April 17, 2012
By Christopher Chantrill
Even MSNBC reckons that the president had a bad week. The bad-hair week, according to Chuck Todd, included the "tax-fairness issue" over the weekend, the stock market loss on Monday, the rallying round Romney after the Santorum exit, the Rosen flap, and then a local reporter asking the president about jet-set vacations while the America people suffer. The president blamed the "Secret Service and Air Force One" for that. The malfeasance of federal employees and the cost of fuel compel the president to travel.
And now it looks like the establishment commentariat is turning on the Buffett Rule. It's a gimmick, they say.
The Obama campaign problems go beyond the tone-deaf community-organizer politics on the stupid Buffett Rule, the Rosen flap, and the naughty boys at the Secret Service. It's all of the above -- and then some. It's the stupid stimulus, which is turning into a real bust now that all those female schoolteachers are losing their jobs. It's the corrupt green energy swamp, where the latest scandal has green corporate officers loaning themselves the company green. It's the war on Big Oil, just as we are entering a new era of fossil-fuel exploration. It's the death sentence on Big Coal just as coal is getting priced out of the market by fracking natural gas. It's the utter stupidity of ObamaCare when everyone knows it's going to raise health care costs.
How many issues can you get wrong in four years, Mr. President? Are you going for the Guinness Book of Records?
Chuck Todd didn't mention the Trayvon Martin case and the unjust overcharging of accused murderer George Zimmerman. I don't know whose brilliant idea this was, whether the Justice Brothers' or the Obama campaign's, but it contains nothing but land mines for the president. What does it say to the white working class if they can't defend their neighborhoods against teenage hoodies without permission from Reverend Al Sharpton? What does it say to Latinos when it seems that the Democrats will always side with blacks against "white Hispanics"? The president and his people are sending a message to independent voters that they'd better not put a foot wrong on race, or their lives will be ruined like George Zimmerman's.
Here's where I think the Obamis make their blunder. They don't understand that left-wing community-organizer politics is as fake as a $3 bill. The left-wing rent-a-mob tactics, courtesy of Saul Alinsky, work well as media melodramas -- shabby little shockers, each starring activists, the media, the helpless victim, and a hapless local politician. But the president is president of all the people. Did Henry V complain before Harfleur about the stingy London bankers who wouldn't pony up their fair share? Not a bit of it. He rallied his troops for the supreme sacrifice, because that's what leaders do.
Instead of inspiration, all we get is confusion. Read how Fred Barnes parses the president's plan for economic growth:
We know why the Obamis seem confused. It's because they are confused. They confidently implemented all the programs that liberals have been advocating for decades and sat back waiting for the applause. Instead, they got raspberries. Their liberal ideas are all played out.
The big social programs are failing. They are failing because they violate the Hayek Rule, that government just doesn't have the bandwidth to do complex tasks, and the Thatcher Rule, that eventually socialists "run out of other peoples' money." This is not rocket science. It's not even North Korean rocket science.
Then there are the cunning wedge issues by which liberals inject naked fear into their base, to keep blacks or Hispanics or women or gays on the liberal plantation. The trouble is that the Romney campaign seems ready to neutralize them, if the exemplary execution on the Rosen flap is any indication.
As usual, Dick Cheney had the last word. President Obama "has been an unmitigated disaster for the country," he mildly suggested.
Hey, it's not the president's fault. When he first sat down in the Oval Office on January 20, 2009, he checked "all of the above" on the Democrat Party platform, just as his advisers advised. How was he to know that every single idea was a complete dud?
By Christopher Chantrill
Even MSNBC reckons that the president had a bad week. The bad-hair week, according to Chuck Todd, included the "tax-fairness issue" over the weekend, the stock market loss on Monday, the rallying round Romney after the Santorum exit, the Rosen flap, and then a local reporter asking the president about jet-set vacations while the America people suffer. The president blamed the "Secret Service and Air Force One" for that. The malfeasance of federal employees and the cost of fuel compel the president to travel.
And now it looks like the establishment commentariat is turning on the Buffett Rule. It's a gimmick, they say.
The Obama campaign problems go beyond the tone-deaf community-organizer politics on the stupid Buffett Rule, the Rosen flap, and the naughty boys at the Secret Service. It's all of the above -- and then some. It's the stupid stimulus, which is turning into a real bust now that all those female schoolteachers are losing their jobs. It's the corrupt green energy swamp, where the latest scandal has green corporate officers loaning themselves the company green. It's the war on Big Oil, just as we are entering a new era of fossil-fuel exploration. It's the death sentence on Big Coal just as coal is getting priced out of the market by fracking natural gas. It's the utter stupidity of ObamaCare when everyone knows it's going to raise health care costs.
How many issues can you get wrong in four years, Mr. President? Are you going for the Guinness Book of Records?
Chuck Todd didn't mention the Trayvon Martin case and the unjust overcharging of accused murderer George Zimmerman. I don't know whose brilliant idea this was, whether the Justice Brothers' or the Obama campaign's, but it contains nothing but land mines for the president. What does it say to the white working class if they can't defend their neighborhoods against teenage hoodies without permission from Reverend Al Sharpton? What does it say to Latinos when it seems that the Democrats will always side with blacks against "white Hispanics"? The president and his people are sending a message to independent voters that they'd better not put a foot wrong on race, or their lives will be ruined like George Zimmerman's.
Here's where I think the Obamis make their blunder. They don't understand that left-wing community-organizer politics is as fake as a $3 bill. The left-wing rent-a-mob tactics, courtesy of Saul Alinsky, work well as media melodramas -- shabby little shockers, each starring activists, the media, the helpless victim, and a hapless local politician. But the president is president of all the people. Did Henry V complain before Harfleur about the stingy London bankers who wouldn't pony up their fair share? Not a bit of it. He rallied his troops for the supreme sacrifice, because that's what leaders do.
Instead of inspiration, all we get is confusion. Read how Fred Barnes parses the president's plan for economic growth:
Obama didn't suggest, much less propose, a single incentive or spur to private investment, yet he insisted "we continue to make investments in growth today." These consist solely of government-funded jobs, such as "putting some of our construction workers back to work" and "helping states to rehire teachers." ... Restoring "huge cuts in state and local government" is "part of the challenge we have in terms of growth."Mr. President: a word to the wise. That Clinton-era wheeze of cut-and-paste "investment" in "programs" is way past its sell-by date.
We know why the Obamis seem confused. It's because they are confused. They confidently implemented all the programs that liberals have been advocating for decades and sat back waiting for the applause. Instead, they got raspberries. Their liberal ideas are all played out.
The big social programs are failing. They are failing because they violate the Hayek Rule, that government just doesn't have the bandwidth to do complex tasks, and the Thatcher Rule, that eventually socialists "run out of other peoples' money." This is not rocket science. It's not even North Korean rocket science.
Then there are the cunning wedge issues by which liberals inject naked fear into their base, to keep blacks or Hispanics or women or gays on the liberal plantation. The trouble is that the Romney campaign seems ready to neutralize them, if the exemplary execution on the Rosen flap is any indication.
As usual, Dick Cheney had the last word. President Obama "has been an unmitigated disaster for the country," he mildly suggested.
Hey, it's not the president's fault. When he first sat down in the Oval Office on January 20, 2009, he checked "all of the above" on the Democrat Party platform, just as his advisers advised. How was he to know that every single idea was a complete dud?
Christopher Chantrill (mailto:chrischantrill@gmail.com) is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his usgovernmentspending.com and also usgovernmentdebt.us. At americanmanifesto.org he is blogging and writing An American Manifesto: Life After Liberalism.
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