Dry run.

Put in charge of making sure that taxpayer money didn’t get wasted, the vaulted Obama administration has brought the current AIG debacle to our doorsteps. What does this portend for the rest of the Obamagenda?

Jennifer Rubin at Commentary absolutely nails it:

The president’s New Deal II agenda depends on two premises — the sky is falling and only the government can protect us. The first argument is being downplayed as Obama figured out that talking down the markets might not be the best strategy. But the second is called seriously into question by the gang that can’t shoot straight.

Obama’s mantra about collecting the “best and the brightest” for his cabinet was not just puffery. It was a message: we’re smarter than those fools who messed up the economy.We have the answers and can devise exquisitely refined solutions, with thousands of interconnected parts, to do what the “broken” free market system cannot. But how credible is that?

The AIG mess revolves around a very simple issue: could the government have stopped the bonuses prospectively? This was such a vexing matter that it has now engulfed the entire administration and all of Congress, and served as fodder in an election two weeks away. But how much more complicated is cap-and-trade regulation and taxation for the entire economy? The AIG bonus issue is child’s play compared to devising a universal health care system that is simultaneously going to expand coverage, improve care, reduce cost, protect privacy, and digitize all our medical information. We’re just supposed to have faith in the Employee Free Choice Act’s phalanx of government arbitrators who will set wages, benefits, and working conditions in every newly organized factory and workplace in America.

The lesson from AIG is that the entire premise of the Obama administration — we know better — is fundamentally flawed.

Not only don’t they appear to know better, they don’t even appear to know as much as the most recent Administration. Left to be seen is how much LESS they know, and how much more closer to Carter Obama will end up being.