WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When billionaire investor Warren Buffett says President Barack Obama's economic message is muddled and undermining public confidence, it's worth listening.
Halfway through his first 100 days in office, ace communicator Obama has struggled to find the right tone in talking about the economy, twinning bleak warnings with optimism about the future.
On the campaign trail, Obama said a president must be able to do more than one thing at a time, and his White House has been doing that.
He and his aides have interspliced comments about the economy while launching theme-of-the-day initiatives on healthcare, stem cell research and on Tuesday, education.
Last week the White House spent some time accusing conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh of being leader of the Republican Party.
But Obama, together with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, White House economic guru Lawrence Summers and others have so far failed to explain how they plan to rescue American banks, some of which are teetering on the brink of collapse.
There is talk of "stress tests" for troubled banks, or nationalizing them or letting some fail -- but no clear plan.
Buffett, an informal Obama adviser considered a financial seer on Wall Street, told CNBC on Monday the message has to be "very, very clear as to what government will be doing."
"And I think we've had, and it's the nature of the political process somewhat, but we've had muddled messages and the American public does not know. They feel they don't know what's going on, and their reaction then is to absolutely pull back," he said.
At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs reacted defensively, saying Obama has only been in office seven weeks and it should be no surprise that "all of the problems that took many years to take hold haven't necessarily been solved."
He rejected criticism that Obama is trying to do too many things at once, comparing the situation to a house fire.
"Instead of asking the fire department to pick different rooms in which to extinguish, the president has decided to alert the fire department and everyone involved that we have a responsibility to move this country forward, address the long-term problems and the short-term problems in order to create jobs for the future," Gibbs said.
Gibbs analogy is all wrong. The house is on fire and supposedly Obama has called the fire department, but by trying to nationalize health care in the middle of the economic crisis he's not only asking the fire department to put out the fire, he's asking them to build a game room on the back of the burning house.
When Obama starts hearing doubts from the key economic wizards like Buffett, he needs to pay attention.
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