Giving Obama a Second Chance?

Jay McInerney, novelist, starts his argument for Obama's second term with this sentence.

Last week I was at a party in a Manhattan art gallery attended by the inevitable mix of artists, journalists and wealthy art collectors. 

I knew blogging gold was going to follow and he didn't disappoint.  He seeks to counter the arguments against Obama and really only makes matters worse.  He argues that the Wall Street types present should really be supporting Obama, because he hasn't rescinded the Bush tax cuts and Dodd-Frank was actually watered down and hasn't hurt business on the street.  He even admits that the financial industry had a hand in changing the legislation, but somehow this is a reason to re-elect Obama?  My take is that the whole thing is a government power grab, with the "too big to fail" status quo maintained. I think this is all intentional so that the government can intervene in any manner that the administration desires, when it wants to.  Rather than go for transparent and sensible reform, we get incomprehensible legislation like Dodd-Frank.  I have consistently called for increasing capital requirements based on size to reduce risk rather then non-transparent regulation like Dodd-Frank.  Romney is right to call for its repeal.  McInernry goes on in his praises of Obama:

What disappoints many of us outside of Wall Street is the feeling that Obama hasn't been nearly as effective in bailing out the lower and middle classes.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the lower and middle classes need jobs; not an incomprehensible overhaul of health care or finance. Obama's mixed signals and increased regulations have killed jobs.

He goes on to the main argument that Romney will continue the failed policies of Bush, blah, blah, ad nauseum; when he just reminded us that Obama continued the Bush tax cuts.  Unbelievably, he has just argued that Obama's failure to veto their extension was a reason to vote for him.

He also claims that Obama's foreign policy is at least better than Bush's.  I had to laugh.  Dean has a very long list of ways in which Obama's foreign policy is exactly like Bush's.  Further, I have a detailed post about why his National Security Strategy could have easily been written by Donald Rumsfeld.

But best of all, in this supposedly post-racial era inaugurated by Obama himself, we must vote for Obama, because he is black, excuse me, African-American is the term used.  If the people outside the New York-DC media bubble really believed that, this country would be in big trouble.  Fortunately, their values are more rooted in the real world.