A Press Conference Of Adults By Niranjan Ramakrishnan 12 February, 2009 It seemed like a different world altogether, with serious questions and serious answers. It was like a group of visitors, after having kitchie-kitchie-kooed with a baby brat for a brief while, now turning to talk to an adult who had just entered the room. Then it slowly struck you that this 'brief while' was eight long years! After the customary twaddle of the Bush press event, we were suddenly in on an adult conversation. It will take getting used to. Obama's press conference yesterday was masterful, right from the opening statement down to the last "Thank you all very much". He was in complete command of his case, without ever appearing arrogant. On both counts it was the exact reverse of his predecessor. Obama's intelligence is manifest. His correction of a questioner's premise of domestic consumption being the cause of today's financial meltdown carried a crisp exposition of what had happened. Whether or not you agreed with his explanation, you could not doubt that he at least understood it. And with it you got a glimpse into the new President's mind, and its ability to construct, construe -- and conjugate ! Presidents could do this? It was rather like those reports you read, of a species long considered extinct, now suddenly found alive in some remote part of the Pacific Ocean . With all that, the praise here is only for Obama's mental agility and powers of formulation; the Stimulus itself is a different matter. To me, it appears something like a homeowner getting ready to spend huge amounts of money on fixing up the floor of his house now entirely ruined by water. The argument now raging is over whether the floor should be allowed to dry out by itself, or whether we should borrow huge sums to fix it up. Left out of the debate is any talk of the leaks in the ceiling -- gaping holes many of them now -- which is how the floor got to where it was. The flaws in this ceiling -- outsourcing, offshoring, illegal immigration, free trade and sundry other Friedman's Follies, will remain where they are, stimulus or no stimulus. The press conference skirted the issue of the previous stimulus (stimulii -- don't forget the first 150 billion last year[1]) not having worked and why the president thought this one would. But he attributed it to shortcomings in supervision and implementation, and nothing more.
Niranjan Ramakrishnan is a writer living on the West Coast . He can be reached at [email protected] . Some of his writings can be found at indogram ( http://www.indogram.com?centerpiece=gs-327&city=bay ) References: [1] Dementia Politicana ( http://www.counterpunch.org/ramakrishnan01232008.html) by Niranjan Ramakrishnan [2] How the West Was Lost - CAFTA and the Disassembling of America ( http://www.indogram.com/?centerpiece=ar-168&city=bay ) by Niranjan Ramakrishnan |
