By STEVEN F. HAYWARD,Wall Street Journal
Arrogant Obama says "I won!"
President Barack Obama’s honeymoon period seems to have ended quickly. That’s because Mr. Obama doesn’t grasp the essentials of presidential leadership. Rather than making a compelling case for his economic policies,he has resorted to curt rebuffs,such as telling House Republican whip Eric Cantor,“I won.”House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the same thing the same day:“We won the election;we wrote the [stimulus] bill.”This is the trope of a party that has lost its ability to make an argument.
Mr. Obama and his team would be well advised to put aside the imperious FDR model and study Ronald Reagan’s first 200 days in office. The contrast is instructive.
Upon entering office in 1981,Reagan’s team produced a 50-page,detailed blueprint for their first six months in office. The passage of their economic policy was the central objective.