American Daily Review - articles blog - Obama's Growing Credibility Gap

American Daily Review - articles blog - Obama's Growing Credibility Gap: "The failing Afghanistan/Pakistan policy and growing trillion dollar deficit spending already seen in the first 100 days of the Obama Presidency naturally draw comparison to another President whose ambitious beginning was marred by an analogous credibility gap that ultimately rejuvenated the Conservative movement.



Today the measure of the economic output of the United States called the gross domestic product was revealed to be 30% worse than anticipated. It has been declining for 9 months and the rate of that decline has been increasing over the past six months. President Obama has predicted that even if his economic programs are successful that the United States would for the first time in history have trillion dollar deficits. But Obama’s predictions presume that the gross domestic product would increase significantly by at least 3 to 4% initially not fall."

Many economic experts are questioning how Obama can proceed with major new government initiatives that will bring “big” new spending after the economic bailout program passed by the Democrats has already created record deficits. Obama’s programs and the economic vitality of America cannot coexist. Massive tax increases and draconian budget cuts in military spending will not reverse the Obama economic ship from running aground.

The failure of the Obama military actions in the Afghanistan/Pakistan theater as well as his contribution to the failing economic output and increasing federal deficit are creating a “creditability gap” for President Obama. While the liberal media is touting the emergence of a new Democratic progressive dynasty in American politics, a look at the history of the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson which is comparable in many ways to that of Obama suggests that a Conservative resurrection might be more tenable in reality than the left would imagine.

The ascension of Lyndon Johnson to the Presidency of the United States following the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 heralded significant changes in American society that initially created a new wave of enthusiasm for change. Johnson’s “Great Society” program created big government beyond even what his mentor, President Roosevelt, had envisioned with the New Deal.

At the time the Republican party in Congress was extremely weak so that Johnson was able to get Congress to pass a multitude of new government programs including federal aid to education, Medicare, Medicaid, urban renewal, conservation, the war against poverty, and the space program.

President Johnson was well intentioned and rightly deserves credit for courageously standing up to bigotry in the Southern Democratic party to pass landmark civil rights legislation. Yet despite his good intentions and arguably notable social achievements, his Presidency would end finding him unpopular and broken.

Johnson’s “Achilles heel” came to be known as the “creditability gap”. In March of 1965 New York Herald Tribune used the term referring to Johnson to describe the difference between the claims of the Johnson administration in the success of the Vietnam War and what the press was seeing first hand. The press reports of American failures in Vietnam became an avalanche of criticism that began to frame his Presidency .

By 1967 the progressive government programs had become very costly. Although public opinion had favored the need for social change the popularity of Johnson was in a steepening descent as the public perceived government spending was out of control. The federal deficit was increasing as were interest rates and consumers prices. His predecessor had passed a significant tax cut which had helped foster economic growth but now President Johnson was requesting a 6% surcharge on federal income taxes to offset the deficit.

The combination of the failure of the military action in Vietnam and government overspending transformed Johnson and the Democratic party from leading an overwhelming majority to retreating against a new conservative movement. The Democratic agenda come to screeching halt in 1966 when the Congressional elections saw Republicans gain 47 seats in the House and 3 Senators

As I have recently written the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan is going from bad to worse with moderates in Pakistan being severely disillusioned with Obama. Just like in Vietnam where villagers loyalty to the Republic of South Vietnam was never won, now the drone facilitated civilian casualties are inducing villagers to help the Taliban and not the Pakistani military. The similarity of the Obama war failures and unkept economic promises to that which heralded the precipitous downfall of President Johnson may bode well for the 2010 elections to repeat what happened in 1966.