Commentary: Obama under fire from left and right

Story Highlights
Ruben Navarrette: Stimulus plan moving ahead toward Obama's signature

He says administration had a disastrous debut for its bank bailout plan

Navarrette says much criticism of Obama has come from the left

He says the critics of Obama's effort to get bipartisan support are wrong


By Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

   
Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist and a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Read his column here.


Ruben Navarrette Jr. says the left is criticizing Barack Obama for trying to promote bipartisan cooperation.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- We have a deal. This week, House and Senate leaders agreed on a $789 billion stimulus package intended to jumpstart the economy, create millions of jobs, and alleviate some of the financial anxiety suffered by individuals and businesses.

After another round of voting in the House and Senate, the compromise bill is due to land on President Obama's desk by Monday.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Capitol, the administration's plan for another banking bailout got a cool reception from lawmakers in what Obama senior adviser David Axelrod acknowledged was a "bumpy rollout" for the financial rescue plan.

You can say that again, David. The bumps include Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's disastrous testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, which was so unconvincing and so bereft of specifics that it sent Wall Street investors into a nosedive. And to think this is the wunderkind who the Obama team told us deserved a break on his tax problems because he was uniquely qualified to fix the economic mess.

If this guy rates as "uniquely qualified," I'd hate to see the administration's idea of unqualified.

Besides, congressional Democrats have to bend themselves into pretzels to stand by Geithner. As the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he was a central player in Bush's bailout of our lending institutions -- the same bailout that Democrats voted for and now criticize.

This week, some of them made a show of scolding the CEO's of the major banks for earning too much and not giving out enough loans to homeowners -- in short, for not using the billions they were given as Congress would have liked, all to cover up the fact that Congress was foolish enough not to attach strings to the giveaway.

Like a lot of Americans, I've been watching all this with mixed emotions. I'm caught between my natural inclination to applaud quick and decisive action on the part of political leaders who are often averse to these things, and the concern that the legislation that Congress and the White House are rushing into law is too expensive and too laden with pork and politics -- all for an outcome that is too uncertain.

This all has the feel of being simply a down payment. And yet, even with those qualms, I'm not sold on the idea being advanced by some conservative talk show hosts that the smart thing to do would be to do nothing and let the market correct itself.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/13/navarrette.stimulus/index.html