December 8, 2008

Gasp! Obama’s Interim Report Card Not So Bad

There’s a great invention they have these days in schools: Interim report cards. 

Intended to provide an opportunity for intervention, interims in our case serve mostly as a heads-up to start saving the money for the usual bribes for A’s, which is all kids seem to get anymore anyway. Seems like, as the bottom falls out of the economy, grades are the only place we need to worry about inflation these days. 

I mean, who ever heard of a 4.3 on a 4.0 scale? At least in Lake Woebegone, all the children were only above average. In our schools, large chunks of the class are above perfect. 

But I digress, as is my wont. Because my purpose isn’t to blather on about my kids’ sterling academic performance. It’s to offer up Barack Obama’s interim.

I’ll save you the suspense. Grudgingly. Because on the perception front at least – which is where we PR guys live – I think the guy is pulling pretty much straight A’s.

You over there! Stop the theatrical eye-rubbing. You read right. The charmed campaign rookie who could do no wrong is carrying his winning streak right through the interregnum.

To start with, as Sundance might have said to Butch about O’s cabinet nominees, “Who are these guys?”  Surprise! For the most part, it’s the Gang That Can Shoot Straight. Not conservatives, mind you, but on the whole reassuring and competent adult leadership free of wild-eyed, drooling, raving liberalism.  

You gotta like a holdover Defense chief who by all accounts has brought order to the Pentagon and probable victory in Iraq. For National Security Director, a top-ranking general who ran NATO. An Attorney General nominee who is a former judge and prosecutor with relatively reasonable views on Homeland Security matters.

To run the out-of-control bailout, a Treasury Secretary who has – gracious! – helped run the bailout. A budget director who has actually done the job on Capitol Hill – and was introduced with a repeat of all the right sentiments on the imperative to scrub spending. For Commerce, a dude with some fed-level cred on energy and international affairs and a fair helping of innovation as a governor.

And at State, a woman who needs no introduction to the public, and won’t to world leaders either. Not to mention a tough broad who ran to O’s right on foreign policy (a place where, during the primaries, there was room enough to drive a squadron of Hummers even with $4 gas), packaged with maybe enough concessions and safeguards on ethical disclosure to rein in even Wild Bill.

The bottom line: For all the hand-wringing during the campaign, we’re not talking Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers at The One’s right and left hands. This crowd does not exactly constitute the Moveon.Org all-star team.

On the issues, it’s been fairly quiet so far, but the murmurs from Team O have been equally calming. No tax hikes for now in the face of raging recession and rising unemployment. Yeah, we finally get it that there are no windfalls to sock when oil prices are dropping faster than Britney Spears’s pants. Reports of actual internal debate as to whether America can afford some of the nutcase environmental reforms floated during election season.

Yes, Obama does seem all too willing to turn on the printing presses to “stimulate” the economy.  But he’s hardly alone – some of the most sober-minded economists around now favor running up the credit card balances for your grandchildren’s grandchildren to pay off. Obama’s steaming desire for trillion-dollar deficit spending – another source of terror on the Right before November 4 – is suddenly mainstream.

But per usual, Obama’s highest scores are saved for the O-ptics. Magnanimously granting black sheep Joe Lieberman a reprieve. Accelerating his Treasury appointment to halt a raging mudslide down Wall Street. Keeping his distance from a losing cause in the Georgia Senate runoff. On the whole, acting and looking – darn it – presidential, complete with his own regal-looking Office of the President-Electern.

Sleek Barry has escaped the alligators thus far the old fashioned way – by draining the swamp of opportunity for vitriol. A check of the conservative blogs will show frustrated pundits forced to focus on nativity displays in Washington and continued Palin pregnancy conspiracy theories. 

Listen, I can guarantee that 44-to-be, like every president, will eventually step in it someplace. But fortunately, I don’t have to save up for Barack Obama’s report card money. Because I have a feeling that over the next few years, I could go broke.