“SCARING PEOPLE is not leadership.”

UPDATE: Jacob Sullum: “President Obama’s pro-stimulus op-ed piece, which Matt Welch skewered earlier today, displays the panicky, scare-mongering rhetoric we have come to expect from a politician who entered office less than a month ago with a reputation as a calm, cool, and rational weigher of facts.”

And here’s the Welch skewering.

MORE: A reader emails:

Roosevelt: We have nothing to fear, but fear itself!

Obama: Be afraid. Very afraid!!

Heh.