As always, VDH is a great read. Here he takes on the Obamessiah, listing all of the various lessons that we can learn from Obama:
Barack Obama has done the United States a great, though unforeseen, favor. He has brought to light, as no one else could, many of the pernicious assumptions of our culture from the last half-century. He turned theory and “what ifs” into fact for all America to see, experience, and, yes, suffer through.
The Years of Wandering…
Jimmy Carter tried to enact the therapeutic agenda, but he was inept. Liberals for the last thirty years blamed his failure on incompetence rather than his statist message. Until the Obama meltdown, progressives had faulted Bill Clinton as a wily sell-out who had won an improbable second term only by cynically reforming welfare and balancing budgets. Dick Morris engineered his comeback and now he works for Fox News: enough said. So the complaint was that the messenger was slick, but the noble message was diluted.
But Obama was supposed to be Clintonian in his political charisma and Carteresque in his devotion to liberal causes. When he boasted that he was “The One” we had been waiting for, he was more accurate than he thought in assessing liberal sentiment. You see, as a young, post-racial, first African-American president — glib, hip, cool, charismatic, with unapologetic Chicago hard-core leftist roots and Ivy League certification — Barack Obama was right out of liberal central casting. He would do what no other liberal had done in fifty years: prove to America that it really, really was left-of-center by ramming down its throat both a liberal agenda and thousands of left-wing facilitators.
Obama has done that in spades. He has shown us exactly how far out of the mainstream of this Center-Right nation the Democrats are. Obama, more than any other one person, created the Tea PArty movement. That will be the Obama Legacy, though not one Liberals are likely to take much comfort in. Another of Obama negative lessons comes from Libya Adventure:
Leading from Behind
I don’t think another president will ask the Arab League and the UN — but not the U.S. Congress — whether he can lead from behind France and Britain in bombing an Arab oil exporter on behalf of “rebels” who promise Sharia Law. “Putting light” between America and Israel earned us this week’s charade at the UN, and a new Middle East war on the horizon in the manner of 1967 or 1973, but this time with new enemies on the periphery like Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan in addition to a hostile Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. “Reset” won’t be used any more, and the idea that friends like Britain, Israel, Eastern Europe, etc. were to be shunned while rivals and enemies like the Palestinians, Russia, and the Latin American communists were to be courted is over also. Friends are friends for a reason, and enemies the same — regardless of what Obama learned at Chicago and Harvard.
The emphasis is mine. This sums up in a nutshell Obama’s seemingly bizzarre treatment of Israel and the various Moslem states that are her, and our, enemies. He really can’t tell friend from foe from his postmodern, irrational world-view.
Another thing to die from Obama-poisoning is Keyensianism:
Buffetism
After $5 trillion in borrowing and 9.1% unemployment, Keynesian economics has been slain by Obama. Oh, Obama may crisscross the country demanding just one more chance to borrow another half-trillion to “grow jobs,” but no one is listening any more. “Shovel ready,” “stimulus,” “investments,” and “infrastructure” simply have been redefined by Obama as euphemisms for wasteful borrowing. I doubt they will regain currency for a decade or so. And thanks to Obama, a billion is now a passé noun, and trillion has been reduced to the status of monopoly money
Surely we have never had, nor ever will have, as wasteful a President as Obama. He has been a walking disaster for our budget numbers. So bad that the Democrats didn’t even bother passing budgets their last two years in power in the House. Such a failure by the dominant political party is also unprecedented. VDH goes on about the negative lessons of the Obama Regime. As always, read the whole thing. You’ll be glad you did.
Tags: VDH
