David Brooks, "The White House Argument": Never Kick a Turd on a Hot Day

President Harry Truman was famous for his pithy witticisms. All of us are familiar with "The buck stops here," but how many know that Truman was also fond of declaring "Never kick a turd on a hot day." Sometimes, however, we cannot avoid kicking that turd.

Today, as Obama faces reelection, he is faced with a plethora of dilemmas: Whether to continue to function as president and make the hard choices, or whether to delay decisions until after November. Regarding the Iranian nuclear threat, it plainly appears that there is a confluence of interest between the agendas of both Obama and Iran: While Iran stalls for time to achieve the capacity to build an atomic bomb, Obama stalls for time to avoid a nasty confrontation that could impact in an unforeseen manner on his reelection campaign.

Regarding America's burgeoning budget deficit, Obama is also facing difficult choices, and as observed by David Brooks in his New York Times op-ed "The White House Argument" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/opinion/brooks-the-white-house-argument.html):

"Under the Obama budget, debt would skyrocket to 124 percent of G.D.P."

You don't need to be an economic wizard to realize that debt of this magnitude is unsustainable. Moreover, I question whether this percentage takes into account the ominous warning recently issued by Chuck Blahous, public trustee for Medicare and Social Security (see: http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/The-Fiscal-Consequences-of-the-Affordable-Care-Act.pdf), that over the next decade, Obamacare will:

"add at least $340 billion and as much as $530 billion to federal deficits while increasing federal spending by more than $1.15 trillion over the same period and by increasing amounts thereafter."

Yes, this is a train wreck in the making.

In his New York Times op-ed, Brooks concludes:

"I’ll just say that my conversations reaffirm my conviction that Obama is a pragmatic liberal who cares about fiscal sustainability, who has been willing to compromise for its sake, but who has not offered anything close to a sufficient program to avoid a debt crisis.

But we have a campaign in front of us. If the president is truly committed to a strategy for progressive fiscal stability, as Bill Clinton was, he’ll make that the center of his campaign. He’ll earn a mandate. He’ll win over independents who want fiscal discipline but worry about the way Republicans get there.

If he doesn’t have a passion for fiscal stability, he’ll campaign on side issues and try to win by scaring everybody about the other side."

Or in other words, will Obama decide between now and November to make hard, unpopular, decisions involving Iran and the budget, or seek to remain president by engaging in scaremongering and divisive tactics, e.g. accusing Paul Ryan of "social Darwinism"? I think we know which way Obama is leaning.

As Harry Truman also once said:

"America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand."

If only Obama could take Truman's words, which have yet to make their way onto the screen of his infamous teleprompter, to heart.