In my opinion, he was afraid to come on too strong as anti-business, and really punish all the crooked banks and Wall Streeters. He was determined to prove he was not a flaming socialist, and that the best response to the crisis was one that involved the least drastic and fundamental change to the financial system. I believe he was wrong, but I wasn't in the left seat, either.

As it turned out, he shouldn't have bothered. He was going to be painted as a radical bolshie by the Right no matter what he did. But he was naive and probably felt he was better off not coming on too strong, and actually believed that he could get further by working with the GOP than going to war with them right from the start. He knows better now.

You will recall, at the time, the situation was being painted as being really scary, perhaps scarier than it actually was. People were talking about global economic collapse. The fact that he was seeking political support and funding from the business community probably figured into it too. Also, from the last days of the Bush Administration, even before the election, the emphasis seemed to be on first stabilizing the situation, not overhauling the financial system or letting it crash in a flaming bonfire of free market retribution. And the solution seemed to work, the death spiral was under control before he was in office too long. The crisis was difficult, and it's still not over, but it wasn't the catastrophic implosion that seemed inevitable at the time.

It may be possible to Monday Morning Quarterback the decisions that were made in those days, now that we have the advantage of 20-20 hindsight. But while it was happening, it seemed like the way to go. Of course, once the crisis was over, two things became abundantly clear--the Republicans were not going to let him do anything. Their goal was to crash the economy, and blame it on Obama so they could gain ground in the mid-terms and triumphantly pick up the pieces in 2012. But it didn't work out quite the way they expected.

Another problem was Obamacare. Obama knew that our ponderous and corrupt health system needed to be junked and a European style medical plan had to be instituted, not just for ideological or humanitarian reasons, but because it would be good for business. Without the expectation of having to provide medical insurance for their workers, American industry would automatically be more competitive on world markets, the unions would be more willing to make concessions, and the people would be relieved of the terrifying anxiety of being both sick and unemployed. Obama sincerely believed a National Health Plan would be just the shot in the arm the economy needed to get the country back to work again, and he bet all his political capital on it. Of course, the plan that emerged after the trench warfare in Congress was far short of what was needed.

In short, there are parallels with FDR's first term. Mistakes were made, but the disaster was avoided, and even though it didn't go back to pre-crash boom, the world didn't come to an end, either. Not surprisingly, the GOP doesn't read it that way, but enough Americans did to re-elect Mr Obama, and that's what matters. The obvious disaster that the Right perceived as the Obama administration was a scenario that was only apparent to those already predisposed to loathe him. As a result, they totally misread the electorate and mismanged the election, not only losing the White House, but taking setbacks in Congress as well. We can argue all we want on what might have happenened in some alternative timeline, but that is a fool's errand.