The Back Alley Archives

“When we promised during the campaign change you can believe in, it wasn’t change you can believe in 18 months, It was change you can believe in, but you know what, we’re going to have to work for it,” Obama said.

Me, in January 2009:

But there is an even better reason why the stimulus bill will never work: it is simply impossible to break ground on any new government construction project in less than a year.A year from now, any truly new incremental project in the stimulus bill will still be sitting on some planners desk with unfinished environmental impact assessments, the subject of arguments between multiple government agencies, tied up in court with environmental or NIMBY challenges, snarled in zoning fights, subject to conflicts between state, county, and city governments, or all of the above. Most of the money will have been spent by planners, bureaucrats, and lawyers, with little to show for in actual facilities.

Obama, in October 2010

In the magazine article, Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects”

How smart can the guy be if it takes him two years to figure out what random schmoes like me thought was obvious?