The Weight of Expectations & the Anticipation of Failure

Right after the elections in November, I had written that an Obama Presidency will have to work under a huge "weight of expectations" .... but it seems there is also the bad odour of ill-will and anticipation of failure to deal with! 

The Obama Economy
As the Dow keeps dropping, the President is running out of people to blame.
As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem.

The strong language ("dismaying message", "people to blame" etc) reeks of partisan ill-will and a blame-game being indulged in by the reporters themselves rather more than an honest analysis of the forces driving the stock market. Seems to me that, Like Limbaugh, there are a whole bunch of Republican supporters who are just waiting to dismiss this administration as a failure. Of course, in many of their eyes, the Bush administration's 8 years were a great success -- mission accomplished, and all -- so, this should not come as a surprise!


P.S. Wow...100 days already, huh! Naah..can't be! Jan to early March is not 100 days! They soooo want to judge, these guys are getting ahead of themselves! I am not at all religious but a quote from the Bible comes to mind!

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:12) 

P.P.S. Update at 2pm. Above was posted at 8am this morning.

More people ready to judge prematurely!!

I still can't believe they are blaming Obama for dealing with the mess, which he DID NOT create!

Michael Boskin says “Obama’s radicalism is killing the Dow”: "It’s hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president’s policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis"

Already calling him the worst-ever Presidency... even worse than the worst, if not one of the worst-ever-President, Harding!! (emphasis mine)

In a post about Treasury staff appointments titled “Banana Republic Watch,” Yves Smith includes this comment from a reader: "We should operate from the assumption that [Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner will always surround himself with the most awful Wall Street cronies imaginable. He’s totally captive to that ideology. This Administration is going to make Warren Harding’s Administration seem like a convention of nuns by comparison"

Phew! One lone voice that begs to differ (even if the article is specifically about foreign policy and diplomacy with Iran!) 

Marc Lynch publishes a guest post from Gary Sick, whom Lynch describes as “one of America’s most experienced Middle East hands”:

I keep reading comments that seem to declare that the Obama administration is simply continuing the failed policies of the Bush administration and that there seems to be no movement toward a different relationship with Iran. I think that judgment is terribly premature.