Obamateurism of the Day

Allahpundit mentioned this yesterday in passing, but it’s worth seeing the entire video to get an idea of how a tough question threw Barack Obama in a presser this week. Nick Robinson asks Obama which country is most to blame for the current economic meltdown, especially since every Western government is pointing their finger at the US. For some reason, Obama very clearly didn’t anticipate this, and goes deep into “uh” mode for almost three minutes while ducking the question:

He starts off looking like Dan Quayle against Lloyd Bentsen, blinking for a few seconds before slowly trying to respond.  Here’s the transcript:

Nick Robinson: A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn’t the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?

Barack Obama: I, I, would say that, er … if you look at … the, the sources of this crisis … the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . .  a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system …  I think what is also true is that …  here in Great Britain …  … here in continental Europe …  around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er …  the highly integrated, er, global capital markets that have emerged … . So at this point, I’m less interested in …  identifying blame than fixing the problem. I think we’ve taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so, not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring banks are adequately capitalized, er, dealing with the enormous, er …  drop-off in demand and contraction that has taken place. More importantly, for the long term, making sure that we’ve got a set of, er, er, regulations that are up to the task, er, and that includes, er, a number that will be discussed at this summit. I think there’s a lot of convergence between all the parties involved about the need, for example, to focus not on the legal form that a particular financial product takes or the institution it emerges from, but rather what’s the risk involved, what’s the function of this product and how do we regulate that adequately, much more effective coordination, er, between countries so we can, er, anticipate the risks that are involved there. Dealing with the, er, problem of derivatives markets, making sure we have set up systems, er, that can reduce some of the risks there. So, I actually think …  there’s enormous consensus that has emerged in terms of what we need to do now and, er …  I’m a great believer in looking forwards than looking backwards.

When the left-wing Guardian starts laughing at Barack Obama, you know he’s in trouble:

Barack Obama, the World’s Greatest Orator (™all news organisations), didn’t exactly cover himself in glory when the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson asked him a question about who was to blame for the financial crisis. Normally word perfect, Obama ummed, ahed and waffled for the best part of two and a half minutes.

“Normally word perfect”?  Only when on the Teleprompter, Mr. Crace, and sometimes not even then. All Obama had to say was the last sentence of this logorrheac answer to move on to the next question.  And Obama misses the entire point of the query.  Robinson wasn’t just talking about a lack of regulation, which wouldn’t be a “cause” in any case, but American government policies that led to the massive spread of wildly overvalued securities throughout the global financial system.  He’s talking about the trillions in toxic assets issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the direction of Congress, and bought by investors all over the world who have discovered them to be virtually worthless.  Obama never even comes close to explaining that … but then again, he’s been avoiding that topic for months even while the toxic MBSs rot at the heart of the crisis.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!

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