ÿþ<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"> <title>OnlineColumnist®.com: Putin Punishes Georgia</title> <meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive 4"> <style type="text/css"> .style2 { font-size: large; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial; } .style3 { height: 69px; } .MsoNormal {} h1 {margin-bottom:.0001pt; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-weight:normal; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; } .style4 { font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; } </style> </head> <body bgcolor="white" vlink="black"> <center> <table cool width="624" height="2719" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" gridx="16" showgridx gridy="16" showgridy> <tr height="79"> <td width="133" height="118" rowspan="2" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0"><a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"><img height="110" width="62" src="images/discobolos.logo.transp.gif" border="0"></a></td> <td width="7" height="118" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="482" height="79" colspan="2" valign="top" align="left" xpos="140"><img height="75" width="450" src="images/banner.GIF"></td> <td width="1" height="118" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="1" height="79"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="79"></td> </tr> <tr height="39"> <td width="182" height="39"></td> <td width="300" height="39" valign="top" align="left" xpos="322"><a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"><img height="14" width="267" src="images/divisionofNEW.GIF" border="0"></a></td> <td width="1" height="39"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="39"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="624" colspan="6" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0" class="style3"> <table border="0" width="100%" bgcolor="black" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td> <table border="0" width="100%" bgcolor="#99ffcc" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4"> <tr> <td align="center"> <div align="left"> <a href="index.html"><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> HOME</strong></font></a><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> &#8226; <a href="articlesindex.html">ARTICLES</a> &#8226; <a href="books.html">BOOKS</a> &#8226; <a href="teflon.html"> THE </a><a href="teflon.html">TEFLON</a><a href="teflon.html"> REPORT</a> &#8226; <a href="mailto:letters@onlinecolumnist.com"> REACTIONS</a> &#8226; <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html">ABOUT DISCOBOLOS</a></strong></font></div> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr height="2"> <td width="133" height="2">&nbsp;</td> <td width="489" height="2576" colspan="3" rowspan="2" align="left" xpos="133" content valign="top" csheight="2573"> <p class="style2">Obama&#39;s Misplaced Priorities</p> <p><b><font face="Arial,Geneva,Helvetica">by John M. Curtis</font></b><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><b><a href="books.html"><br> </a></b></font><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><b> (310) 204-8700</b></font></p> <p><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><i>Copyright March 6, 2009<br>All Rights Reserved. </i></font>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="style4">&nbsp;H</span>osting an  urgent health care conference at the White House, President Barack Obama invited some of the nation s leading authorities to try to forge a way forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>While there s nothing wrong with trying to fix the nation s health care problems, U.S. fiancial markets continue to melt down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Barack s focus on health care, global warming and alternative energy pale in comparison to addressing the nation s financial crisis and national security threats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Wall Street hasn t reacted favorably to what many see as a liberal spending binge, jumping the gun on costly new programs when there s no fix for today s economic mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Exploding federal budget deficits signal to Wall Street that there s hell to pay for misplaced priorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>With General Motors on the verge of bankruptcy and Citibank and Bank of America facing insolvency, spending money unwisely spells more trouble.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Wall Street looks for White House leadership, commissioned with the awesome task of fixing the nation s economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Spending untold billions on health care, global warming and alternative energy will only make a bad situation worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>When President Bush took office in 2001, he had no clue the nation would face the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Immediate consequences launched an economic meltdown of historic proportions sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting from 12,500 to about 7,500 July 2003.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Instead of helping a fragile economy, Bush chose to go to war in Iraq March 20, 2003, costing the nation nearly $1 trillion and sacrificing over 4,200 U.S. troops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Columbia University s Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz believes the war contributed to today s economic mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Barack must urgently prioritize before it s too late.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Published reports about how the White House including Barack have singled out private citizen, conservative nationally syndicated radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, speaks volumes about misplaced priorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Why his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs or any other White House staffer spend one nanosecond on Rush Limbaugh is anyone s guess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>All efforts should be directed toward reassuring Wall Street and financial markets that the White House has its total focus on fixing the nation s broken economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Barack told a joint session of Congress and national audience Feb. 24 that all must sacrifice to fix the economy including the White House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>So far, no one has seen any sign that he s willing to put on hold any spending priorities that are not feasible during this time of financial crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Good leadership requires tuning in to his critics.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Attacking Rush Limbaugh and ignoring the GOP minority in Congress betrays Barack s promise of bipartisanship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> When three brave Republican senators joined Democrats to support his $787 billion economic recovery plan, it didn t give the White House license to ignore the opposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Barack s $3.55 trillion budget threw lawmakers for a loop, unable to fathom massive government spending during a make-or-break fiscal crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Obama needs to seriously reconsider his spending plans in light of the nation s economic mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>He can t blame today s economic crisis on the troubled health care system, global warming or the lack of renewable energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> Obama knows that banks risky investments in  derivatives based on subprime mortgages caused the economic disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Today s health care problems, global warming or lack of alternative fuels didn t wreck the economy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Looming large on the horizon are foreign policy threats, especially Iran s feverish<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>pursuit of nuclear weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Just around the corner, Israel will seat a new government behind conservative 59-year-old Likud Leader Benjamin Netanyahu., an Israeli-born but U.S. educated conservative, with degrees from MIT in architecture and management from the Sloan School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>He s a brilliant, tough-minded politician, considered one of the most charismatic leaders in Israeli history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>He views Iran s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as another Hitler and believes Tehran s nuclear program is an existential threat to the Jewish State.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>While visiting Israel this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton got an up-close-and-personal look at the changing complexion of Israeli politics expected under Netanyahu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> She knows that Netanyahu won t wait passively while the U.S. and U.N. play cat-and-mouse with Tehran.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Looking at the big picture, Barack must call off the dogs when it comes to Rush Limbaugh and strike a more conciliatory tone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Whether or not Rush is the spiritual force behind the GOP, the White House must make a wholehearted attempt to get along with Republicans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Pushing too hard for multibillion dollar programs before financial markets are stabilized will meet stiff resistance from the GOP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Whatever concessions were made over his new economic recovery program, Republicans will fight Barack tooth-and-nail over well-meaning profligate spending that explodes the already intolerable budget deficit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Obama needs to slow down, heed GOP worries about excessive spending and refocus his energy on fixing the economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>If he has any shot at pushing his health care, global warming and alternative fuels agenda, he needs to satisfy Wall Street and stabilize financial markets.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analysing spin in national and global news.&nbsp; He&#39;s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of <a href="books.html"><i>Dodging</i> <i>The Bullet</i> </a>and <i> <a href="books.html">Operation Charisma</a>.</i></p> </td> <td width="1" height="2576" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="1" height="2"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="2"></td> </tr> <tr height="2574"> <td width="133" height="2574" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0"><img height="172" width="111" src="images/johninframe3.jpg"></td> <td width="1" height="2574"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="2574"></td> </tr> <tr height="1" cntrlrow> <td width="133" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="133" height="1"></td> <td width="7" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="7" height="1"></td> <td width="182" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="182" height="1"></td> <td width="300" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="300" height="1"></td> <td width="1" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="1"></td> <td width="1" height="1"></td> </tr> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" width="597"> <tr> <td><font size="1" face="Arial,Geneva,Helvetica"> <hr noshade size="1"> </font><a href="index.html"><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> Home</strong></font></a><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> || <a href="articlesindex.html">Articles</a> || <a href="books.html">Books</a> || <a href="teflon.html">The Teflon Report</a> || <a href="mailto:letters@onlinecolumnist.com"> Reactions</a> || <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html">About Discobolos</a></strong></font> <div align="left"> <p><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular">This site designed, developed and hosted by the experts at</font><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"> <a href="http://www.cmeonline.net" target="_blank"><img height="30" width="138" src="images/cmelogoANIM.gif" border="0" align="absmiddle"></a></font></p> </div> <p><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular">©1999-2005 <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"> Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.</a><br> (310) 204-8300<br> All Rights Reserved. </font></td> </tr> </table> </center> </body> </html>