More Washington (Mark Steyn: Obama Looks To Washington First Alert)

National Review ^ | 1/30/2010 | Mark Steyn

[goldstategop]

The world turns.

In Indonesia, the principal of a Muslim boarding school in Tangerang who is accused of impregnating a 15-year-old student says the DNA test will prove that a malevolent genie is the real father.

In New Zealand, a German tourist, Herr Hans Kurt Kubus, has been jailed for attempting to board a plane at Christchurch with 44 live lizards in his underpants.

In Britain, a research team at King’s College, London, has declared that the female “G-spot” does not, in fact, exist.

In France a group of top gynecologists led by M. Sylvain Mimoun has dismissed the findings, and said what do you expect if you ask a group of Englishmen to try to find a woman’s erogenous zone.

But in America Barack Obama is talking.

Talking, talking, talking. He talked for 70 minutes at the State of the Union. No matter how many geckos you shoveled down your briefs, you still lost all feeling in your legs. And still he talked. If you had an erogenous zone before he started, by the end it was undetectable even to Frenchmen. But on he talked. As respected poverty advocate Sen. John Edwards commented, “After the first hour, even my malevolent genie was back in the bottle.”

Like any gifted orator, the president knows how to vary the talk with a little light and shade. Sometimes he hectors, sometimes he whines, sometimes he demands. He hectored the Supreme Court. He whined about all the problems he inherited. He demanded Congress put a jobs bill on his desk. Or was it a desk job on his bill? No matter. He does Nixon impressions, too: “We do not quit,” he said.

Boy, you can say that again!

So he did: “We don’t quit. I don’t quit,” he said. Throughout the chamber, Democrats were quitting. “I quit,” says Rep. Marion Berry of Arkanas, declining to run this November. “I quit,” says Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, doing likewise. “I quit,” says Beau Biden of Delaware, son of Vice President Joe Biden, choosing not to succeed to his father’s seat in America’s House of Lords.

But not Barack Obama: “I don’t quit.” So on he went. As my colleague Rich Lowry put it after the Massachusetts vote, the public thinks Obama doesn’t get it, and Obama thinks the public doesn’t get it. And as he’s got the microphone, he’s gonna keep talking at you until you do get it.

The ever tinnier, more perfunctory sophomoric uplift at the start and finish can’t conceal the hope-killing, jobs-slaying, soul-sapping message in between, which is perfectly consistent, and has been for two years. As President Obama sees it, whatever the problem — from health care to education, banking to the environment — the solution is more Washington.

Simply as a matter of internal logic, this is somewhat perplexing. After all, when he isn’t blaming Bush, Obama blames “Washington” — a Washington mired in “partisanship” and “pettiness” and “the same tired battles” and “Washington gimmicks” that do nothing but ensure that our “problems have grown worse.” Washington, Obama tells us, is “unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems.”

So let’s have more Washington! In our schools, in our hospitals, in our cars, in everything!

Which raises the question: Does even Obama listen to Obama’s speeches? The public does — at least to this extent: They understand that, when he’s attacking the tired old Washington games, he’s just playing the tired old Washington games. But, when he’s proposing the tired old Washington solutions, he means it; that’s the real Obama, the only Obama on offer. And everything the president proposes means more debt, which at the level this guy’s spending means, at some point down the road, either higher taxes or total societal collapse.

Functioning societies depend on agreed rules. If you want to open a business, you do it in Singapore or Ireland, because the rules are known to all parties. You don’t go to Sudan or Zimbabwe, where the rules are whatever the state’s whims happen to be that morning.

That’s why Obama is such a job-killer. Why would a small business take on a new employee? The president’s proposing a soak-the-banks tax that could impact your access to credit. The House has passed a cap-and-trade bill that could impose potentially unlimited regulatory costs. The Senate is in favor of “health” “care” “reform” that will allow the IRS to seize your assets if you and your employees’ health arrangements do not meet the approval of the federal government. Some of these things will pass into law, some of them won’t. But all of them send a consistent, cumulative message: that there are no rules, that they’re being made up as they go along — and that some of them might even be retroactive, as happened this week with Oregon’s new corporate tax.

In such an environment, would you hire anyone? Or would you hunker down and sit things out? Obama can bury it in half a ton of leaden telepromptered sludge but the world has got the message: More Washington, more micro-regulation of every aspect of your life, more multi-trillion-dollar spending, and no agreed rules in a game ever more rigged against you.

Obama and the Democrats have decided, in the current cliché, to “double down.” That hardly does justice to what the president’s doing. In effect, he’s told embattled congressmen and senators to strap on the old suicide-bomber belt and self-detonate for the team this November.

That’s a lot of virgins to pass out, but with this administration, budget restraints aren’t exactly a problem: Untold pleasures will await every sacrificial incumbent in paradise, or at any rate the coming liberal utopia. What’s the end game here? President Obama gave it away in his student-loan “reform” proposals: If you choose to go into “public service,” any college-loan debts will be forgiven after ten years.

Because “public service” is more noble than the selfish, money-grubbing private sector. C’mon, everybody knows that. So we need to encourage more people to go into “public service.”

Why?

In the last 60 years, the size of America’s state and local workforce has increased five times faster than the general population. But the president says it’s still not enough: We have to incentivize even further the diversion of our human capital into the government machine. Like most lifelong politicians, Barack Obama has never created, manufactured, or marketed any product other than himself. So quite reasonably he sees government dependency as the natural order of things. And in his college-loan plan he’s explicitly telling you: If you start a business, invent something, provide a service, you’re a schmuck and a loser. In the America he’s building, you’ll be working 24/7 till you drop dead to fund an ever-swollen bureaucracy that takes six weeks off a year and retires at 53 on a pension you could never dream of. Obama’s proposals are bold only insofar as few men would offer such a transparent guarantee of disaster: It’s the audacity of hopelessness.

In Massachusetts, enough voters got the message. And the more speeches this one-note politician inflicts on the nation, the louder they’ll hear it.

[goldstategop]

In his SOTU address earlier this Week, Obama's world view places Washington First. That's the only rule in a world with no rules in it. And the massive accumulation of debt he's proposing on behalf of Washington, in Mark Steyn's, words, will lead to the same destination: total societal collapse. Higher taxes aren't really an alternative as they portend the same thing only further down the road. Its already happening in California - where we've seen a glimpse of just where unrestrained statism is invariably headed. Liberalism as Steyn puts it, is the "audacity of hopelessness." And the American people do get it - no matter how much Obama seeks to shove the logic of Washington as the alpha and the omega of the American experience down their throats. No - its America first, not Washington first, that the country wants.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus

[McLynnan]

Washington, Obama tells us, is “unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems.”

Did he forget he IS Washington? Maybe he thinks he's still in Chicago. At any rate, it's patently obvious he's unable and unwilling to solve any of our problems. Total incompetent.

[goldstategop]

He admitted he can't solve any of our problems. But that's why we need him - so no one can solve them.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus

[freebilly]

44 live lizards in his pants?! Yikes! I have enough trouble dealing with the one large anaconda in mine.... ;^)

[freebilly]

Steyn knows how to turn a phrase, that much is certain....

[wjcsux]

Mark Steyn is rapidly moving up to the level of Dr. Thomas Sowell in his communication abilities.

[Beowulf9]

Barack Obama’s talking reminds me of Jim Jones long tirades over the microphone at Jonestown. Dictator stuff.

[ZOOKER]

...the public thinks Obama doesn’t get it, and Obama thinks the public doesn’t get it. And as he’s got the microphone, he’s gonna keep talking at you until you do get it.

Wrong, Barry. I get it. I know exactly what you're talking about.

I just don't want it.

Now do you get it?

[goldstategop]

He's the one who doesn't get it. He thinks we're all dumb and not smart enough to appreciate his great genius. So he talks down to us like a bunch of uneducated schlubs.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus

[kiltie65]

Hence the “drinking the Koolaid” statements.

[A_perfect_lady]

In Britain, a research team at King’s College, London, has declared that the female “G-spot” does not, in fact, exist.

I beg your pardon?!?

[DesertRhino]

Im liking Steyn more and more every time i hear him.

[chrisser]

Why would a small business take on a new employee? The president’s proposing a soak-the-banks tax that could impact your access to credit. The House has passed a cap-and-trade bill that could impose potentially unlimited regulatory costs. The Senate is in favor of “health” “care” “reform” that will allow the IRS to seize your assets if you and your employees’ health arrangements do not meet the approval of the federal government. Some of these things will pass into law, some of them won’t. But all of them send a consistent, cumulative message: that there are no rules, that they’re being made up as they go along — and that some of them might even be retroactive, as happened this week with Oregon’s new corporate tax.

In such an environment, would you hire anyone?

IMHO, this is the money quote of the article. This is why our economy and employment has been in the tank since the Democrats took over Congress in 2006.

[goldstategop]

No one wants to hire. In this political climate, you'll be punished if you produce more wealth. Why bother?

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus

[Nick Danger]

...the public thinks Obama doesn’t get it, and Obama thinks the public doesn’t get it. And as he’s got the microphone, he’s gonna keep talking at you until you do get it.

This is going to be another case where the media, seeking to help the Democrat by being his microphone, performs in a way that destroys the Democrat.

That's because most reporters are like Obama: they don't get it. You can already see in the "news" coverage of the Republican retreat that reporters think that the significant items were the things Obama said. This is true to the point that we need to find out which idiot Republicans thought it would be a good idea to invite Obama to come and steal their show and all the news coverage about it, and make sure those people get primaried so that they lose their leadership positions. Here is the "news" from what ought to have been an opportunity for Republicans to score some points:

• President Obama slams obstructionist Republicans at GOP issues retreat
• Obama smartly extends olive branch to GOP
• Obama and the never-ending quest for bipartisanship
• Obama challenges House GOP
• Obama chides House GOP on rhetoric

We don't have to worry about this one-sided coverage, because as Steyn points out, the public already has Obama's number. They know he's a crap artist, and they know the media is his microphone. All these headlines do is reinforce most people's opinion that the media these days operates as the propaganda arm of the president and his party. Only people who get their news from the Huffington Post will consider these headlines to be anything more than the usual pro-Democrat horn-blowing. Obama is as bipartisan as the Democratic donkey, and everybody knows it.

I do not believe that the media companies will wake up in time to save themselves. The remaining days of the Obama Administration are likely to also be the remaining days of the 'mainstream' media. In the 1970's, the reporters figured out that Carter was bad news in time to stop singing his praises before they lost their own credibility. That isn't going to happen here; we can already see that most of these "journalists" are going to go down with the Obama ship, still singing Nearer, My Obama, to Thee as they drown in their own lies.

[bayouranger]

Why bother?

Who is John Galt?

[livius]

...and no agreed rules in a game ever more rigged against you.

This sums up the root of the collapse. Obama casually rejects any law he doesn't like and imposes a change by fiat. The resulting country is not a country governed by the rule of law, and if he doesn't stop soon, everything that has distinguished us and made us special for 200+ years will be in ruins.

[Dudoight]

Steyn is the most humorous and brilliant assessor of this administration. I laughed out loud...but the sad truth is one could almost cry at the truth of it all.

[Grandma Pam]

Nice to see you, sir!

Excellent summation of your post:

“In the 1970’s, the reporters figured out that Carter was bad news in time to stop singing his praises before they lost their own credibility. That isn’t going to happen here; we can already see that most of these “journalists” are going to go down with the Obama ship, still singing Nearer, My Obama, to Thee as they drown in their own lies.”

[Optimus Maximus]

Steyn hits all the obvious points any entrepreneur immediately grasps and that the liberals determinedly avoid discussing, in his throughly engaging way.

Lack of consist rules (rule of law), a determined effort to grow government workers (and thereby big government voters), plus increasingly larger deficits leads to only one outcome: a bleeding to death of private enterprise and the American Dream.

Government is a parasite, it produces nothing but regulations, growing bureacracies, and taxes to pay for it all.

That’s why our nation was designed under the constitution to LIMIT government to those few defined tasks listed in the constitution.

The progressives have successfully replaced the principle in our jurisprudence branch of government from intrepreting the constitution literally to unduly respecting precedence where succeeding liberal/progressive rulings have sucessfully moved the goal post of constitutionality far past the boundaries originally imposed.

It’s time to re-set the goalpost on the 100 yard lines, and put government back in it’s box.

It will take many dedicated conservatives to do this, but our options are, as they were many years ago, Liberty or Death of our economic system and freedoms.

Join a Tea Party in your neighboorhood today. Join your state republican party, and work to recruit strong conservative candidates. Support strong conservative candidates with direct donations. Donations to the Repulican National Committee may just as likely be sent to RHINO candidates rather than strong conservatives. Don’t let the RNC make the decision for you, make it yourself as to which candidates to support.

We have a great opportunity in November 2010 to make a start in recruiting a congressional class that will insist on moving the goalposts back to where they are supposed to be, but it will take all of us working hard and smart to do so, and it will not be accomplished easily.

Go team go...