. . . writing at Commentary:
Pundits debate whether Obama’s new populist red meat will “work” — that is, allow him to recover his political footing. But if he unnerves the markets and spooks investors, he’ll be in further trouble. After all, he might insist that the economy is all George W. Bush’s fault, but fewer and fewer voters are buying that. And if his own policies — spending with abandon, pursuing a junk-a-thon stimulus plan, spending a year on the job-killing ObamaCare and cap-and-trade, and now frightening the financial markets – have paralyzed employers, then he surely is accountable for those results.
Even within the political realm, his populist jag is costly and self-defeating. Playing to the firebrand anti-business crowd has arguably inflamed opposition to his own Fed nominee and put Bernanke’s reappointment at risk. The “populist brushfire that has burned through Democratic fortunes this week [which] threatened Friday to claim Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke” has been fanned by none other than Obama himself.
That too will reflect on Obama, for it is his nominee after all. The resulting uncertainty that would follow Bernanke’s rejection will likely beget a new round of handwringing from investors.
This, of course, is what happens when everything is a matter of politics. At some point you have to get the policy right. Having failed to do that, Obama is only making things worse . . .
Via Insty.
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