Signs of the Times

You know the election is really over (with the next one still three years away) and the new president has the responsibility for the poor economy squarely on his shoulders when Maureen Dowd of the New York Times writes a column, laced with frustration, headlined "Trillion Dollar Baby."

Dowd, who was for Barack Obama before being for Obama was cool, starts off her column by observing, "So much for the savior-based economy."

I guess folks aren't linking arms and singing "Kumbaya" these days. The latest jobless figures probably put an end to that for awhile.

But, wait, there's more.

Dowd seems perturbed with the political aspects of the battles that continue to rage in Washington. "The Obama crowd is hung up on the same issues that the Bush crew was hung up on last September: Which of the potentially $2 or $3 trillion in toxic assets will the taxpayers buy and what will we pay for them?"

I get the impression that Dowd — as well as millions of Americans — thought Obama's inauguration would mean an end to politics as usual. Well, perhaps it will lead to that eventually.

But not when trillions of dollars are on the table.

Money still talks. But it isn't saying, "Yes, we can." It's saying, "Screw you."

"There's a weaselly feel to the plan," Dowd writes, "a sense that tough decisions were postponed even as President Obama warns about our 'perfect storm of financial problems.' The outrage is going only one way, as we pony up trillion after trillion."

Well, that's the way the game is played in Washington. And Obama is enough of a pragmatist to know that a president must take whatever victories he can get — even if they don't include everything he wants.

It was funny, when it was suggested, before the inauguration, that Bush and his gang left such a mess that a black man had to be elected to clean it up. But more than three weeks have passed since the inauguration, and not much — if anything — has been cleaned up.

Sometimes it seems like more of a mess is being made. The roller coaster ride continues on Wall Street.

Obama's personal popularity remains high. But support for the economic stimulus package is sinking. Maybe his supporters are getting a reality check.

Nevertheless, House and Senate negotiators say they've resolved their differences, and Sen. Ben Nelson came up with a one-liner that just might be short enough to be on a bumper sticker. "[C]all us the 'jobs squad,' " he said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's suggestion that the latest compromise will create more jobs than the version of the bill that passed the Senate.

Well, it is more manageable than Nelson's one-liner after the Senate compromise last week. Hold your applause until we see how many jobs really are created.

To top it off, Dowd makes demands on behalf of the taxpayers (even though she concedes that Wells Fargo's purchase of a Sunday ad in the New York Times "could have cost up to $200,000," which she admits might qualify as a "bailout" for her endangered newspaper industry).

"We don't want our money spent, as Citigroup did, to pat itself on the back 'as we navigate the complexities together,' " she writes. "Bank of America cannot get back our trust by spending more of our cash to assure us that it's 'getting to work' on getting back our trust.

"Just get back to work and start repaying us."

Gee, Ms. Dowd, what do you think this is? A democracy?