Metro

Sayings of Chairman Maobama

First I did a double take. He said what? I read it again and the shock waves followed.

A beleaguered Presi dent Obama has told aides it would be so much easier to be the president of China, The New York Times reports.

There are two ways to read the remark, which is attributed to anonymous aides. One is that Obama resents the burden of global leadership that comes with the American presidency. The other is that he longs for an authoritarian system, where he need tolerate no dissent.

Under either or both interpretations, his confession carries a dose of self-pity that means Obama has hit a wall.

He is in over his head, and he knows it.

Even before the horror in Japan, the president faced a litany of nightmares. From Libya to Iran to Afghanistan to gas prices, unemployment and rising debt, Obama is surrounded by serious trouble.

His responses range from halfhearted to wrongheaded. Nothing is working. Unhappy voters already repudiated his first two years and might fire him when they get the chance. It is a moment that brings home the truth of the sign on Harry Truman’s desk: “The buck stops here.”

Yet my suspicion is that it’s not the problems per se that have Obama envying a lower rung on the global ladder. It’s that he regards them as endless distractions that keep getting in the way of his transformative agenda.

He is a man of the faculty lounge who wants a blank slate so he can remake the nation into a more perfect place, as he sees it. Remember, he greeted his election with the messiah-like claim that future generations would say, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

But damn it, the country and the world won’t cooperate. Because he has no significant experience that would give him a framework for any other response, he is reduced to vaporous platitudes that dispirit allies and embolden adversaries.

He wants America to be less exceptional and more like every other nation. He’s uncomfortable with our status as the No. 1 superpower, as he made clear with his apology tours and by submitting to the lowest common denominator in the United Nations.

He talks about wanting Moammar Khadafy to go but takes no action to make it happen and even signed on to an arms embargo that the State Department says bars our supplying the rebels.

As The Wall Street Journal wrote, the rising slaughter reveals “what the world without US leadership looks like.”

Meanwhile, he punts on the budget mess, as if details are beneath him. On soaring gas prices, the purpose of his dreary Friday press conference, his policy seems to be peevishness that he must be bothered.

As shocking as the China lament is, it’s not surprising. The desire to sidestep messy reality is the thread that runs through his presidency, starting with the campaign.

As the economy melted down in the fall of 2008 and in the days after he took office, he never changed goals. He promised a health-care takeover, “investments” in education, and a commitment to weaning America off oil and coal.

Come recession and war, he has done his utmost to deliver all three. He has broken the bank and damaged the jobs machine to get them.

Under different circumstances, that dogged persistence might be a virtue. But the problems are getting worse, not better, and yet he won’t adapt. His stubborn refusal to face squarely the nation’s concerns has created a vacuum at home similar to the one abroad.

And now he confides the Oval Office’s crown of responsibility does not fit him. Much of the world shares the sentiment.

Albany in a deep sleep on corruption

With corruption in Albany so mind-numbingly common, New Yorkers can be forgiven if they tuned out the details of the latest federal bust. That would be a mistake, however, because the arrest of two Democratic lawmakers and six others is no ordinary event.

The case captures the essence of the “Government for Sale” culture. And taxpayers got screwed on every deal. State Sen. Carl Kruger and Assemblyman William Boyland Jr., both from Brooklyn, apparently never lifted a finger or cast a vote until they got a bribe.

They are charged with so routinely selling their offices that they seemed to have had no time for honest public service. The idea of not getting cash under the table probably seems naive to them.

And that’s the point. They felt comfortable and safe taking millions from hospital executives, developers, lobbyists — anybody who needed legislative action or taxpayer cash.

Prosecutors make their criminal enterprise sound like a full-time business, with government power and favors available to the highest bidder. And they are far from alone, as the growing roster of crooked pols demonstrates.

“Every single time we arrest a state senator or assemblyman, it should be a jarring wake-up call,” said US Attorney Preet Bharara, who has emerged as the city’s most important political crime-buster since Rudy Giuliani held the same office 25 years ago. “Instead, it seems that no matter how many times the alarm goes off, Albany just hits the snooze button.”

Sadly, he’s right. We can’t say we weren’t warned.

Patriot missile

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich offers a novel defense for his infidelity and three marriages: his love for America.

In an interview with a Christian broadcaster, he said, “There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard, and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”

Confession is good for the soul, but it may not be good for a presidential campaign. If the heat in the House made him drop his pants, how would he handle the heat in the White House?

Fire up the grill, Mike

Troubled by allegations that his Department of Transportation fudged safety and use data to justify its bicycle lanes in Brooklyn, Mayor Bloomberg called Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan to City Hall for a grilling. He demanded a full explanation of the data and asked her directly if there is any truth to the serious charges in the lawsuit.

No, he didn’t. But that’s what he should have done. Until he stops her, suspicions about her integrity will stick to him as well.

Money gusher

If you, too, were wondering where all the federal stimulus money went, check out the latest list of overtime kings. Four of the top five are plumbers with the city Hous ing Authority, and they made about $120,000 each in OT, completing what the agency says was a backlog of work paid for with federal funds. That’s on top of the plumbers’ regular yearly salary of about $85,000. So those faucets are leaking money.