...both recent and distant.
This comes from the Great Hairy Silverback - our friend and the Original pre-Core, Core-Member from Bill's Site. Originally a couldn't-stop-himself rant in the comments-section of another post, it was just too good to leave it tucked away and unseen. And so - with permission - take it away, GHS...
Let's see...
What was it... 1932? A financial crisis -- already roughly two years in existence, and on a scale unprecedented to that point -- panicked the citizenry into crying out for a savior... not just a competent helmsman, but a veritable archangel, to sweep the deeply corrupted status quo aside, to heave the baby out with the bathwater, to wipe the proverbial slate clean and start anew. And once they found one, they granted Him carte blanche to Do As He Would, risky, borderline illegal, even unconstitutional as it might be.
Enter an elitist arch-liberal with a complete disconnect with the Common Man, but with a confident swagger (so to speak), a jaunty, smooth-talking, unflappable self-assurance, and Big Plans for boundless employment opportunities, government-provided entitlements, landslides of socialist largesse, and chickens in every pot... Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Regardless of their popularity (or un-), (1) his Lend Lease actions stretched, if not blatantly violated, the definition of a neutral nation in a time of war, arguably "justifying" any commensurate German aggressions against the United States, (2) his four consecutive terms in the White House defied the Constitution, (3) the shamelessly socialist programs he rammed into law burdened an already over-burdened economy when it could least afford it, and has continued to drag the economy down like an anchor ever since, and (4) turned a two-year depression into an EIGHT-year DEPRESSION. And while it can be argued whether, item for item, these issues might have served a greater good despite their destructive short-term impacts, the fact is that these were solutions that would have been -- and WERE -- rejected out-of-hand prior to the advent of the "economic crisis," and would never have even been considered (with any seriousness) were it not for the extreme fiscal pressures.
In other words, these were recognized, during a period of greater levelheadedness, as radical, unhealthy, and unacceptable solutions, and gained acceptability only because of (a) the atmosphere of fiscal panic, (b) the perceived "need" for an absolute, far-reaching, even all-encompassing "clearing of the board," and (c) because The Savior SAID it was needed. And people listened with their quailing hearts rather than their brains.
Obama's been called "Lincoln-esque." What horse-pucky. The only thing remotely "Lincoln-esque" about Barack Obama -- aside from his long neck and big goofy ears -- is the fact that he rode into Washington for his inauguration in a TRAIN (which he chose to do for precisely that reason).
No, for all the reasons and historical parallels described above, Obama is purely 100% "Rooseveltish." And, much like FDR, he will likely be remembered (by the emotion-based crowd) as the calm, confident hand at the helm of the ship of state during its time of crisis... and (by the cold, clear examiners of data) as the disastrously naive, blindly idealistic, arrogant elitist, who exacerbated an otherwise easily corrected problem, prolonged and even worsened the country's agonies, and burdened the economy for generations to come... just like FDR.
He will also, in my opinion, be renowned (by anyone NOT completely smitten by his exalted visage) as a liar, a fraud, a reckless amateur, and from many perspectives, even as a traitor... the man who singlehandedly did his level best to end the most successful, fruitful, and beneficent experiment in self-rule in history.
Dick Morris was asked in an interview about a potential comparison between Obama and Clinton, economically speaking. When Clinton charged into HIS administration six-guns blazing, jacking up tax brackets, instituting retroactive debt loads on the wealthier demographics, and promising/threatening even more radical, draconian, and again SOCIALIST programs, he was pulled aside and basically told that he needed to calm down, slow down, and leave at least one piece of furniture upright in the house... and he DID. So, couldn't that be possible for Obama as well? Couldn't he be "whoa'd up" a bit by a few strong calming words? And Dick Morris -- who was one of those involved in the reining-in of Bill Clinton -- said, quite categorically, "No."
Unlike Clinton -- who had, as one of his primary motivators, the quest for a second term -- Obama is ALL ABOUT HIS AGENDA. He wouldn't MIND a second term, but the far greater priority for him is the establishment of his outright socialist agenda. So, no matter how many (or how firm) the hands are on his shoulders, Obama is going to blast full speed ahead on his "mission"... that being to nationalize as much of America as possible as QUICKLY as possible... before the momentum can peter out. And from what I've seen, his actions of the last eight to nine months bear that assessment out fully.
He wouldn't issue a statement of policy until a day or two before the first debates. Thereafter, he spun and evaded and stuck to carefully crafted (and Teleprompted) scripts that screamed vague promises of undefined Hope and radical Change. He kept his secretive past, his questionable affiliations, and his staggering lack of qualifications or experience as far from the limelight as he could manage. But still...
He was voted into office on the basis of only a handful of passionate but typically ill-informed reasons, ranging from the novelty of electing the nation's first (mostly) black president, to slapping the much-despised President Bush in the face, to the promise of freebies and bolstered welfare and "deserved" entitlements for the so-called "lower classes." And with the aid of an enamored media that not only went to great lengths to inflame the causes of panic, but smothered any negative examinations of the long awaited Savior, He was swept into office on the shoulders of adoring minions willing to turn a collective blind eye on His excesses, His reckless oversteps, and His baldfaced efforts to socialize the world's most successful capitalist nation.
His first interview as a freshly inaugurated president was with el Arabiya, in which He fawned and patronized the Muslim world, apologized for American actions of the past, and promised to "listen" more and "dictate" less... only to be criticized by the Arab press days later as a coward for his weak and simpering sucking-up. His first "legislation" was the largest, most pork-laden monstrosity in American political history, which he handed off to the most unpopular congress in American history to do all the writing. Then he whipped up an even greater storm of fear and dread (which the media ran with, trumpets blaring) to ensure that everyone believed that any delay in signing this legislative outrage would result in hundreds-of-millions of jobs being lost EVERY MONTH... in a country with only THREE-HUNDRED-million men, women, senior citizens, and infants living within its borders (apparently there are many times more jobs in this country than there are people -- of ANY age -- to fill them).
And then... and THEN...
In that downright blasphemous "speech" he gave to Congress, he had the unmitigated gall -- the sheer baldfaced temerity -- to look into the eyes of the Republican ranks (who weren't leaping to their feet and shrieking like high school cheerleaders at every sentence he uttered) and into the eyes of every American watching on TV, and say staggeringly stupid and outrageous things like, "I'd like to thank the Congress for creating a bill WITHOUT A SINGLE EARMARK in it," and "I know this bill is a tough pill to swallow, but it is only the beginning... there will be more to come," followed shortly thereafter by, "I can assure you that by the end of my term in office, I will have cut the deficit IN HALF."
Outright lies -- so bold and cavalier that you almost have to believe he's joking -- followed by mathematically impossible fictions, undefined reparations that will magically fix everything, and wishful thinking on an epic scale... all "reassuring" little bandages to counter the added panic he took such pains to foment over the previous several months, and somehow "made more real" by his even more-utterly-baseless assertion that he'd "already found TWO-TRILLION-DOLLARS worth of budget cuts" that they could implement (one of which, by the way, was the cost savings of cutting short TEN-YEARS of full-scale military operations in Iraq, which wasn't going to happen anyway). Pure hog-twaddle.
This guy is either the most cynical, anti-American, anti-capitalist, politcal anti-Christ this country has ever seen, or he's the most blindly naive and amateurish political dupe the Demogogue... er, DemoCRAT party has ever had the good fortune to have as a frontman.
And either way, he's a disaster on the hoof.
Not a POTENTIAL disaster, or a disaster-waiting-to-happen, but a disaster HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, crippling and further burdening an already reeling economy, nationalizing everything he can get the government's tendrils into, ramming home the guaranteed ruinous and proven-failed tenets of socialism, screwing the achievers, success stories, and job-creators, and encouraging the unmotivated, the unprincipled, and the irresponsible... weakening our defenses and our global reputation, alienating our allies, emboldening our enemies, and killing the independent and self-reliant spirit of this once great pioneering nation.
He may be my president by name and by legal definition, but in every other way, he's my ENEMY just as much as the barbarians for whom he's swinging the door wide open.
To hell with him and the horse's asses he rode in on. Stop him... NOW. Bombard your "representatives" with protests, throw out the ones who refuse in 2010, and make a long-standing example of the catastrophic failings of unbounded liberalism, and heedless Marxism.
(*sigh*)
But at least, as one commenter once wrote, he's a nice guy, a bit of a geek, and a decent bowler.
I am completely reassured now.
GHS
