“Dear Mr. President, Why Do You Hate Us,” graces the cover of the Post.
Goodwin hits the Prez for socking New Yorkers with “massive new taxes to fund his healthcare monstrosity,” punishing Wall Street for making too much money, threatening “political jihad against anybody who dares challenge the too-precious Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand” and telling Gov. David Patterson to “take a long walk off a short bridge.”
Overplayed, yes, but it's tough stuff.
The Voice takes no prisoners, branding the President as “George W. Obama.” That’s a huge hit since the paper considered President George W. Bush public enemy No. 1 during the eight years that he was in office. Hentoff blasts Obama for “continuing much of the Bush-Cheney parallel government, and in some cases, is going much further in disregarding or laws and the international treaties we’ve signed.
Writes the columnist: “If Dick Cheney were a gentleman, instead of continuing to criticize this President, he would congratulate him on his faithful allegiance to the many signature policies of the Bush-Cheney transformation of America.”
Obama took about 63 percent of New York's vote in '08, the third highest percentage among the states. Tipping his hat to the famous Daily News cover of “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” Goodwin can’t recall a time since that NY was so clearly in the White House’s crosshairs. [My all-time favorite Post front page is the 1982 classic: “Headless Body Found in Topless Bar."] Goodwin feels Obama’s lack of gratitude is enough to turn this blue state red. That’s a bit of wishful thinking.
There’s much more bad news for Obama in the offing. Rough sledding is ahead as the opening gong sounds for the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission and witnesses from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are called to testify. The San Francisco Chronicle sums it up sweetly when it called those execs “leaders of an industry as popular as swine flu.”
The torch and pitchfork crowd is ready to storm the gates. Obama’s defenders rightly point out that the bank and auto bailout were under the watch of President Bush. That's true, but the buck stops at the White House.
The only way to squelch the populist backlash that is eating away at the promise of Obama is jobs, jobs and more jobs.