THE OBSEQUIOUSNESS OF THE WATER BUGS

At his farewell party last Friday (10/1) before leaving the White House to run for mayor of Chicago, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said to President Barack Obama: “I want to thank you for being the toughest leader any country could ask for in the toughest time any president has ever faced.”

We expect these days a certain amount of excess in the flattery members of his staff bestow upon a president.  But if there were a record for sycophancy, Rahm has shattered it.

Obsequiousness and historical ignorance are dangerous combinations in any senior presidential aide.  But they are especially harmful when the president has an exalted opinion of himself, but little real world experience.

Times were tough when President Obama took the oath of office.  But tougher than the times Franklin Roosevelt faced, who had to deal with the Great Depression and World War II?  Tougher than the times Abraham Lincoln faced, with the country torn asunder by civil war?  Tougher than the times James Madison faced, after the British had burned Washington D.C.?

The economic conditions Ronald Reagan inherited from Jimmy Carter were in many ways worse than what Barack Obama inherited from George W. Bush.  The unemployment rate in January, 1981, was “only” 7.5 percent, compared to 7.6 percent in January, 2009.  But interest rates were 21 percent, and the rate of inflation was 12.5 percent. 

The foreign policy/national security situation Mr. Reagan inherited was vastly worse.  The Soviet Union was on the rampage in Afghanistan.  Communist guerrilla movements had triumphed in Nicaragua and were on the verge of triumph in El Salvador.  The chief of staff said our Army was “hollow.”

Every president since George Washington has inherited problems from his predecessor.  Two things distinguish Barack Obama from his predecessors.  The first is the extent to which he whines about the problems he inherited.  The second is how poorly he has handled them.

When George W. Bush assumed office in January, 2001, the economy was in a mild recession, thanks to the bursting of the dot.com bubble.  The 9/11 attacks made the recession worse.  Mr. Bush never blamed Bill Clinton for his troubles.  And by 2003 — thanks in large part to the Bush tax cuts — the economy was rebounding strongly.

By 1983, Ronald Reagan had broken the back of stagflation and what was at the time the greatest economic expansion in American history had begun.

Contrast that with the present day, when we’re mired in the weakest “recovery” from a recession since the Great Depression.

There is a tacit admission of the failure of Obamanomics in the rumors New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary after the election.

If Mr. Geithner is indeed replaced, then all the members of Mr. Obama’s original economic team will be gone.  Budget director Peter Orzag resigned in July.  Christina Romer, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (who famously predicted unemployment would be held below 8 percent if the $862 billion stimulus bill were passed) left last month.  And Larry Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, will return to Harvard at the end of the year.

I’ve described Mr. Emanuel as a foul-mouthed jerk, but the closest thing to an adult in Mr. Obama’s inner circle.  It was apparently only Rahm who warned against the single-minded pursuit of Obamacare, which is turning into a disaster for Democrats.

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol disagrees.  “Emanuel reinforced rather than tempered Obama’s oversized self confidence and self referential arrogance,” Mr. Kristol wrote. 

So, apparently, does National Security Adviser Jim Jones, who, in a conversation with the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, described Mr. Emanuel and other political aides as “the water bugs.”

“They flit around,” Gen. Jones told Mr. Woodward.  “The water bugs did not understand war or foreign relations.”  They were too interested in the short term political impact of the president’s decisions.

Mr. Emanuel’s obsequiousness at his farewell party suggests Mr. Kristol is right . 

Every president needs an aide who has the confidence and the courage to tell him he is wrong when he is wrong.  But Mr. Emanuel’s interim successor, Deputy Chief of Staff Peter Rouse, is even more likely to tell Mr. Obama what he wants to hear, less likely to tell him what he needs to hear.