Cavuto: President Needs to Admit He Failed

Obama needs to swallow his pride and try something new

I screwed up.

I think those are the toughest words for most people to say.

I screwed up.

I botched it. I goofed. I failed.

Pride is a powerful thing.

And sometimes it can be a good thing.

It’s the stuff of character, they say. Until you begin just looking like a character...

Unwilling to budge, even as everything around you is going "bust."

"Then"…pride turns into stubborn….and invariably turns into…disaster.

It happens to generals on the battlefield, who refuse to see through the lunacy of their just losing.

And why Abraham Lincoln went through more than a few of those generals, before he found one who had a strategy for winning.

Because part of winning is changing something that is clearly losing.

For Bill Clinton, the wake-up call was a mid-term election debacle, that later had him memorably stating, "The era of big government is over."

But because Clinton got that...fortunately for him, his presidency was not over. He was reelected.

There's something to be said of admitting mistakes.

John Kennedy did so, after the Bay of Pigs.

But he was new in office.

This president's more than two and a half years in office.

Still, even this president's likely idol Franklin Roosevelt knew a thing or two about changing strategies.

"If it fails," FDR once said. "Admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."

And he did again and again.

This president could still try something else.

But will he?

Indications are right now…no.

Doubling down on a solar strategy that's already flaming out…

And another jobs measure that's a pale imitation of an earlier effort that didn't pan out.

Hope springs eternal, of course.

Unfortunately when you drag your feet on facing the truth…"time" does not.