Incompetence?

So the fact that the DEA has seized twice as much weed in 2009 than it did under the last year of the most merciless, and intrusive President probably ever, GWB, makes me wonder: What the fuck is up with our fucking President!? And also: Why can't he getting his fucking shit together?!

The guy who called the war on drugs "an utter failure" and supported marijuana decriminalization when he was running for the Senate, and who promised to call off the DEA's medical marijuana raids when he was running for president, has sought an increase in funding for that utter failure, ridiculed the very notion of marijuana decriminalization, presided over a doubling in marijuana seizures, nominated a hard-line Bush administration holdover to head the DEA, and continued to let the DEA raid medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations without regard to whether they are following state law, despite a written Justice Department policy to the contrary.

The author leaves out the fact that this is the same guy who joked about his own marijuana use like it was no big deal.

But this startling statistic really raises a bigger issue of whether or not Obama is truly competent. This was the big knock on Bush, and the evidence certain supported the concern: the guy fucked up everything he touched, and his bad decisions were made worse by a lack of preparation, and ideological blindness (see Iraq, the War in). But no one has seemed to raise that at all about Obama... yet. This might be the most tangible example so far, but it's a fair question as to how exactly the President could fail to implement his agenda in an area like this where he has essentially total control over who the leaders are at the DEA and what they are going to prioritize.

Alternative explanations abound: a) Obama doesn't give a fuck about draconian and unjust drug laws; b) Obama doesn't want to open himself up to being "soft on drugs" in an election year, c) Obama was lying to get elected like he was apparently lying about a host of other issues. These make sense superficially, and may all be true in small parts, but all of them have their own problems. With a) of course Obama isn't getting daily updates on the tonage of marijuana being seized, but he is asking for a bigger DEA budget, and surely he must have had a discussion with his new Drug Czar about what he wanted the priorities to be and these stats to look like? If not, then that goes to competence. For b) the problem here is that a moderately-skilled politician would realize that no one gives a fuck about marijuana, politically speaking. Polls show people favor it being decriminalized, or available for sick peopel, if not downright legalized, by significant margins. Surely a modest decrease in enforcement statistics as compared with the Bush admin wouldn't have provided much in terms of Republican ammo. On the flip side, Obama's base will be pretty pissed at doubling down. And c), well that sort of ties into a) and b) in that Obama believes what he campaigned on only to the point that he's willing to put effort into it and doesn't find it too politically costly (see Liberties, Civil). c) is only different to the extent we believe Obama "lied" in the sense that he actually believes the exact oppositie of what he campaigned on - that he truly believes we need to do more to get weed off our streets. That's just too silly, and dishonest even for a craven and calculating politician such as the President.

So, these explanations hardly eliminate the question of competence. Can Obama get his people to do what he wants, and/or does he know how to get what he wants? The lack of overall accomplishments that don't involve throwing money at the problem, the contantly changing tunes out of the DoJ on terrorist trials and other War on Terror issues, and the total failure to get Congress to pass anything with even a slight bit of controversy help to paint a larger picture of a guy who might be out of his depths. Of course Obama is not the C-grade brain, or intellectual sloth that Bush was, but that's not the only measure of incompetence. Indeed, it was the rare occassion that Bush's people were not doing what he wanted, and executing his priorities. Say what you will (I'll probably agree) about Bush, but his people marched in pretty straight fucking lines. And, Say what you will about Obama, but his people seem to serpentine... a lot.