One And Done?

A trio of NY Times reporters lay out the dire news for Team Obama.

White House reporters for The New York Times predict that the market collapse will force President-elect Barack Obama to abandon for now many of his campaign promises.

If his stimulus plan "doesn’t work out, he may very well be a one-term president,” said Jeff Zeleny, who covered Obama’s campaign. “It’s hard to imagine that he could be reelected if the economy’s in the exact same position four years from now.”

Even worse????

"A lot of the things he said on the campaign trail you can now dispense with,” said correspondent Peter Baker.

Honestly I suspected that was going to happen all along - just as we have seen with his promise to pull out of Iraq immediately.

And who would have ever thought that the market meltdown would actually be a good thing?

You’re not going to see universal health care, I don’t think, this year,” Baker said. “You’re not going to see a cap on carbon emissions, as he has promised, probably, this year.”

Another criticism is one that has been laid on the Bush Administration for the last 8 years.

And for all of his campaign trail talk about collective sacrifice, Baker observed, Obama has seemed reluctant to call for austerity in a challenging economic moment.

“He hasn’t asked anybody for sacrifice,” Baker said. “His whole economic package is about giving things to people.”

In all honesty, President-elect Obama has made a few very wise choices in his Cabinet appointments. These choices were centrist enough and common sense enough that the far left has been left sputtering in rage. If you are a partisan, that has to make you smile, just a little.

However, even though I disagree vehemently with a lot of his policy positions, I hope that President Obama have some success as President...for the sake of the country. I want the country to succeed and if that means success for President Obama - so be it.