Is Obama a socialist?

The New York Times finds out
By Mark Alexander

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Barack Obama took that adage to heart when he dialed up The New York Times to clarify his answer to an earlier question posed by their reporter about whether the president is a socialist. We here know the correct answer is "yes," but Obama decided to dance around the issue.

We might note that Obama without a teleprompter is like a fish out of water. He began, "See, uhhh, I -- I -- eh -- Just one thing that, uhh, I was thinking about as I was, uhh, -- as I was -- getting off the, uhhh, copter 'cause, I -- uhhh -- you know, it was hard for me to believe you were entirely serious about that socialist question." (Hat tip to Rush Limbaugh's team for the painful transcript.)

Obama continued, "Uh, and so I think that, uh, it's important just to note, uhh, when you start, uhh, hearing folks, uhh, throw these words around, thaaat, um, uh, we've actually been operating, uh, in a way that, uh, is entirely consistent with free market principles, uh, and that, uhhh, uh, some of the same folks who are uh, throwing the word 'socialist' around can't say the same." And he wasn't done yet: "I -- I -- I -- I just think it's c-clear that by the time we had, uhhhhh. By the time we, eh, uh, got here, uhhh, ummm, there already had been, uh, an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system, aaand, eh, eh, eh, y-y-yuh-y-y-yuh.... The thing I constantly try to emphasize to people is that, if coming in the market was doing fine, nobody would be happier than me, uh, to stay out of it. Uh, you know, I -- I -- I have more than enough to do, uh, without having to worry about the financial system. Uh, and the fact that, uh, we've had to take these extraordinary measures, uh, and intervene, uh, is, uhh, not an indication of my ideological preferences."

While Obama does have a point about some of the fiscally irresponsible policies enacted by the Bush administration, the truth is that Obama didn't rise to oppose them, either in Congress or on the campaign trail, for being too big, but rather that they were not big enough.

Instead of coming up with a new plan of attack after seeing the failure of last spring's stimulus checks, the TARP money and all the other bailouts, it appears that the only idea President Obama and his economic Keystone Kops have is to throw good yet-to-be-printed money after bad existing debt.

Let's Cut Through The Crap
HeavyHanded would like to add that after Obama won the November election, he asked and pushed for a stimulus bill to be passed so that he could "hit the ground running."

Later, after the first half of the TARP money was spent and before he took office, he asked then President Bush to hold off on the second half of the TARP spending bill so he could use it as he saw fit when he took office. So let's cut through the crap. A little honesty would be appreciated.