A Deficit of Trust
As President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address, (his address last February to a joint session of Congress was not an official State of the Union address), many were waiting to see whether Obama would now “get it”. After all the public rejection of the Health Care bill, was Obama going to be hoisted on his own petard of Obama Care? Even the morally corrupt, but politically astute Bill Clinton knew when to drop that albatross.
In the Democrat pantheon of presidents, no one represents and demonstrated the political savvy of an accomplished politician more than Clinton, by moving to a centrist position in his first term after losing Democrat control of Congress for the first time in forty years. Of course, with the current President no such flexibility exists, as the American public is becoming painfully aware that Obama is nothing more than a one trick socialist pony. The only aspect of Obama’s State of the Union speech that was Clintonesque was the length and an obligatory attempt at expressing “I feel your pain” empathy for the US economy.
The Obama story of ascendancy and descent embodies both of the two essential plots of all novels - the hero goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town. The journey of Obama has been well documented by a sycophantic media - rising from a broken home and culminating in a Harvard law school education; conveniently omitting a plethora of socialistic training and friendships and a complete absence of documented academic performance – that’s the journey of the hero.
What became quickly apparent on the campaign trail was the man with the sonorous voice and rhapsodic rhetoric could make trite and hackneyed expressions sound elegant and philosophical…….like hope and change.
Now the stranger comes to town – Washington. Along the way Obama forgot, or never knew, that the reciprocal of hope and change is trust. In mathematics it’s called the multiplicative inverse, meaning the ratio of unity to a given quantity by which the given quantity is multiplied to produce unity. Without trust, “hope and change” are just vacuous words without meaning or purpose ….no unity.
The President has systematically overdrawn his trust account through his “we won” expressed and demonstrated behavior. The nation’s first “post racial/post partisan” president’s approval rating has dropped further than any other president in his first year, effectively neutering a super majority advantage in the House and the Senate (until Scott Brown’s election).
In virtually all areas of policy sans bipartisanship and transparency – national security (domestic and foreign), economic, health, climate change, et al have produced failure - a seriously stalled economy with ever increasing unemployment, failed stimulus plan, mirandized terrorists, grossly incompetent cabinet and administration czars ……and that’s just touching the surface.
No president in memory has made as many speeches in his first year, as if Obama actually thought he could impose his far left ideological will on his audience. An interesting phenomenon occurred during the process, the law of diminishing returns kicked in, and the words and syntax that once marveled fell flat and seemed as if they were written by his ubiquitous teleprompter.
So it was reasonable to assume that Obama, in collaboration with his brain trust, a staff that New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks calls the most intelligent ever assembled by a U.S. President, would be able to craft a State of the Union speech that would acknowledge the majority of the nation’s views and deliver a statesman state of the union address with a commitment to honor the will of the people.
The State of the Union Speech – The Sound and the Fury
Our President, in his finest finger wagging socialist professor style, delivered seventy excruciating minutes of “more of the same”, in a panoply of delivery styles –condescension, arrogance, whining, combativeness, scolding, petulance, defiance, and of course egoism.
In a curiously disjointed speech, with the triple digit exercise of personal pronouns, President Obama essentially tossed the gauntlet before the American people. Exclaiming “I don’t quit”, as he continued “Change has not come fast enough. As hard as it may be, as uncomfortable and contentious as the debates may be, it’s time to get serious about fixing the problems that are hampering our growth.”
Among the many lowlights of the address was the proposed three year freeze on most discretionary domestic spending, beginning in 2011, after the debt ceiling has been raised. He also announced he will issue an executive order creating a bipartisan task force to recommend ways to reduce the deficit……the Senate recently blocked a similar proposal.
Obama urged the Senate to follow the House and pass a second jobs bill as its first order of business this year. Yeah, the first one really worked swell.
The President urged Senate passage of climate legislation to help the country deal with global warming and shift toward cleaner energy sources and help create jobs. Our President still supports the global warming scam.
Proving he doesn’t quit, the President called for a continuance of efforts to overhaul the health care system.
In a move to get college students on free government entitlements, Obama proposed capping student loan repayments at 10 percent of income and forgiving all student loan debt after 20 years, or after 10 years if the student enters public service. With the government now the exclusive provider of college loans, wonder how many of those loans will be repaid?
In a particularly magnanimous gesture, after shutting Republicans out of all meaningful legislation discussion with the super majority Democrats, Obama proposed monthly meetings with both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress.
The lowest of lows was achieved, a first for a state of the union address, when Obama attempted to bully the co-equal judicial branch of government, the Supreme Court, by urging lawmakers to pass a bill to undo a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows companies and labor unions to exercise First Amendment rights to make independent expenditures in candidate elections.
Justice Samuel Alito one of the justices in the majority in the decision under attack, shook his head as he heard the president’s summary of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission mouthing the words “not true.”
State of the Union addresses are opportunities for presidents to take or lose command. Obama's poll numbers on how he handles major issues have been dropping; a majority of Americans do not support his management of the economy, taxes and other issues. Unemployment is in double digits and terrorism fears are rising.
It was an opportunity lost. Either President Obama doesn’t get it or he does and just doesn’t care. The latter appears closer to the truth.
The Anatomy of a One Term President
The 1957 Sci Fi classic film The Incredible Shrinking Man presented a hero, Scott, who became exposed to a radioactive mist while on a boat off the California coast, thus beginning the gradual but inexorable shrinking of Scott. Near the end of the movie Scott has been reduced to a size that allows him to walk through a space in the grid of a window screen as he walks through the space he muses “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle,”something akin to Barack Obama assuming the office of President of the United States.
It’s a long way from Pan-President, the messianic leader of the world, to becoming a one term president. But the first quarter of Obama’s presidency has been abysmal in achieving any measurable positive results.
An ever increasing number of Americans see the direction Obama is moving the country away from capitalism towards a redistribution of wealth with more government control. The man whose bust Obama reportedly removed from the oval office, Winston Churchill, said it best when asked to compare Capitalism with Socialism, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery”. The overwhelming majority of Americans find the vice of capitalism vastly superior to the virtue of socialism.
After one year in office, it is reasonable to deduce that the president’s character, personality, beliefs and ability has had ample opportunity to be revealed. And so it is with Barack Obama.
As far as character is concerned, while Obama’s flaws don’t rise to the Bill Clinton level of amorality, clearly he’s a man who is quite comfortable with prevarication and misrepresentation. The best thing Obama has going for him is his personality, he’s a narcissistic charmer, but the veneer is wearing thin. Obama’s beliefs spiritually and politically are radical fringe. Spiritually he’s a mixture of black liberation theology and Islam. Politically he’s a blend of Marxist, Statist, and Socialist. His abilities are not well suited for President, but would probably serve him well as a college professor and a community organizer.
The malaise that hangs like a storm cloud over the nation is not likely to dissipate during the next three years. Not since the redoubtable Jimmy Carter have we seen a president so ill equipped in all aspects of governance. The State of the Union speech pretty well provided oral testimony to the incorrigible nature of President Obama’s agenda.
Churchill captured it best in his time - “A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Mr. Brown Goes to Washington
Life Imitates Art
In all the tradition and improbability of the 1939 Frank Capra film classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Massachusetts State Senator, Scott Phillip Brown has accomplished what political pundits dismissed as impossible just two months ago. In the movie, Mr. Smith played by “everyman” Jimmy Stewart, a naive man appointed to fill the vacancy in the US Senate created by the death of one of his State’s Senators. Mr. Smith quickly collides with political corruption, but doesn’t wilt under the intense pressure, and ultimately and dramatically becomes a state and national hero.
While Mr. Smith was appointed to the vacant Senate seat, Mr. Brown didn’t have it so easy. Brown, a Protestant Republican in the heavily Catholic bluest of blue states seeking to succeed the iconic, if not venerable, Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, was considered well……an almost perfunctory gesture on the part of the GOP to even nominate a candidate.
Massachusetts is Blue for a Reason
The Massachusetts demographics were stacked heavily against Mr. Brown. The state’s political demographics are 38% Democrat, 11% Republican, and 51% Independent, a state that Obama won by 26 points in 2008 (62% to 36%). The Independents in the state are decidedly left leaning. Further exacerbating the situation, religious demographics have the state at 44% Catholic; slightly more than double the percentage of Protestants in the state.
Pollsters posited that for Brown to have a chance in the Bay State, the breakdown of the political demographics on Election Day had to be 33% Democrat, 12% Republican, and 55% Independent. It was said if that happened and if Brown was able to carry two-thirds of the independent vote, he would win 51% to 49%.
The Making of an American Hero
Democrats find it almost impossible to believe that this Senate seat they've held since John F. Kennedy could go to a Republican. The Bay State has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. Ted Kennedy held his seat for almost 47 years until his death last August.
So how is it that “Downtown Scotty Brown”, as he was called on the Tufts University basketball team and the 1982 Sexiest Man in America posing in the buff of the centerfold of Cosmopolitan magazine, became the victor in the most important non presidential election in the past 50 years?
It is the quintessential American success story and a far more compelling tale than the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A child of divorced parents, Scott was raised by his grandmother and later his aunt. An arrest at age twelve for shop lifting caused Scott to take a better path, devoting his energy to sports and ultimately playing on the Tufts University basketball team. Brown is an accomplished cyclist, swimmer, and runner and has won a number of triathlons. He earned his BA from Tufts and his Juris Doctor from Boston College of Law. Brown worked for a while as an actor/model appearing in several commercials.
Scott Brown entered politics in 1992 and has served in the Massachusetts Senate since 2004. Mr. Brown has served in the Massachusetts National Guard for thirty years and currently holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Brown has been deployed to Kazakhstan and Paraguay. He and his wife Gail have two daughters, Arianna and Ayla. Prior to winning the race for Senator, the most famous member of the Brown family was Ayla, an American Idol semi finalist and Boston College basketball player.
Brown is considered a conservative Republican by Massachusetts standards and a moderate Republican by national standards. Scott Brown is anti tax, pro gun, strong national defense, pro choice, and supports civil unions, but not gay marriages.
At The Precipice
The monumental Massachusetts Senate victory by Scott Brown was every bit a referendum on the Obama Democrat administration and agenda. Massachusetts merely served as a microcosm of the national outrage over Obama’s radical agenda and the utter contempt and arrogance displayed toward the will of the American people. It’s no surprise that after a year in office, President Obama has the lowest approval rating of any President in modern history after his first year.
The American voters either ignored the obvious lifelong radical nurturing, tutoring, and political record of Obama, or more likely were sweep up in the frenzied media promotion of the potential of the nation’s first black(well almost) President. Never underestimate the judgment of the American people, bad or good. Things appear to be changing now in a very big way.
How ironic then at the beginning when Obama declared "change we can believe in" and proclaimed "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my presidency," quite the antithesis of the litany, too numerous to enumerate, of appointments, initiatives, legislation, actions, inactions both domestically and abroad since his inauguration. Only the most myopic of the far left views the Obama Presidency as anything but an abject failure.
It borders on the unbelievable that this President, as an ineffectual neophyte, has squandered a congressional majority because of his hard coded Socialist ideology, obnoxious arrogance, and pseudo intellect. From a community organizer to the President of the United States is clearly a bridge too far.
The American experience under Obama is rapidly becoming the tandem nightmares of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The Orwellian “Big Brother” and “Newspeak” have become an all too familiar part of the contemporary landscape. Orwell wrote of the truth being concealed from us, while Huxley told of the truth being drowned in a maelstrom of irrelevance. In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, people are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
The nation now teeters on the precipice of becoming a socialist state with the Senate Health Care Bill before the House. If passed, Obama Health Care becomes a major domino in the crashing down of America’s democracy and free enterprise system.
Now with Scott Brown taking the 60th vote in the Senate from the Democrats the Obama Health Care Plan appears to be in terminal condition along with the entire Obama agenda.
It’s not too difficult to imagine that the Democrats will try every manner of chicanery and bribes to push the 2000 page HC monster to passage, but there are a few comments that at least a few have seen the blinding light of the obvious in the Scott Brown victory.
Virginia Senator Jim Webb stated: “In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”
Fellow Massachusetts citizen and Congressman Barney Frank, a friend of neither democracy nor free enterprise remarked: "I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts.”
“One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills.”
“But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened.”
“ Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process."
The stage is now set for the Republicans to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; managed properly this November the GOP could gain at least 25 seats in the House and possibly six seats in the Senate.
We may expect Senator Scott Brown to become the new bête noire of the media, as demonstrated by the seldom viewed MSNBC Host, Keith Oldermann: “In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea bagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”
Welcome to Washington Mr. Brown, may you enjoy success that exceeds that of Mr. Smith. After all, your success may be instrumental in saving the country we know and love.
In all the tradition and improbability of the 1939 Frank Capra film classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Massachusetts State Senator, Scott Phillip Brown has accomplished what political pundits dismissed as impossible just two months ago. In the movie, Mr. Smith played by “everyman” Jimmy Stewart, a naive man appointed to fill the vacancy in the US Senate created by the death of one of his State’s Senators. Mr. Smith quickly collides with political corruption, but doesn’t wilt under the intense pressure, and ultimately and dramatically becomes a state and national hero.
While Mr. Smith was appointed to the vacant Senate seat, Mr. Brown didn’t have it so easy. Brown, a Protestant Republican in the heavily Catholic bluest of blue states seeking to succeed the iconic, if not venerable, Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, was considered well……an almost perfunctory gesture on the part of the GOP to even nominate a candidate.
Massachusetts is Blue for a Reason
The Massachusetts demographics were stacked heavily against Mr. Brown. The state’s political demographics are 38% Democrat, 11% Republican, and 51% Independent, a state that Obama won by 26 points in 2008 (62% to 36%). The Independents in the state are decidedly left leaning. Further exacerbating the situation, religious demographics have the state at 44% Catholic; slightly more than double the percentage of Protestants in the state.
Pollsters posited that for Brown to have a chance in the Bay State, the breakdown of the political demographics on Election Day had to be 33% Democrat, 12% Republican, and 55% Independent. It was said if that happened and if Brown was able to carry two-thirds of the independent vote, he would win 51% to 49%.
The Making of an American Hero
Democrats find it almost impossible to believe that this Senate seat they've held since John F. Kennedy could go to a Republican. The Bay State has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. Ted Kennedy held his seat for almost 47 years until his death last August.
So how is it that “Downtown Scotty Brown”, as he was called on the Tufts University basketball team and the 1982 Sexiest Man in America posing in the buff of the centerfold of Cosmopolitan magazine, became the victor in the most important non presidential election in the past 50 years?
It is the quintessential American success story and a far more compelling tale than the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A child of divorced parents, Scott was raised by his grandmother and later his aunt. An arrest at age twelve for shop lifting caused Scott to take a better path, devoting his energy to sports and ultimately playing on the Tufts University basketball team. Brown is an accomplished cyclist, swimmer, and runner and has won a number of triathlons. He earned his BA from Tufts and his Juris Doctor from Boston College of Law. Brown worked for a while as an actor/model appearing in several commercials.
Scott Brown entered politics in 1992 and has served in the Massachusetts Senate since 2004. Mr. Brown has served in the Massachusetts National Guard for thirty years and currently holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Brown has been deployed to Kazakhstan and Paraguay. He and his wife Gail have two daughters, Arianna and Ayla. Prior to winning the race for Senator, the most famous member of the Brown family was Ayla, an American Idol semi finalist and Boston College basketball player.
Brown is considered a conservative Republican by Massachusetts standards and a moderate Republican by national standards. Scott Brown is anti tax, pro gun, strong national defense, pro choice, and supports civil unions, but not gay marriages.
At The Precipice
The monumental Massachusetts Senate victory by Scott Brown was every bit a referendum on the Obama Democrat administration and agenda. Massachusetts merely served as a microcosm of the national outrage over Obama’s radical agenda and the utter contempt and arrogance displayed toward the will of the American people. It’s no surprise that after a year in office, President Obama has the lowest approval rating of any President in modern history after his first year.
The American voters either ignored the obvious lifelong radical nurturing, tutoring, and political record of Obama, or more likely were sweep up in the frenzied media promotion of the potential of the nation’s first black(well almost) President. Never underestimate the judgment of the American people, bad or good. Things appear to be changing now in a very big way.
How ironic then at the beginning when Obama declared "change we can believe in" and proclaimed "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my presidency," quite the antithesis of the litany, too numerous to enumerate, of appointments, initiatives, legislation, actions, inactions both domestically and abroad since his inauguration. Only the most myopic of the far left views the Obama Presidency as anything but an abject failure.
It borders on the unbelievable that this President, as an ineffectual neophyte, has squandered a congressional majority because of his hard coded Socialist ideology, obnoxious arrogance, and pseudo intellect. From a community organizer to the President of the United States is clearly a bridge too far.
The American experience under Obama is rapidly becoming the tandem nightmares of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The Orwellian “Big Brother” and “Newspeak” have become an all too familiar part of the contemporary landscape. Orwell wrote of the truth being concealed from us, while Huxley told of the truth being drowned in a maelstrom of irrelevance. In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, people are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
The nation now teeters on the precipice of becoming a socialist state with the Senate Health Care Bill before the House. If passed, Obama Health Care becomes a major domino in the crashing down of America’s democracy and free enterprise system.
Now with Scott Brown taking the 60th vote in the Senate from the Democrats the Obama Health Care Plan appears to be in terminal condition along with the entire Obama agenda.
It’s not too difficult to imagine that the Democrats will try every manner of chicanery and bribes to push the 2000 page HC monster to passage, but there are a few comments that at least a few have seen the blinding light of the obvious in the Scott Brown victory.
Virginia Senator Jim Webb stated: “In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”
Fellow Massachusetts citizen and Congressman Barney Frank, a friend of neither democracy nor free enterprise remarked: "I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts.”
“One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills.”
“But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened.”
“ Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process."
The stage is now set for the Republicans to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; managed properly this November the GOP could gain at least 25 seats in the House and possibly six seats in the Senate.
We may expect Senator Scott Brown to become the new bête noire of the media, as demonstrated by the seldom viewed MSNBC Host, Keith Oldermann: “In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea bagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”
Welcome to Washington Mr. Brown, may you enjoy success that exceeds that of Mr. Smith. After all, your success may be instrumental in saving the country we know and love.
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