That was fast. Mounting his shrinking soapbox soon after the Senate passed the debt-ceiling bill, President Obama took less than a minute to lapse into his class-warfare shtick.
It’s always us-against-them with him, but yesterday was especially off-key. For all its drama and histrionics, the vote in Congress was a rare note of bipartisanship he could have embraced as a model.
The nation avoided the dreaded default and did it with lopsided support in both houses. A majority of both parties in the Senate backed the deal, while in the House, Republicans backed it by more than 2-1 while Dems split evenly for and against.
This isn’t dysfunction. This is a successful democracy taking action. It was messy and flawed and nobody loves it. But the deal proves compromise still can work in a divided country.
Yet the result doesn’t suit our president, who has an itch for punishing wealth and more spending. To scratch it, he turns reflexively to scapegoating. The man who promised to unite the nation instead relishes dividing it at every opportunity.
So we heard again that the evil “oil companies” and “billionaires” and the “wealthy” and “big corporations” need to “pay their fair share.” Doesn’t he ever get tired of saying the same things?
I don’t know which is worse: That he really believes such drivel will help America, or that he’s cynically throwing red meat to the Bubbas of his far-left base. Either way, he needs new material.
But the debt debate made it clear that Obama’s idea shop is running on fumes. Like a broken record, he’s stuck on the same song — bigger government, higher taxes. No matter the circumstance, he repeats the mantra.
For such a smart guy, he’s proving to be a slow learner about what works, and doesn’t. He, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had their unfettered way for two years, and they blew a giant hole in the budget without getting much bang for taxpayers’ bucks.
Unemployment is a staggering 9.2 percent and rising, and most economists believe the economy is in serious danger of a double-dip recession. Obama’s answer: Let’s do it all again.
He gives lip service to the pain of the unemployed and underemployed, then trots out the old ideas. Usually he doesn’t even bother to repackage them.
Maybe he hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care, but the country is giving up on him. The shellacking his party and policies took in the 2010 midterms would be repeated if there were an election today. He’s sinking, and his approval is now a woeful 40 percent — that’s Jimmy Carter territory.
The Dow Jones industrial average took a big dive yesterday and is on an eight-day losing streak, the longest since the meltdown days of October 2008. A broad measure of stocks shows a decline for the year, and the threat of a rating agency downgrade on United States debt is still very much a live proposition.
In fact, Obama’s intransigent stance against entitlement changes and pro-growth tax reform actually argues for a downgrade. His position makes further progress on reducing the debt less likely, and thus calls into question America’s ability to meet its increasing obligations.
And he wants four more years. Good grief.
‘Class action’ finally pays off
Social promotion is contagious. The scam for passing along failing students has a corollary among educrats. It’s called tenure, which is often nothing more than social promotion for failing teachers.
Or it was, until Mayor Bloomberg came to his senses. Last fall, in the ninth year of his mayoralty, it suddenly dawned on Bloomy that his administration was rubber-stamping approval of 99 percent of teachers eligible for tenure.
He promised to change that, and he has. Hallelujah.
The news that only 58 percent of the nearly 5,200 eligible this year got tenure counts as radical progress. Just 3 percent were turned down, which means sent packing, while the rest can try again next year.
“Only teachers who help students and schools move ahead significantly for at least two consecutive years will earn tenure,” the mayor said in outlining his plan last September. It came after higher standards on state exams erased four years of student “gains.”
The plan had the smell of gimmick because Bloomberg unveiled it during a daffy education stunt by NBC News. But to his credit, the mayor followed through and pushed administrators to try to align teacher evaluations with student progress.
It’s an inexact science, with many factors outside school contributing to student failure. Chronic absenteeism among black and Hispanic students in third and fourth grade, for example, can’t be pinned on teachers.
Yet the old system of automatically granting tenure after only three years to everyone made no sense. The power to say no was always in the hands of administrators, and the only mystery is why it took Bloomberg nine years to use it.
Now that he has, he shouldn’t stop. He is making noises about ending the pernicious practice altogether, suggesting tenure has no place except in colleges, where it serves as a safeguard for academic freedom.
He’s right, and it’s a cause he should pursue.
NEEDED: GREAT RIGHT HOPE
Because it’s never too early to panic, sensible New Yorkers already are worried about the mayoral race in two years. The list of left-leaning Dems is long, but there is no “Candidate X” to mount a serious challenge to the usual suspects.
As one worrier put it, “Where is the Great Independent Hope for the 2013 race?”
Top cop Ray Kelly is popular, but he’s said he’s not interested. A predecessor, Bill Bratton, is back in town, and his name comes up, too.
Business leaders flirting with a run include John Catsimatidis, owner of Gristedes supermarkets, and Richard Grasso, former head of the stock exchange. Grasso has said he would back Kelly, but might run if Kelly passes.
New Yorkers, though overwhelmingly Democrats, have elected Republican mayors since 1993. Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have different styles and policies, but presented winning alternatives in five consecutive elections. The city is infinitely better for having that choice.
Voters deserve a real alternative again, if only to keep Dems on their toes. Any takers?
NJ pol’s ‘apology’ nakedly self-serving
Stupid is as stupid does — another pol has been caught exposing himself online. Cumberland County, NJ, Democrat Louis Magazzu told the AP he would resign his freeholder seat after pictures showing him naked in front of a mirror “photographing himself” popped up on a GOP-leaning Web site.
Magazzu apologized, but offered a tor tured defense that made him the victim. He said he sent the photos to a woman who was “working with an avowed political enemy.” Otherwise, he did nothing wrong.
Headache over crossing Teas
Speaking of Mr. Hope & Change, I wonder how Obama greeted Joe Biden after the veep compared the Tea Party to terrorists. Was it with a high-five, or a dressing down? Never mind–the answer is obvious.