Governing vs. Running For President

Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal wrote a superb piece in Friday's edition spotlighting the First Rookie's attempts to crawl away from the bright promises of being the most ethical President and administration that ever was.

As Strassel put it in her column,

"The knock on Candidate Obama was that he put style ahead of substance. Who knew what he was going to do (and who cared)? It was all about how he was going to do it -- with bipartisanship and ethics and a new era of "responsibility." Now comes the reckoning. President Obama is being judged not on the what, but the how.

Mr. Daschle didn't get done in by his taxes. What Mr. Daschle didn't survive was his boss's own pronouncements about rich people and special interests. As the media dug into Daschle taxland, it discovered that (wow) he was a rich person, routinely paid by special interests to help them navigate the giant federal government.

Wait, wait, cried Mr. Obama, let's focus on the what -- namely, my health-care agenda, to which I believe Mr. Daschle is integral. No, no, roared the mob, we want to talk about the things you used to talk about, namely, how you could ever justify this. He couldn't. Next up: Leon Panetta and Hilda Solis.

His first full day in office, Mr. Obama imposed the "most sweeping ethics reform in history," barring officials from working on issues on which they'd lobbied in recent years. What followed was a succession of waivers granting several top officials immunity from the rules."

I guess that's the downside of running without any record to speak of. You grasp at concepts like ethics and change, without regard for implementation at a later time.

That time is now, and Wonderboy is faltering badly on that implementation. As Strassel reminds us,

"His promises to change the way Washington worked weren't throwaway lines tacked to an otherwise meaty agenda. They were his agenda. From now until 2012, he'll be flyspecked for every interaction with a special interest, lobbyist, wealthy individual, or Republican. The problem with lofty aspirations is that at some point they meet reality."

And can you think of a harder test for such lofty goals than the biggest pork barrel, graft-inducing Federal spending bill to ever come down the pike?

Yeah, this is gonna be good to watch! A novice Democratic President unraveling within six months of his election.

No, not Jimmy Carter. Just the latest version of the party's ill-prepared Oval Office resident.