I wanted to get out ahead of the president's State of the Union address, with several observations.The president would do well to jettison his closest advisers. I prefer to call them handlers, however. One reason: They're too much involved in the critical decisions he's required to make on a daily basis, and are more concern with the political fallout of those decisions, rather than the rightness of them.
On Haiti, the president made a good start. He pledged a hundred million dollars, activated the military, and other support staff, sending his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, early into the relief effort.
But then came the criticism from the Right, Rush Limbaugh, for one. He criticized the president for his quick actions, and his response. He accused the president of making some kind of appeal to the black community, those from the dark and the light community, as though blacks live in some kind of apartheid community that's divided up along colorlines.
And as other criticism came in from the Right, the president left the stage, and he hasn't spoken on the matter since (nothing that I've heard, at least). Perhaps he'll talk about the Haitian crisis and relief efforts during his State of the Union address tonight. Maybe not.
I suspect that additional troops are being dispatched to Haiti to quell a potential major outbreak of violence that might be used by the Right to further criticize the president. Although no such violence appears imminent, it quiets the Right, but the action is heavy-handed, and unnecessary. The relief effort is now being seen more as an invasion of Haiti than a relief effort. This is unfortunate, but predictable, given the counsel he's receiving from those around him.
And there's no coordination of the relief effort. All the aid groups in the country are pretty much operating from the seat of their pants, and on the fly, without one group knowing what the other is doing.
To be truly effective in the future, the nations of the world, upon whom such relief may be sought, will have to come together, along with major private relief providers, and develop responses that are targeted to the disaster, coordinated, and strategized. This will require the development of an international relief response under one umbrella, with everyone talking with the other, and answerable to one central agency.
With the threat of global warming looming, such disasters are only a few years away. If we don't develop a coherent, international response, more Haities are sure to test our limited resources, and relief responses will prove to do as much harm as the natural disasters that called them forth.
The president need more men that speak truth, and not politics, and fewer like Timothy Geithner, and Ben Bernanke (who will probably win another term), and Larry Summers. These men are of the school that says all ships rises when one rises. That's not necessarily true. We're seeing a rebound for Wall Street, and the stock market, but the economy, especially the housing market, is still in a slump, and unemployment still stands nationally above 10 percent, and higher in some regions and states than that.
His supposed plan to call for a "spending freeze" for some government programs is nothing more than a concession to the Tea Partiers, and smacks of another failed attempt by his handlers to navigate shark-infested waters unscathed.
When the president follows his own mind, he's his most effective. When he listens to Rahm Emanuel, and his other advisers, he goes into reactive mode, rather than proactive mode, and he's seen as weak, and perennially on the defensive.
As I observed in another blog entry Jump (For My Love):
"Democrats, and the president in particular, can't jump each time Republican critics attempt to use an event to make them look soft on terrorism, dovish on war, and weak on national security. Jumping is not going to make Republicans love you more, nor diminish their attacks. Republicans have a plan: to take back the seats of power by any means necessary. And the method they're using now is to make Democrats and the president look foolish, and ineffective."
Jumping is not good for their health. It's one exercise that is sure to kill their agenda, as well as a second term in the White House, and control of the Congress.
