The Banality of Barack
P.J. O’Rourke is pretty impressed with the President-Elect. It’s quite a feat to have a failed Presidency before you’re even sworn in. The good news is that his failure is likely to be to our benefit.
So we may speak without compunction of the failed Obama presidency. What a blessing that it’s a failure. Things are bad enough the way they are. There’s already a huge ongoing government intervention in the economy. Bringing the government in to run Wall Street is like saying, “Dad burned dinner, let’s get the dog to cook.” Now the government’s going to take over the auto industry. I can predict the result–a light-weight, compact, sustainable vehicle using alternative energy. When I was a kid we called it a Schwinn. And next in line for political therapy is health care. Voting will cure what ails you. Go to the doctor when you’ve got cancer, and he’ll say, “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. I’m going to treat your disease by going inside this small, curtained booth and putting an ‘X’ next to a very special name.”
If we want this sort of thing and lots more of it, we’ll need somebody better–that is to say worse–than Barack Obama. Is Obama the man who can make the wolf of partisan spoils dwell with the lamb of public interest, and the leopard of increased political power lie down with the kid of individual liberty; and the calf of personal responsibility and the young lion of social engineering and the fatling of free enterprise together; and a lawyer from Hyde Park will lead them? (And will Nancy Pelosi eat straw like Dennis Kucinich?)
No. Barack Obama doesn’t have the outsized personality and flair for bunkum that is necessary to lead even America’s sheep-like electorate into such ravenous company. Thank God.
One of the things I said quite often about Barack Obama is that, as politicians go, he wasn’t anything particularly special. It doesn’t take a great effort to rise to the top of Chicago politics. You just have to keep your ear to the ground well enough to know who has the power and who is losing ground. Then you hitch your wagon – and by “hitch your wagon” I mean “send lots of money” – to the new power-broker. Eventually, you become a power in your own right and other people send you money. Or get you a really nice sweetheart deal for your new house.
The problem with being President is that there’s no one to suck up to except the American people, and we’re a notoriously fickle bunch. We like celebrity, but at some point we’re going to ask for some small semblance of competence, which is something Barack Obama has in very short supply. Already, we’re seeing that he’s not even up to the task of picking a competent, non-criminal, Cabinet.
The next four years should be very interesting.
Other Posts of Interest:
- White House to Establish Office of Paying Off ACORN
- Barack Obama to Use Soldiers for Worldwide Photo Op
- Every Burns Needs a Smithers.
Category: Cool Columnists and Wicked Writers, President Barack Obama
Really? I could swear I remember reading newspaper articles about what was wrong with the GHW Bush presidency within a couple of weeks of his inauguration… It doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to be pronounced a failure a month earlier….
(Dateline: Day -9 of the failed Obama Presidency)