I am struck by Brooks' observation that, "The only thing more scary than Obama's experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it." So we are kind of stuck, and the quandary Brooks and I (and no doubt many others) find themselves is that we have no home.
As I said to Birmingham Charlie yesterday, I am a lifelong Republican, but of the Rockefeller variety. Somewhere along the way, my party got hijacked by a bunch of ideological "whack-jobs" with whom I find I share no values whatsoever. I long for a return to a Hamiltonian view of government, with a Constitutional mission to "promote the general welfare," in such a way that all the people benefit.
I do agree that the need to save the economy should not necessarily sweep aside the addressing of important goals, such as health care and education reform. But fiscal discipline has always been part of the Hamiltonian credo.
My faith in our new President has not entirely dissipated. But I would like to see some backup to the propeller-heads that Obama has assembled. Geithner needs an Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, for Debt Management, for Economic Policy, and I am sure other key posts. Neel Kashkari, a Paulson holdover, is still running TARP. How long does it take to sort out the Plum Book? Probably too many casualties to the no-lobbyist, no "tax cheats" Puritanism of the new guys. As the Washington Post reported many in Washington (and in Bedminster) feel that the problems of the markets and the economy are too complex to be left to Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.
So what's my course? I am tempted to fall back on the mantra of Julian of Norwich -- "All will be well; all will be well; and all manner of thinge will be well." But she was a Anchorite and lived in a box! What did she know about credit default swaps and CMOs?
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