Pundits Take Their Best Shots

Whether the Obama administration is doing too much or too little to jump-start the economy, the stock market and the credit markets, or whether he's doing more harm than good, fueled the bulk of the debate.

Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., MSNBC's senior political analyst as well as an Emmy-award-winner from when he served as executive producer of "The West Wing," was predictably supportive of the White House, although he had his gripes. Indeed, he complained that President Obama had "overloaded the circuits" with his ambitious legislative agenda–including economic recovery, health care reform, financial services regulatory reform and the launching of a green economy.

"Normally, I would say for sure this is all too much for Congress to handle," he said. "But the economic crisis changes the rules of the game. It puts his entire agenda on a fast-track–especially health care reform, which he has tied to his stimulus program to help rebuild the economy and ultimately get the deficit under control."

While Mr. O'Donnell believes President Obama  "could squeak something through" on health care, he believes cap-and-trade legislation to control global warming is a dead issue for this Congress. "This is possibly the worst time to introduce such a concept, which could raise energy costs substantially in the short term," he said. "It's likely to fall by the wayside, although with President Obama's enormous popularity, you can never count him out."

However, Mort Zuckerman, chair and editor in chief of "U.S. News & World Report" and publisher of the "New York Daily News," warned that the White House "better move fast, because if this economy doesn't turn around by early next year, it will undermine anything he wants to do that he hasn't already gotten done."

Eleanor Clift, a contributing editor for "Newsweek," said President Obama will get health care reform passed "because the business community wants it, too, since insurance costs are killing them."

She also noted that the White House is handling its reform initiative far differently than the plan which crashed and burned under Bill and Hillary Clinton, "because this time the administration is letting Congress hammer out the details based on his framework and goals, rather than develop it behind closed doors and foist it, take it or leave it, onto Congress."

Monica Crowley, the conservative star of the self-titled "Monica Crowley Show" that's syndicated around the country, said President Obama knows he has to move fast "because presidents soon realize that this kind of political capital must be spent quickly because it doesn't last very long, so he must cram through as much of his agenda as he can this year."

She also warned about the consequences of the massive spending initiated by the Obama administration to stimulate the economy, cover government bailouts of financial and auto companies, as well as finance health care reform.

"Someone has to pay for all this," she said. "So government is either going to have to print more, borrow more or tax more. It's likely they'll do all three, which is the worst of all possible worlds."

Issue #2: Is President Obama doing too much or too little to jump-start the economy?

This was another contentious debate. While Ms. Crowley scolded the Democrat-controlled White House and Congress for building a mountain of debt that could eventually bury the economy in an avalanche of inflation, and urged Republicans to return to their fundamental principles of small government and fiscal prudence, other panelists said not enough federal money is being spent to make a significant difference.

Mr. Zuckerman insisted that President Obama is "doing too little for the economy. The stimulus money is flowing much too slowly into the system, and in any case is too small an amount to have a major impact. It's peanuts."

He warned that "we're still in a downward spiral that is feeding on itself, and we could end up with a much worse economy next year, at which time the Republicans–who have done nothing but say no to everything [President] Obama wants to do–will gloat that 'we told you so.'"

Mr. O'Donnell dismissed the stimulus package as "statistically ridiculous. It's much too small to make a significant difference in an economy this large."

But Ms. Clift begged to differ. "Politics is the art of the possible, and this stimulus bill is the most President Obama could get through the Senate," she said. "But the Democrats have [former Republican] Arlen Specter on board, and Al Franken on his way from Minnesota, which will give them the fillibuster-proof 60 vote margin they'll need to pass an additional stimulus package down the road."

Ms. Clift added that Republican pleadings for limited government in a recession this deep and long-lasting "is like a dead weight dragging down the party. At a time when millions are out of work and tens of millions lack health insurance, people want Washington to spend to stimulate the economy and expand the social safety net, which is what President Obama is doing."

Issue #3: Is Uncle Sam taking over the economy, and is President Obama a socialist?

Mr. O'Donnell said the point is moot, as the United States became a semi-socialist state back in the 1930s with the creation of Social Security, which saved many of the elderly from ending their lives in poverty, while we morphed into an even broader socialist society with passage of Medicare in the 1960s.

"Every time [conservative pundit] Pat Buchanan laments about our devolution into socialism, I tell him to take out his Medicare card, tear it up and never use the program again. Who would cover the elderly if not for Medicare?"

When Mr. McLaughlin asked whether "capitalism is kaput," Mr. Zuckerman said the imposition of more regulation helps, not hurts the capitalist system.

"We abandoned regulation and now we reap what we sow," he said. "I wouldn't call additional oversight government intrusion into the private market. I would call it regulatory support to counter the excesses and reckless behavior of the past few years."

Ms. Clift insisted that "President Obama is not a socialist. He didn't nationalize the banks when he had the chance, and he wants to keep private carriers at the center of a reformed health insurance system. He's far more conservative than he's given credit for."

Even Ms. Crowley wouldn't go so far as to say we are living in a socialist society, although she decried the "massive government intervension  into the financial sector, the auto industry and now the insurance business."

"It's still a free market…sort of," she concluded.

What do you folks think???