Obama: Behind the Curtain

So I read this piece out of the New Yorker and found it to be the MOST butt kissing piece of dribble I have ever read about the man. (ht Maggies Farm and Keith Hennessey’s email and JG)
Every factoid available was used to spin Obama as a moderate, fiscally conservative, good and thoughtful guy. No fact contrary to that spin was used in the making of the article. It truly is an amazing piece.

Today we’re getting a bit more specifics pulled out of the article.
Politico notes that based on the private (yet apparently shown to the author) memos, Obama was happy to fiddle with the numbers to make his plans look good.

Keith Hennessy notes that while his economic advisors were suggesting “highly stimulative” money (shovel ready in today’s parlance) Obama wanted to do big things. “Moon shot” things. And so squandered 60 billion. Since I think it was all a waste I don’t really care, but others do.

If Mr. Lizza’s reporting is correct, over the objection of his economic advisors President Obama replaced $60 B of “highly stimulative spending” with a slow-spending but “inspiring” $20 B for high-speed trains and $40 B in pork for his Senate Democratic allies. And this is starting from a point at which he knew that his advisors thought that not more than $225 B of the $826 B total was high-quality, fast-spending, efficient stimulus.

But here is the real kicker. During times when oversight committees are trying to get access to memos for investigations that they are constitutionally entitled to, this President handed memos over to a New Yorker reporter to get his ass kissed in a very big way.

What President Obama has forgotten is that there are other out here that used to work in the White House. Keith Hennessey is one of them. The smoochy article has a lot of insight for those in the know. Here is Mr. Hennessey again:

This post shows why you don’t release to the public memos written to the President by his senior advisors. Presidential advisors are supposed to protect the advice they give to the President. The decision to give Mr. Lizza access to so many confidential memos to the President was either blindingly stupid or shockingly disloyal, and it damaged the institution of the Presidency.