…Those were heady times when Guantanamo was still a gulag with its hundreds of Solzhenitsyns, not psychopaths like Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds, when we could just leave Iraq by “March 2008”, and when there would be no lobbyists, no tax cheats, no insider buy-offs and horse-trading for votes. In such a dreamy world, geniuses like Timothy Geithner don’t pocket their FICA allowances, and Tom Daschles don’t fudge on their complimentary limo services.
And then tragically Obama got elected and discovered that the real world had no relationship whatsoever to his fantasy impressions of it. In a cosmos of radical Islam, Chinese bankers, Japanese exporters, and Arab oil producers, there were no more law school profs, Rev. Wrights, or Chris Matthews and Newsweek editors to wink and nod and reassure Obama that his mellifluous but empty rhetoric allusions were at all reality-based.
So here we are. A president of the United States does not want to rush to the microphones and swear he will hunt down the Abdulmutallabs of the world and their sponsors, or that there will be no more Major Hasans (so much easier to rush to call the Cambridge police “stupidly” acting, while employing “allegedly” for the bomb-making of Abdulmutallab).
It’s sort of like much of the country suffered from Bush-Derangement Syndrome last year, and are just finally coming out of it, and their Obamanian trance. I think that it’s a good sign for the elections next fall, though.
As usual, Hansen is on target (and I appreciate anyone who can allude to Hesiod), but the real question is whether the clowns in the establishment media will be able to beat down the bubbling dissatisfaction by next fall, by not presenting anyone who can talk sense with any regularity or only with ill-hidden disparagement.
Meanwhile, by then some of the not-shovel-ready stimuli may finally kick in producing a temporary drop in unemployment, lulling the public to think we shouldn’t use as big a boot to Congressional backs – if any.
I’m always such an optimist, Rand.
I think that it’s a good sign for the elections next fall, though.
Hopefully so but, like Charles Lurio, I’m not sure.
So no Second Coming eh? I’m doubting that the administration will at any point start believing what they see rather than seeing what they believe, though its evident by the caustic relationship that Gibbs has with the white house press corps that when Helen Thomas rips into Gibbs on camera, the honeymoon is most definitely over and at least for those reporters, they’ve realized that all their cherished Zip-ah-dee-doo-dah dreams have been dashed.
“Meanwhile, by then some of the not-shovel-ready stimuli may finally kick in producing a temporary drop in unemployment, lulling the public to think we shouldn’t use as big a boot to Congressional backs – if any.”
Perceptions don’t change that easily. The economy had been in recovery for over two years when the Dems got their 94 shellacking. Actually, for several months before the November 92 election. Of course 94 was about much more than economics and I suspect so will 2010.
And the Economy was slowly growing when Carter was kicked out too. The 4th Qtr 1980 was the highest quarter of the previous 12 quarters.
A slight positive uptick seldom cancells out a prior established narrative. It seems it takes about as long to change the publics perception of a politician as it took the public to acquire it. Clinton was lucky the economy continued to grow after 94 and lucky the Republicans nominated a dud in Dole and in Perot running again.
I wonder if Obama can count on such a perfect storm in three years or if he can count on the second trough of a W-shaped recession.
I wonder if Obama can count on such a perfect storm in three years or if he can count on the second trough of a W-shaped recession.
I don’t know about Obama, but I’m expecting a W.
The one thing that has not been addressed is the enourmous amount of public money used to support one political party.
After those two kids exposed Acorn, congress made it seem like they’d done something when in reality they did almost nothing. 2010 should tell us a bit about whether we still have an operating democracy or whether it’s become something else… an idiocracy.
A plutocracy – where the prefix has the double meaning of a certain Disney character.
Hanson, as you would expect from his day job, has a Greek tragedian’s viewpoint on the world. He’s really the last living Stoic.
Nevertheless, this time he may be right, I’m afraid. I do get a strange 1930s sense of a brooding storm, with wormsign the likes of which even God has not seen before.
Hanson certainly has good insight into the nature of Obama’s academically-trained thinking. The only part I think he misses is the Chicago South Side thug, perhaps because it’s unfamiliar in his Fresno world. I think that makes Obama more angry than bewildered. Nor is his underlying anger going to cause any abruption with his supporters, save perhaps the sheltered hot-house plants of academe like Ann Althouse.
Most of Obama’s supporters are secretly angry themselves, and struggle with concealing the fact that underneath that pious We Are The World milk o’ human kindness lies a spitting take the rilfe up to the water tower fury that wants to really stick it to certain people.