think4yourself

politicalprof:

So George Will, the bow tie-wearing conservative, baseball loving columnist for The Washington Post and ABC News, has offered an analysis of the state of the presidential campaign today that is simply silly. 

Will opines that if, in October 2011 someone had told Romney and his campaign that the Obama administration would be in shambles, the Romney people would predict they’d be winning the campaign. To which I agree: if the Obama administration were in shambles, Romney would be ahead.

The problem is with the evidence Will adduces to make his point. He focuses on three events/facts as proof of Obama’s failures:

• the Libyan consulate conflagration in which the US ambassador to Libya was killed. This is, Will, tells us, a disaster for the Obama administration because it changed its story about what happened: having first claimed it was a spontaneous attack, the administration later admitted it wasn’t.  So, because the administration was wrong in the immediate aftermath of a chaotic event, the Obama administration is in shambles.
• Unemployment remains high, especially among people 25-55. This is, of course, true, and terrible. But it doesn’t in any way explain why the Obama administration is in shambles.
• Finally, Will reminds us that the Department of Energy doled out some stimulus money to Solyndra, a failed solar power company, and Tesla, an electric car company that has not lived up to expectations. Umm … shambles?

And that’s it. Those three things prove the Obama administration is in shambles and that Romney should be winning. To which all I can respond is: wow. That’s the best you’ve got in 3 1/2 years?

I have said many times before that there are good reasons to think Obama is not a great President. But when you run a MItt Romney against a Barack Obama, you better have more to say than “Obama didn’t fix the economy, his administration changed its mind about what happened in Libya, and Tesla sucks.”

It is true, as Will says, that there are no five run home runs and you have to score when you can if you’re trying to win from behind. But it’s also true that you likely can’t stage a comeback with 15 consecutive bunts. 

You’d think someone who loves baseball as much as George Will does would know that.