Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Leadership is not a popularity contest, Mr. Obama

I have so far restrained myself from making any posts relating to politics in this blog. However, as I had said in an earlier post, it will be stupid to form theories and predict outcomes ignoring effect of powerful externalities like politics. It is like a Physicist proving something under vacuum conditions and proposing that the same would happen when normal atmosphere is present.

The last few days have been anything but depressing. What Obama intends to do is extremely unclear. Does he, as the historic President of United States, really wants to support the falling economy and get it back on track? Or is he just content to be the first Black President who got bi-partisan support for every bill he introduced on the floor?

Time and again, renowned economists like Prof Krugman and Thomas Friedman have been arguing the necessity of a huge stimulus to try & fix the large black hole. In spite of having some well known names in his Economic Team, Obama has introduced a bill, which in all likelihood would have lost its meaning by the time it passes the floor. And what is worse, he didn't even manage to get bi-partisan support for it!

Mr. Obama, it is time to wake up and realize that leadership is not a popularity contest. You were in a popularity contest till Nov 20, 2008. You have already won it. It is not enough to give powerful speeches anymore. It is the time of action. And every day that we lose is precious.. It is not time to experiment with getting bipartisan support. It is not time to just talk about greediness of Wall Street or anything. It is time to frame strigent policies and jump to rescue. It is not enough to be called the popular first black president. It is better to be called as a true leader who led the renaissance of the US economy.

It is a time to show leadership.