To Hell with the Political Class Melissa Clouthier
August 23, 2009
It’s no big mystery why President Obama’s poll numbers [1] have dropped like a scorching potato on a summer day in Houston. He’s stinking it up. The man came into office with a 72% approval rating. Nearly everyone gave him the benefit of the doubt. Six months of flimflam have soured all except his most adoring sycophants.
The press still loves Barack Obama. Enough said.
For everyone else, for those who hoped for change, disappointment mounts. Maegan Carberry [2] expresses the frustrations of young Obama voters:
To single out health care is myopic, when what’s really happening is a collective re-evaluation of Obama’s delivery on his campaign promises to our generation. Young people, many of whom were first-time political participants in ‘08, are often not seasoned in the way governing works. After disappointments like failed bipartisanship on the stimulus bill, lip service on torture, a perplexing stance on gay marriage that even Dick Cheney’s got right, half-hearted transparency and use of new media tools, and an ambiguously undefined and possibly unwinnable war in Afghanistan, we’re frustrated. We signed on for change in Washington, and our leader is not cracking down on the Democratic Congress and its futile leadership, which has disappointed us for almost a decade.
Strap on your boots, liberals. It’s about to get worse. An Air America host called President Obama a “charming liar.” [3] That’s being charitable. By years end, the word “charming” will be dropped.
To liberals and Democrats hoping for the socialist promised land, conservatives feel your pain. They’ve been there. Hell, they’re still there. Those who voted for Republicans hoping for sensible government, fiscal restraint, and less intrusion got none of it — even when Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and the presidency. Can you say drug plan to buy off seniors and drug companies? Can you say TARP?
But the reason President Obama is tanking so quickly is that he has a problem that President Bush didn’t have. Candidate Obama promised the world, sun, stars, and moon to everyone. People pinned their hopes and dreams on him. He stayed vague and hope-n-changy enough that all people felt reassured when he spoke to them. The problem is, he said whatever worked to whatever crowd he stood before. Or rather, his words were suitably bland that people projected their desires on his words. They heard what they wanted to hear, but what was he saying?
George W. Bush governed exactly how he campaigned. The term “compassionate conservatism” was wince-inducing. We believe being conservative is compassionate. When President Bush “reached across the aisle” to Teddy Kennedy, it seemed the height of naivete. The split was coming, and it did. And to burn credibility with the base over education reform, of all things.
Still, the magnanimous ways and the mushy center were classic blue blood Republican and for all the twang, which so irritated liberals, President Bush governed and was motivated by noblesse oblige. He campaigned this way. No surprises.
So President Obama has a problem that President Bush didn’t: deception or delusion. But more than that, President Obama comes into his presidency after Democrats spent years in the wilderness nursing notions of a stolen presidency. They feel owed, man. They are entitled to some legislation going their way for once.
And actually, President Obama has another problem: American values don’t mesh with liberal values. President Obama campaigned sounding centrist and moderate even though his Senate record was the most liberal of any of his peers. President Obama campaigned on fiscal restraint. He promised to right the Republican wrongs. It’s difficult to stifle a guffaw, but people bought it. Swing voters and independents believed him. They believed that a Democrat Congress and president would actually be sensible and responsible.
The Democrats pushed through a pork-laden, special-interest awarding stimulus bill that benefited no one besides political cronies. This was Nancy Pelosi’s gift to the big corporate Democrat donors. On election night, I talked to a prominent liberal blogger who said,”Well, we’ll just have to keep big special interests out of the White House.” I laughed out loud and said, “Good luck with that. They’re already there. They’re your problem now.”
But really, the political class and the various special interest parasites sucking off the American taxpayer are everyone’s problem. The tea party movement was not born of President Barack Obama, much as the left would like to think so. Discontent raged around the TARP bailouts after years of excessive spending and Americans were helpless to stop it. It took me hours to unwind the root of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mess, and as fear-inducing bank failures struck me, the bailouts couldn’t assure that they wouldn’t fail anyway. And, in fact, many have. Meanwhile, the remaining banks prop up real estate, but that will soon end and then what?
And now, the president and Congress want to push through health care Reform that won’t help people’s health, cares little for the American taxpayer, and is anything but reform. And while California and Michigan face 15% unemployment rates and higher in some cities/industries, these same people want to raise taxes on Americans and kill the energy industry with cap and trade. It’s sheer insanity. It’s like the politicians live in some dream state where the reality of paying the bills doesn’t exist. It’s like they believe the American people will lay down and consent to a vast redistribution [4] of hard-earned wealth when they’ve already lost so much to the hands of a wrong-headed governance.
But that’s exactly where politicians live. It’s a bubble land of no consequences. The only thing that engenders fear is the prospect of losing personal power. But even that concerns them little as they rig the system so that incumbents can enjoy permanent places of power. They spend the taxpayer’s money like tax revenue falls from magical, ever-producing gold trees. Americans thought this new administration would be rational. It’s not just more of the same. It’s worse.
And while the Democrats hatch plans to bury America in a tax and regulatory burden never before seen, where are the Republicans? They’re where they’ve been for years. They are tremulous, attempting to curry favor with the press and with Democrats. Still, President Obama tries to blame these classic enablers for obstruction. It would be laughable if the charge wasn’t so insane. The Republicans have zero power. None. Their mismanagement when they had the reins has sent them into the political wilderness and yet they refuse to even fight rhetorically now when they have nothing to lose. The war of ideas is being fought by an out-of-power Republican governor from the furthest reaches of America. Sarah Palin is the only one willing to call BS on the nonsense in plain language.
The Republicans worry about being called obstructionists instead of worrying that they have no core principles that they can, without hypocrisy, champion or defend. Believe something already! And then vote a value without undercutting it by amoral behavior. Yeah, that might happen. The only chance of it happening is an engaged populace holding their feet to the fire.
The people, at long last, rise. The political class needs guidance, to put it mildly. Basically, things have been good enough and people have been busy enough that they stopped holding those entrusted with the keys to the law and treasury accountable. That time is over. All politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, would like the grassroots people to just go away. It seems evident that these folks are just getting warmed up.
Call them the mob, terrorists, haters, un-American, disloyal, treasonous, immoral, racist, and deranged. They’re not going away. They are Americans. They deserve better than what they’re getting from the ruling class.
Tonight, a friend tweeted this timely quote: “It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.” — Thomas Paine
The government needs to relearn its place.
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