Financial crisis another 'distraction' for Obama

Hugh Hewitt:

Obama’s halting response to yesterday’s dramatic announcement`by John McCain followed by his about-face and agreement to attend the meeting convened by President Bush even as he insists that tomorrow’s debate go forward reveals much more than standard operating bumbling by Obama when the script he's been reading from unexpectedly changes.

Obama appears to genuinely not grasp the stakes here. He is not acting like a leader who understands the risks the country faces. And this is not surprising giving his experience gap when it comes to money, work, and savings much less finance.

Hank Adler has written on the Obama’s 2004 tax returns and what they reveal about his economic life. In a nutshell, the Obamas were like many classic Yuppies that rose quickly from very modest means and saved little along the way, an analysis that tracks closely Michelle Obama’s frequent campaign trail references to how strapped the young couple was by student loans and the costs associated with a young family until the big book deals came along after Barack Obama’s 2004 keynote address. It appears, in fact, that the Obamas had little in the way of savings or investments prior to his big publishing scores, though their combined incomes were quite high. Nor does it appear that either had inherited anything from their families as their tax returns show no interest or dividend income or distributions from inherited IRAs.

Combine this inability to save prior to the windfall years with the well known accounts of Obama’s rather modest circumstances growing up and the picture emerges of a young professional who is essentially clueless about savings and investment growth. Of course he has never started much less grown a business, and there is nothing in his background to indicate he grasps what it means to need and responsibly use business credit, or to spend decades patiently accumulating mutual fund assets through regular payroll deduction.

In short, Obama does not appear to know the enormous risk millions of Americans are facing right now. He certainly doesn’t communicate any of the sense of urgency that millions of Americans feel as they watch the value of their hard-won investments drop precipitously and read of even greater risks ahead. Obama is tone deaf to the warnings of the consequences to small and medium-sized businesses of an extended liquidity crisis. He clearly does not grasp what the threats to money market accounts mean to ordinary middle class Americans. As one caller put it yesterday: “What about my son’s college fund!”

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Obama has called any event that forces him off message a distraction. Doing something about the financial crisis is a distraction from talking about to Obama. I am sure attacks from al Qaeda and Iran will be distractions to a President Obama if we are so unfortunate to have him win.