You know it's getting rough for the Obama administration when even their leftist allies in the media are starting to gripe. Here are the highlights of a brutal editorial in the latest issue of The Economist:
- Hillary Clinton might have been somewhat accurate in her quip that "the Oval Office is no place for on-the-job training."
- Obama's "performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped."
- Polls are starting to show "independent voters again prefer Republicans to Democrats, a startling reversal of fortune in just a few weeks."
- "Mr Obama has seemed curiously feeble."
- His stimulus package was "subcontracted to Congress, which did a mediocre job."
- His budget "is wildly optimistic," and he has taken "too long" to produce his bank bailout plan.
- "The failure to staff the Treasury is a shocking illustration of administrative drift."
- Obama made a "series of bad picks of people who have chosen or been forced to withdraw."
- He "mishandled his relations with both sides in Congress" and failed to behave as the centrist he promised.
- He "seems unable to" control his own party. "Democrats are messing him around," and he is "letting them get away with it."
In summary, "Mr Obama has a long way to travel if he is to serve his country—and the world—as he should."
Ouch.
