Obama, according to Wall Street people who regularly deal with his economic and budget officials, is acting as if he has a blank check to do what he wants, while ignoring the longterm costs of his policies.
When I was working on my book Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift, I read a work that Walter Lippmann, the co-founder of The New Republic, published in 1937. In it, with an eye to the New Deal, he observed that, while
the partisans who are now fighting for the mastery of the modern world wear shirts of different colors, their weapons are drawn from the same armory, their doctrines are variations of the same theme, and they go forth to battle singing the same tune with slightly different words. . . .
Thinking Strategically Is More Important Than Tanks and Guns,
April 8, 2000
David M. Abshire
This book, apart from being the world's longest job description (for a Counselor to the President for Grand Strategy), remains a vibrant and provocative discussion relevant to guiding the Nation into the 21st Century. Part I discusses the “world theater” and Part II discusses in turn a grand strategy and then political, public, deterrence, negotiating, resources, technology, Third World, and economic strategies. The book ends with thoughts on organizing for strategy that should, because of who wrote them and how good they are, be required reading, in their twelve-page entirety, for the President and his entire Cabinet team.
