Charlie Cook: Obama Team Looking Incompetent

Friday, February 6, 2009 1:12 PM

By: Dave Eberhart

Writing in the National Journal Magazine, political analyst Charlie Cook opines that President Barack Obama had better start playing his own game, or his administration is going to get labeled incompetent.

Cook, who edits the respected "Cook Political Report," writes that, with such stains on the record as Sen. Tom Daschle’s withdrawal as Health and Human Services secretary nominee, embarrassing disclosures about Treasury nominee Timothy Geithner’s taxes, and a stimulus package that has run up against a wall of criticism, President Obama may be setting himself up for the shortest honeymoon in presidential history.

But as Cook figures it: “If Obama plays his own game, he can win. But if he plays someone else’s, he loses.â€