It had been a rough week. Two nominees had gone down in flames, and Republicans had made him look like a pork peddler with their resistance to his stimulus package, which was sinking in the polls.
But by last Sunday, Barack Obama could look forward to seven days that were going to get his infant presidency back on course.
All went well on Monday. The president flew to Indiana to plump for his stimulus plan, seemingly pleased to be back in campaign mode, talking to ordinary voters. In Washington, three Republicans allowed the bill to move ahead, which virtually assured that the package would be passed by week’s end.
Obama returned to the capital for his first White House press conference and was in top form, coolly answering questions as if the opening stanza of his presidency had been no sweat. When he left the podium, he had every reason to believe things were righting themselves. He had some warm fuzzies to take care of at the Lincoln Bicentennial on Thursday, then he was going home to Chicago to celebrate Valentine’s Day with his family.
But being president isn’t like running for president. Candidates can write themselves back into the movie. Presidents live in the real world, where there are no second takes.
On Tuesday morning, Obama’s dreamy week took an ominous turn.
Timothy Geithner, his stage-frightened treasury secretary, muffed his lines at the big unveiling of the bailout plan.
Even Obama allies panned Geithner’s performance and plan. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped almost 5 percent as investors cried foul over the lack of details and the scope of the project.
Geithner’s proposal to spend $2 trillion and put the taxpayers on the hook for $3 trillion more was an awfully big mouthful at a time when Congress was still choking on the stimulus. Good grief, America fought World War II for less (4.9 trillion inflation-adjusted dollars).
Fortunately for him, the Geithner plan didn’t require an immediate vote. Congress could warm itself up for the big money by passing a $787 billion stimulus.
An agreement between House and Senate Democrats on the stimulus did emerge Wednesday, but so did details about how the plan was thrown together in a mad dash.
You could just imagine all of the awful wailing and weeping when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid finally got behind closed doors. And Pelosi was probably in pretty rough shape herself.
When the Coburn Republicans started their attack on the plan, ranking Democrats had seemingly only read enough of the bill to make a few explanations — how wetlands rehabilitation in San Francisco is stimulus and why middle-class taxpayers would get an extra $13 a week for two years while $10 billion would be spent on public housing.
Even so, Obama was closing in on victory by midday Thursday. Geithner was waning and the stimulus was waxing. And the president was heading back to the Land of Lincoln.
As Air Force One roared west it, was still shaping up to be a week that brought a clear, if attenuated, victory.
But things began to unwind in embarrassing fashion as the president was about to deliver his celebratory remarks at the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Ill.
Sen. Judd Gregg — no hard-core conservative — suddenly decided to become a hero to the right wing of his party.
Gregg walked away from his new job as secretary of commerce (“his place in history” as one of his colleagues charitably told The Examiner’s Byron York) over differences in the definition of fiscal restraint and having chief of staff and political pit boss Rahm Emanuel running the Census Bureau.
Obama still gave his remarks, but the focus had shifted to the buttoned-down senator from New Hampshire, who was as polite as he could be whilst pouring salt in Obama’s Cabinet wounds.
Then, after the event, Caterpillar Chief Executive Officer Jim Owens made Obama seem as clueless as, well, Tim Geithner. The day before, Obama said that if the stimulus was passed, the company would start rehiring some of the 22,000 workers it laid off.
Not quite, Owens said. There would be more layoffs still, he said, and the stimulus wouldn’t spur much construction anyway.
As Air Force One was heading back to Washington, Obama and his teammates found themselves on the defensive, explaining another failed nomination and a misunderstanding about unemployed factory workers.
A week to reboot had become yet another week to endure.
We’re only four weeks into the age of Obama, but it sure feels a lot longer.
Political Editor Chris Stirewalt can be contacted at [email protected].
