Hope and promises

Hoosiers continue to suffer from both the economy and the ravings of the carpetbagging national press. Here, The New York Times dissects the good folks of Anderson, Ind., and discover that, by gosh, they not only love President Obama's stimulus package, they're staying up nights making sure some other place doesn't screw them out of their fair share. Naturally, they'll be quick to turn on the president if they don't get every last morsel of what they've been promised:

The flood of federal money Mr. Obama has sent coursing through the economy offers a chance to begin addressing deeply rooted problems in cities like this one, a once-proud automaking center that is a study in deindustrialization. At the same time, the president and his party have the opportunity to build a political consensus around a more activist, effective government.

But those opportunities, and the high hopes raised by Mr. Obama's fast start, carry the risks of promises unkept. Should his ambitious agenda for the economy, health care, education and energy fail to improve people's lives — and leave behind crippling budget deficits rather than new jobs — he and his party could face substantial repercussions.

But if the president is trying to help us so much -- it is pretty remarkable, after all, that he's the first politician in the whole history of this country to try to tackle those "deep-seated problems" of American cities on the way to creating a "more activist, effective government"; what were all those other heartless bastards thinking of, anyway? -- it seems pretty churlish to fault him for something as trivial as failing to improve people's lives and leaving behind crippling budget deficits. Editors of The New York Times will find it within themselves to forgive him, I can assure you, although, now that I think of it, they'll probably blame us for demanding so much of the poor man.