It's not 1948 and Obama is no Harry Truman

It's not 1948 Barack....and you aren't close to Harry Truman....PLUS America sees right through you....

Obama Expands Blame Matrix on Economy

“We know what to do - I'll be putting forward specific plan in September to boost the economy. My attitude is get it done – if they don't get it done, I’ll be running against Congress not doing anything for the American people”

President Obama has been trying out a new narrative on the economy during his Midwestern campaign swing, saying that his policies were working well to revive the economy, but then “bad luck” and Republican radicalism reversed his gains.

Speaking to supporters in Minnesota and Iowa, Obama wove together two threads from his recent comments on the economy.

His first that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, ongoing unrest in the Muslim world and European debt crisis formed “headwinds” that slowed America’s recovery.

Those headwinds were worsened, Obama said, with the “debacle” of a deal to produce a conditional $2.2 trillion increase in the federal debt ceiling.

As for the headwinds part, it’s complicated:

Japan’s economy has done far better than expected shrinking only .3 percent in the second quarter despite the huge disruptions caused by the temblor and the resulting radiation leak and power outages. There was some supply disruption, but Japan is keeping calm and carrying on.

Europe, though, continues to fulfill the worst expectations as bankrupt entitlement programs and short-sighted risk assessments contribute to a long, painful currency collapse. With riots all over and governments teetering, it’s safe to say that consumer confidence is not at an all time high in Old Europe.

The leaders of the countries with the remaining two viable Continental economies, France and Germany, are meeting today to decide if they will take a socialistic approach to the unquenchable debt of their bankrupt neighbors by agreeing to take on new, collective debt in order to finance a fifth or sixth round of bailouts. That means collectivizing economic control of spendthrift states like Italy and Greece too. But if the remaining haves don’t take on the multiplying have-nots, debt infection will pretty clearly bring down the euro and the EU.

The ongoing revolutions in the Arab world briefly drove up energy prices, but markets have subsequently adjusted to the idea that the old quasi-stability of the region may be gone for good. The global economic slump has also driven down the price of petroleum.

But the “headwinds” part is only a predicate for the second strand of the president’s new narrative. In his telling, the economy was getting better, then beset by events beyond anyone’s control and at that exact moment, the Republican budget pirates capsized the boat.

It seems we have an answer to the question posed in Sunday’s New York Times as to whether the president would seek to demonstrate his ability to be a centrist compromiser and strike a deal on debt or whether he would start bombarding Republicans with jobs proposals in an effort to claim the high ground on the subject that is destroying his chances for re-election.

Bombardment it is.

Obama, who has returned to his old habit of publicly making historical comparisons between himself and great leaders of the past, seems to have Harry Truman circa 1948 as his model.

The president originally promised to offer one new job creating idea a week until every American had a job, but now says he will instead drop his overall plan for reviving the economy when he returns from his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard after Labor Day.

The idea is to lay out a big plan for job growth – probably an extension of current tax incentives coupled with new stimulus spending on infrastructure and anti-global warming projects – that can’t pass the Republican House but will allow Obama to say that it was Congress, not him, who has refused to help the struggling populace.

Having been shellacked for eight months for negotiating on fiscal issues without a public plan, Obama is going to reverse course and take the part of an activist leader battling a callous Congress.

All struggling first-term presidents sooner or later invoke Truman, who suffered a brutal midterm defeat even worse than Obama’s, won re-election and earned his place as a beloved American leader.

Truman, though, had the advantage of having just presided over the humiliation of Japan in World War II and had a all-Republican Congress. Republicans swept both houses in 1946 in a backlash for Truman’s extension and expansion of New Deal programs post war. In 1948, he turned the tables on Republicans and flayed them for intransigence.

Truman also had some constitutional advantages. He was a country boy with a give ‘em hell attitude that didn’t require a White House strategy session to summon.

The other advantage Truman had was a weak GOP nominee in Thomas Dewey, a retread from 1944 whose New York suits and pencil-thin moustache put off heartland voters. He looked and sounded like the kind of guy who Truman said was trying to hurt the farmers and mill workers.

The professorial Obama’s shift to confrontation will look somewhat forced, but may work to satisfy his outraged base who has been clamoring for the president to demand more spending now and quit negotiating with the terrorists.

As to whether he can make a re-election bid work on the basis of fighting with John Boehner for the next 12 months, that’s unclear. It certainly reinforces the notion that Democrats don’t expect the economy to get much better between now and Election Day and a harbinger of the scorched earth to come.

But with Obama having been so much of a spectator in Washington, he may struggle to don the guise of a warrior at this late date.