The Spectator | Melanie Phillips | Feb. 7, 2009
President Obama has had, by general consent, a torrid First Fortnight. To put it another way, it has taken precisely two weeks for the illusion that brought him to power to be exposed for the nonsense that it so obviously was. The transformational candidate who was going to sweep away pork-barrel politics, lobbyists and corruption has been up to his neck in sleaze, as eviscerated here by Charles Krauthammer. Despite the fact that he came to power promising to ‘ban all earmarks’, his ‘stimulus’ bill represents billions of dollars of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections — which have nothing to do with kick-starting the economy and everything to do with favouring pet Democrat causes.
He has been appointing one tax dodger, lobbyist and wheeler-dealer after another. After appointing one official,Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who had unaccountably forgotten to pay his taxes, he then watched his designated Health Secretary Tom Daschle fall on his sword because he too had taken a tax holiday. Daschle was furthermore a prominent actor in the world of lobbying and influence-peddling. Leon Panetta, Obama’s nominee for Director of the CIA has also, according to the Wall Street Journal, consulted for prominent companies and sat on the board of a public affairs firm that lobbies Congress. The Weekly Standard reports that Secretary of Labour nominee Hilda Solis was not only involved with a private organization lobbying her fellow legislators on a bill that she helped sponsor, but she apparently kept her involvement secret and failed to reveal a clear conflict of interest.
In foreign policy, Obama has started by trashing his own country through grossly misrepresenting its history and grovelling to America’s enemies such as Iran, which has flicked him aside with undiluted contempt. He has gratuitously upset America’s ally India by suggesting that America should muscle in and resolve the Kashmir question.
His right hand doesn’t seem to know what his left hand is doing. He reportedly asked retired Marine General Anthony Zinni to be US ambassador to Iraq, but then abruptly withdrew the appointment without explanation after it had been confirmed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And the precise role he is offering Dennis Ross – special envoy to Iran? Special adviser to Hillary? Special adviser to other special advisers? – remains mired in confusion.
I have argued before however that, given Obama’s radical roots in the neo-Marxist, nihilist politics of Saul Alinsky, it is the undermining of America’s fundamental values that is likely to be this President’s most strategically important goal. I have also suggested that, since this agenda is promoted through stealth politics which gull the credulous middle-classes while destroying the ground upon which they are standing, his second-tier appointments should be closely scrutinised.
And here’s a humdinger. Obama has picked a man called David Ogden to be deputy Attorney-General. Ogden has made his legal career from representing pornographers, trying to defeat child protection legislation and undermining family values. As FoxNews reported this week, he once represented a group of library directors arguing against the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which ordered libraries and schools receiving funding for the Internet to restrict access to obscene sites. And on behalf of several media groups, he successfully argued against a child pornography law that required publishers to verify and document the age of their models, which would have ensured these models were at least 18.
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And how did the 44th President react to the growing public dismay over the mess he was making? He threw his toys out of the pram — or perhaps that should read, he got into the pram. For he fled the scene of the disaster and sought the company of seven year-olds instead. As the Telegraph reported:
‘We were just tired of being in the White House,’ he told a group of excited seven-year-olds before discussing Batman and reading them a book.
Tired of being President – after two weeks!
Tax cheats, pork-barrel politics, ancillary child abuse, incompetence, chaos, treachery and infantilism. America – what have you done?!
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Obama and the Democrats can call their program The Emasculation of America.
On the other hand – a pure, apparent, unmitigated failure might just help. It will be hard to tell Republicans in 2012 to ‘run to the middle’ or to endorse any of these policies if their net impact is to grossly damaging to ignore.
Ireland, after all, didn’t renounce socialism until it found itself (literally) at the end of its rope.
Won’t be pretty, but if the person who totally tubes everything is a Democrat, we may yet see a Republican revival of policies that are the exact opposite of the failures Obama is fathering.
Many of McCain’s policies would have been similar to Obama’s dumb ideas. Can you imagine how awful that would be? To put up with four years of a RINO doing socialism-lite?
Well, I think McCain would’ve at least allowed offshore drilling to become a reality. Americans have a short memory. What’s going to happen the next time gasoline shoots up to perhaps $5 a gallon? there are some reserves that can become productive in less than 5 years. I argue that truly affordable alternative energy is still a decade or so away.
That being said, I do agree that we may yet see a Republican of true conservative values with enough charisma to lead this country back to its rots emerge from this chaos. Right now I can think of only one Republican that could actually succeed at that, and his name is Bobby Jindal, but we may have to wait untill 2016 to see him make a run for it because he has stated over and over again that he “has the job that he wants”. Translate that to 2 terms as governor, then make a bid.
McCain might have allowed offshore drilling, true. But he would have pursued his own stimulus plan that would have bankrupted us the same as what Obama will do. The difference is that Obama is going to get the blame for this. He is going to try and pin all this on Bush, and the media will assist, but the fact is that in this day and age, he won’t get away with it.