Just a Little Late: "What We Don't Know About Obama"

It's quite a list, but why does it hit the mainstream media -- or at least the news side of the internet -- only AFTER the inauguration?

And would it have been too much to ask reporters to pose these questions to Obama before the election?

Here are just a few of the questions that Obama somehow has avoided answering:

DOES HE REALLY THINK AFGHANISTAN IS WINNABLE?

The new president has strongly signaled that he thinks the answer is yes. But neither his rhetoric nor his policy proposals so far have fully reckoned with the implications. 

If he intends to win in Afghanistan, he is not going to be a Peacemaker President. To the contrary, he is committing himself to being just as much of a War President as George W. Bush, certainly for the first term and very possibly for a potential second. 

Most military experts think a decisive win in Afghanistan — as opposed to a muddle-through strategy leading to a gradual withdrawal —will involve a major surge in troops and a willingness to tolerate high costs and high casualties. 

In any event, the country and its unruly neighbor, Pakistan, will quite likely dominate Obama’s attention much more than Iraq. 

Obama advisers say one of the biggest surprises of recent secret briefings on trouble spots around the globe was how unstable, exposed and dangerous Pakistan is. A nuclear neighbor that harbors terrorists injects all the more danger and uncertainty to the war on the other side of its border. 

Joe Biden’s first trip abroad as vice President-elect included a stop in Afghanistan. When he returned home, he told Obama: “The truth is that things are going to get tougher in Afghanistan before they’re going to get better.” 

If that’s true, Obama may in the end find muddle-through more attractive than victory.

DO DEFICITS MATTER? 

In the short-run, Obama and his advisers believe, just like Bush and his advisers, that pumping up the economy is the top priority —budget deficits be damned. 

But when does the short-run become the long-run? 

Obama has said long-term, trillion-dollar deficits are “unsustainable.” His inaugural address warned about the need to cut programs that don’t work and make “hard choices.” 

Does he really mean it? If so, the second half of Obama’s first term likely will be marked by austerity just as much as the first half is going to be marked by massive spending in the name of economic stimulus.
 
Embracing balanced budgets would also mean embracing steep cuts in weapons systems and entitlement programs, as well as curbing his ambitions for new initiatives in health care and energy. Tax hikes would also be part of the remedy. 

With unpleasant medicine like this, Obama may instead find common cause with Democratic liberals and with Dick Cheney, who, according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, once dismissed GOP deficit hawks by saying that Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.

HOW FAST IS TOO FAST IN IRAQ?

The president says he still wants U.S. troops out of Iraq in 16 months. Tellingly, he always adds caveats that conditions and advice from commanders will dictate the pace. Defense Secretary Gates recently made this clear: “He also said he wanted to have a responsible drawdown. And he also said he was prepared to listen to his commanders. So, I think that that’s exactly the position the president-elect should be in.”

What if conditions change for the worse? Violence is way down and many of the most troubled areas are showing signs of stability. But this remains an extremely volatile region that could erupt in new bloodshed. Will Obama still cling to a speedy pull-out if it means the country could implode?

Obama met with his military commanders on Wednesday. But it’s anyone’s guess whose advice he’ll be listening to most closely, and which members of his heavyweight foreign policy team – within which there are significant disagreements over the Iraq war – will really have his ear.

Frankly, I don't think Obama or his advisers know the answers to any of these questions.

Here's another question for Obama:  If it was necessary to take the oath of office twice to dispel internet chatter questioning the constitutional import of the flub in the oath, why was it unnecessary to produce Obama's original, complete birth certificate to dispel far greater internet chatter regarding Obama's constitutional qualifications as a natural born citizen?

And here's yet another question for Obama:  When you took the oath again, why did you not bother to use a Bible?  Could you and your administration not scrounge up a single Bible anywhere in your homes or offices, or did you just consider it an irrelevant prop?  What does it say about you that you made a big show of using Abraham Lincoln's Bible for the inauguration, but dispensed with the Bible entirely behind closed doors? 

Maybe Obama just didn't think it through.  In the end, that will end up explaining many of his policies as well.

Comments

[rrobin]

Gina, I suggest you and everyone else here go to Leo Donofrio's site and copy this information posted on Grand Juries, before it disappears.
We may find it really valuable at some point.
Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/bcyuhh