Saying One Thing Doing Another

With the negotiations ongoing in DC over how to best solve the financial crisis I found this interesting. Not long ago Barack Obama was on Sixty Minutes and had this to say about what would make him a good President, via Dan Riehl.

(on camera): Why do you think you’d be a good president?

OBAMA: Well, I think that when you think about the challenges we face, these are challenges that require us to look forward and not backwards.

(CROSSTALK)

KROFT: Why you? I mean, why do you think you would be a good president?

OBAMA: Well, I was going to get to that.

KROFT: Go ahead.

OBAMA: You know, I’m a, I’m a practical person. One of the things I’m good at is getting people in a room with a bunch of different ideas who sometimes violently disagree with each other and finding common ground and a sense of common direction. And that’s the kind of approach that I think prevents you from making some of the enormous mistakes that we’ve seen over the last eight years.

You would think he would then be uniquely suited to bring the disparaging sides together in those negotiations but what does he say in his presser yesterday besides droning on and on?

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) change your decision to stay here? Or are you still going to stay here in Florida and prepare for the debate, or are you thinking of going back to Washington?

OBAMA: You know, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to -- what I have told the leadership in Congress is that, if I can be helpful, then I am prepared to be anywhere any time.

What I think is important, though, is that we don't suddenly infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics at a time when we're in the middle of some very delicate and difficult negotiations.

So, you know, I think the message is, if you need us, if I can be helpful, I'm prepared to be there at any point.

He is really taking the lead here isn't he? Didn't he brag to the Israelis a while back that he was on the Banking committee? He isn't of course but the super skilled negotiator is trying his best to stay as far away as possible from these negotiations. He'll fly back to DC to be Harry Reid's lap poodle if Harry needs his vote but that's about it because he is clueless about what to do. Heck one of his financial advisers is Jim Johnson one of the creators of the mess.