Nowhere is the Obama vision of government interference more evident than on the banking front. The White House and Treasury are using TARP as a bullying club to force government control on the country’s financial institutions. There is no exit strategy; no endgame in sight. Quite the opposite: News reports suggest that six major banks could be subjected to government ownership, putting them in the same club as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, GM, and Chrysler. This reminds one of Francois Mitterrand, the former socialist president of France. It’s way outside the American economic tradition.

And TARP itself is riddled with criminal-enterprise undertones. According to Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky, the $700 billion TARP program -- which has ballooned to more than $3 trillion in spending, loans, and loan guarantees -- is “inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse.” Barofsky already has opened 20 separate TARP-related criminal investigations and six audits into whether taxpayer dollars are being stolen or wasted. Rest assured that they are.

Economic recovery is still likely in the second half of the year. And President Obama will claim victory for his big-spending policies. But the reality is much different. Massive Federal Reserve pump-priming is moving the economy from deep recession to some kind of recovery. Meanwhile, the combination of deficit spending and easy money increases the threat of stagflation.

Will Republicans take advantage of the wide opening created by Obama’s 100-day lurch to the left? So far the GOP has produced only fragmented policy alternatives and no central spokesperson. That’s not unusual for the party out of power. But the Specter defection underscores the GOP’s sagging fortunes.

Right now, the most promising Republican leader -- at least in a policy sense -- is former Vice President Dick Cheney. His attack against the release of the CIA interrogation memos and his forceful call for the release of the information gathered during those interrogations -- facts that helped keep America safe after 9/11 -- clearly rattled Team Obama. Mr. Cheney should now launch a counterattack on Obama’s tax-and-spend New Deal/Great Society enlargement of government power.

It would make for delicious irony, but Dick Cheney may be most effective spokesperson the GOP has.