Schoolin' Obama

Pres. Barack Obama made his long-awaited speech on education to much fanfare yesterday. Today the results are a little different. When it comes to rescuing the economy, a panel of leading economists in a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll today gave the President failing grades.

And these are some flat out, ugly grades:

• The President's average grade on the economy was 59. That's 59 out of 100.
• Better than 40% of the economists surveyed graded him below 60
• Wunderkind Treasury chief Tim Geithner did even worse. He pulled an average grade of 51. Must not have had anyone to sit next to.

The economists generally dismissed the financial stewardship of the President and the tax-challenged Geithner. 43% say that the we'll have to pony up another half a trill to get out of this hole. Others say that the stimulus ship has already sailed and dumping more money down this rat hole won't help a whole lot.

Bottom line: The Obama Treasury promised too much and delivered too little. Sec. Geithner, who is fast becoming this administration's Alberto Gonzales, has generally bombed out with Wall Street. Since his much ballyhooed economic turnaround speech on Feb. 10, the stock market has shed 20% of its value. Not a real vote of confidence.

This poll is the latest example of an administration that overwhelms and underachieves. It's as if Pres. Obama barely has time to focus on the economy amid all of his social engineering.

The President was elected primarily on emotion and secondarily on his promises to fix the economy. Now is the time for him to do that. If he's successful he'll have earned enough political capital to fulfill his dream of Europeanizing the U.S. If he's not, it won't really matter at all, will it?

Just thought you might like to know.