NYT Columnists Assess Obama's First 100 Days in Office at SCW
Esther Baruh
Issue date: 5/5/09 Section: News
The first 100 days of the infant Obama administration were the gist of a conversation between New York Times columnists David Brooks and Gail Collins, held at the Geraldine Schottenstein Cultural Center on April 23. The two columnists, who co-author a blog entitled "The Conversation," discussed the progress and prognosis of the current president's regime in a dialogue moderated by Professor Bryan Daves of the Stern College for Women (SCW) political science department.
The event drew a crowd of some 250 people, with a sprinkling of SCW and Yeshiva College students in attendance.
As they are wont to do, Brooks represented a more conservative view while Collins offered a more liberal standpoint. The evening addressed many topics, including Obama's claim to a mandate; the future of the Republican Party; the possibly changing relationship between the market and the state; how the current administration is different from the previous one; and what sort of effect Obama's position on Iran will have on other United States foreign relations.
The tone of the discussion was alternately humorous and serious, with jokes interspersed amongst grimmer talk. Both Brooks and Collins had points of praise and criticism for the 3-month-old administration.
The columnists' biggest point of contention seemed to be their differing views on whether the Obama administration's decision to tackle many issues at once, and the amount of money that entails, was responsible or overconfident.
Brooks likened the president's agenda to "a juggler who's thrown a million knives in the air."
"Spending is appropriate during a recession, but we are at such a deficit . . . the ocean of red ink is the weakness in his proposal," he said. "Get some fiscal balance, then you take on the rest. It's a huge gamble for the administration - it's either big success or fatal hubris."
He disagreed with Collins's claim that "most people agree that you can't fix economy without fixing healthcare," saying that there was no correlation between a floundering market and a healthcare system in need of repair.
The event drew a crowd of some 250 people, with a sprinkling of SCW and Yeshiva College students in attendance.
As they are wont to do, Brooks represented a more conservative view while Collins offered a more liberal standpoint. The evening addressed many topics, including Obama's claim to a mandate; the future of the Republican Party; the possibly changing relationship between the market and the state; how the current administration is different from the previous one; and what sort of effect Obama's position on Iran will have on other United States foreign relations.
The tone of the discussion was alternately humorous and serious, with jokes interspersed amongst grimmer talk. Both Brooks and Collins had points of praise and criticism for the 3-month-old administration.
The columnists' biggest point of contention seemed to be their differing views on whether the Obama administration's decision to tackle many issues at once, and the amount of money that entails, was responsible or overconfident.
Brooks likened the president's agenda to "a juggler who's thrown a million knives in the air."
"Spending is appropriate during a recession, but we are at such a deficit . . . the ocean of red ink is the weakness in his proposal," he said. "Get some fiscal balance, then you take on the rest. It's a huge gamble for the administration - it's either big success or fatal hubris."
He disagreed with Collins's claim that "most people agree that you can't fix economy without fixing healthcare," saying that there was no correlation between a floundering market and a healthcare system in need of repair.
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