Underwear gnomes run WH policy decision?

It's not often you find South Park mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. One would think it would be an impossibility to find WSJ referencing an episode that centered around underwear stealing gnomes. However, not only did a Bret Stephens column reference them, the gnomes provided the central analogy for the piece.

Despite the odd, non-WSJ type reference, the comparison between the Obama administration's various policy proposals and the underwear gnomes proposals to make a profit from their heists does illustrate the need for the President to do more than declare his wishes. He must also tell us how he hopes to achieve his grand plans.

What's the big idea? The gnomes explain:

"Phase One: Collect underpants.

"Phase Two: ?

"Phase Three: Profit."

Lest you think there's a step missing here, that's the whole point. ("What about Phase Two?" asks one of the kids. "Well," answers a gnome, "Phase Three is profits!") This more or less sums up Mr. Obama's speech last week on Guantanamo, in which the president explained how he intended to dispose of the remaining detainees after both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly against bringing them to the U.S.

The president's plan can briefly be described as follows. Phase One: Order Guantanamo closed. Phase Two: ? Phase Three: Close Gitmo!

...

Now take the administration's approach to the Middle East. Phase One: Talk to Iran, Syria, whoever. Phase Two: ? Phase Three: Peace!

....

In Gnome-speak, then, Mr. Obama's energy policy goes something like this: Phase One: Inaugurate the era of "green" energy. Phase Two: Overturn the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Phase Three: Carbon neutrality!

Take any number of Mr. Obama's other initiatives. Rescue Detroit? Phase One: Set a national mileage standard for passenger cars of 39 miles per gallon and force auto makers to make the kind of cars that drove them to bankruptcy in the first place.

Reduce the deficit? Phase One: Approve $3.5 trillion in government stimulus, and then await the mythical Keynesian multiplier.

Pay for a $1.2 trillion health-care reform? Phase One: scrounge around for about $60 billion in new "sin tax" revenue.

The Obama administration faces some difficult situations, many of which they played a small role, if any, in creating. However, "Phase Two" cannot simply be "It's Bush's fault." The GOP no longer runs the White House or the Congress. Obama and the Democrats ran and were elected on big promises (Phase One) and lofty goals (Phase Three).

Obviously, it can be politically and personally appealing to spend four years pointing backwards at the previous administration, but at some point some little kid from a small town in Colorado is going to ask, "Yeah, but what's 'phase two'?"