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March 05, 2010
Does anyone believe this?
Occasionally Peggy Noonan writes with some degree of perception, although it seems rare to my mind. I was about to give up on her latest offering in the Wall Street Journal after she had said of Obama's first year in office,
What a disaster it has been.
At best it was a waste of history's time, a struggle that will not in the end yield something big and helpful but will in fact make future progress more difficult. At worst it may prove to have fatally undermined a new presidency at a time when America desperately needs a successful one.
America does not need a president who is determined to turn the country into a socialist Utopia to be successful, and it is utterly foolish and silly of Noonan to hope he succeeds at it. But further on Noonan managed to stumble onto the right question, the question of Obama's credibility.
In his speech Wednesday, demanding an "up or down" vote, the president seemed convinced and committed—but nothing he said sounded true. His bill will "bring down the cost of health care for millions," it is "fully paid for," it will lower the long term deficit by a trillion dollars.
Does anyone believe this?
Exactly. As we await the latest version of reform, the latest ploy for government takeover, can anyone seriously think this is going to be a cost saving exercise? No one believes this, not even the people who support Obama's health care takeover. For them a bankrupt America is a small price the rest of us should pay so that progressive pretensions of social justice can be satisfied. For the rest of us, Obama's health care extravaganza is an impending disaster that must be prevented from destroying the last best hope that is America. But nobody believes it's going to save us any money.
Posted by Tom Bowler at 07:12 AM | Permalink
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Comments
The first part of Noonan's article is a diplomatic way of acknowleging that Obama took over from a President who was a disaster. And the country does not need two disasters in a row.
Enlightened Republicans also realize the person Obama ran against in the Presidential elections would have been a disaster. The party needs to do a better job of nominating Presidential candidates.
As you have not yet come to grips with those two facts, you did not like the first part of her article.
Posted by: George | Mar 5, 2010 12:49:29 PM
"...would have been a disaster" rises to the level of "fact" in your mind? By the force of his will, the President who preceded Obama effected the establishment of two democratic governments in Middle Eastern countries notorious for brutality and repression. Obama, on the other hand, can't manage to get a health care bill through a congress dominated by his own party. Of the three men to whom you refer, Obama is clearly the least capable or honest. Give him credit for having an ego.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | Mar 5, 2010 4:51:55 PM
"Give him credit for having an ego."
You and a number of Republican Party faithful have full credit for the fact the guy is in the White House at all.
The Democrat Party couldn't have gained the White House on their own. They're simply not that competent.
Posted by: George | Mar 5, 2010 7:06:32 PM
More credit goes to the media than Republicans for the incompetence that now resides in the White House. Republicans like Sarah Palin and George W. Bush always got crucified for the least little slip up, while Democrats have gotten a pass. Obama probably got very comfortable knowing that the press just isn't going to notice when he says or does anything really dumb.
We're seeing the accumulated years of "natural selection" by the press. Democrats have been so insulated for so long by the agenda driven media that when they finally get back in power they stand revealed as the dumbest, most incompetent and viciously partisan government in anybody's lifetime.
Here's my take on the decade you call a disaster.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | Mar 6, 2010 6:46:41 AM
I don’t have a problem with your claim that the MSM is biased.
But Obama should have been easy to defeat regardless -- and your narrative implies contempt for the American people along with an unproductive lens through which to view elections.
Your thought process goes something like this:
Republicans win elections because they should. They lose because the American people have been duped by the MSM.
That is not a perspective which allows for introspection by supporters of a political party -- introspection that might cause a person to come to the conclusion that just maybe the party is way off track and paid a price as a result.
Posted by: George | Mar 6, 2010 5:32:08 PM
There is no question that the Republican party went off track, and that it did cost them elections. Had the Republican incumbents of 2005-2006 been people of conviction, they might have defended their decision to invade Iraq. They were politicians, instead, thinking the wiser course of self-preservation would be to distance themselves from the unpopular Bush. They distanced themselves from office. It might have worked out that way, anyhow.
But as far off track as they may have gone, Republicans were at least somewhere in the vicinity of it, had an idea which direction it lay, which is more than one can say about the Democrats. I have never seen a more disgraceful bunch than the ones who hold the reins of power at this moment, and they are where there are in large part because the agenda driven press advocated, and continues to advocate, on their behalf.
Should Republicans win elections? Not so much as that they should prevent Democrats from winning them. The T.E.A. Parties arose when the alternative to Republican corruption turned out to be the much more blatant and pervasive Democratic corruption. We could not have arrived at this point without a press that actively misleads.
I don't see Americans as dupes, but I think the press does. It may be that Obama should have been easy to beat, but press coverage verged on hero worship. He could not have won without their cheerleading.
Americans were just mistaken. So many get their news on the morning drive or from Katie Kouric in the evening, and they're too pressed for time to look beyond. At least up to now. Maybe the T.E.A. Parties will be our salvation, if they can focus the minds of Republicans, and maybe a few Democrats.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | Mar 7, 2010 7:19:31 AM
