That was less than half the 84 percent who cited improving the economy as a No. 1 goal, and the 80 percent who said creating jobs should be a paramount task.

"I don't think it's going to work in this instance," said Ryan Anderson, 31, a Democrat from Bloomington, Minn., who thinks tax reductions would have little impact on most families' budgets. "That's kind of like shooting a BB gun at a freight train."

I love it. The great and noble President Obama wanted to give us a tax cut, but the noble people of this republic refused to take it out of patriotism.

The Congressional Dems seem determined to lead with national health care. This Baucus plan seems to be more or less the Romney plan for Massachusetts writ large. Anyone notice the MA deficit recently? Bad idea (well, I'm agin' national health care on general principles anyway), especially bad idea right now.