Posted on 10/24/2013 7:49:10 PM PDT by neverdem
Obama still does not appear to have noticed that he’s the executive and accountable.
The temptation to cry “sabotage!” is a genuinely human one, born of the understandable desire to protect one’s worldview and to attribute blame to one’s enemies instead of oneself. Discredited socialists still grumble bitterly about the impurity of the unrealized Soviet Experiment; “false-flag” kooks remain convinced that 9/11 was an “inside job,” despite there being no evidence for this whatsoever; and some conservatives who have never come to terms with the fact that Barack Obama has twice won the American presidency are now more convinced than ever that he must have stolen the elections.
If a group under siege can demonstrate “that there has been a conspiracy, which has transformed politics and society,” the British writer David Aaranovitch, astutely observed in Voodoo Histories, then they can convince themselves that “their defeat is not the product of their own inherent weakness or unpopularity, let alone their mistakes,” but is instead “due to the almost demonic ruthlessness of their enemy.”
This observation has screamed back into my mind this week as I watched the disastrous rollout of Obamacare’s much-vaunted health-care exchanges provoke apologists into spreading nonsense. Somewhere, deep down, the president’s allies must know that their man blew the launch — and blew it good. Nevertheless, some of the brighter members of the movement have caught themselves in a trap, responding to the widespread criticism of their signature achievement with the ludicrous allegation that it is being thwarted by outside forces — namely, Republicans and their donors. Indeed, even Barack Obama has proven susceptible.
In the course of a defiant speech at the White House, the president rode bravely into the realm of magical thinking: “It’s time for folks to stop rooting for its failure,” Obama said, adopting the panicked tones of a cheap infomercial salesman. Why? “Because hardworking middle-class families are rooting for its success.” For her part, Nancy Pelosi offered her own insinuation yesterday, suggesting that Republicans who continued to oppose the law were guilty of “sabotage.”
I should make it clear that I have precisely no intention whatsoever of ceasing to “root for failure.” I am actively hoping for the abject and embarrassing deterioration of Obamacare and I am not remotely ashamed to admit it. I loathe the law as a piece of public policy, as a means by which federal involvement in health care and society is being expanded rather than reduced, and as an unlovely example of the arrogance that presidents in the modern era have come to exhibit. Like Ed Rogers, “I would like to see the project’s collapse deter those who think a bigger, more domineering U.S. government is the answer to our problems.” And, like David Harsanyi, I want the project to fail “so hard that any residual perception among voters that any part of it was prudent policy is completely eliminated.”
In this regard, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent is absolutely correct when he complains that aristarchs such as myself “don’t envision the federal government playing an ambitious oversight role in regulating the health system — or spending the money necessary — in service of the goal of expanding coverage to tens of millions of uninsured.” I don’t.
That notwithstanding, my opinion on this matter has absolutely no bearing on the outcome — and to pretend that it does is extremely naïve. I am not possessed of any magical power with which I might prevent the law from working, any more than I am able to stare at an airplane and will it to crash into the ground. I did not award a no-bid contract to a failed Canadian IT firm, nor ensure that the system wasn’t tested until four days before it launched, nor allow it to be “built using ten-year-old technology.” Nor, for that matter, did Republicans. Unless you believe that the role of Congress is merely to “support” the president in all that he does, the fact that more than half of the voting public and one of the country’s two political parties have been critical should not be held against them.
Salon’s Irin Carmon complained sadly this week that “the federal exchanges [are] being burdened by so many more people than expected because for political reasons, a lot of governors refused to set up their own exchanges.” This line is not just askew, it is deeply presumptuous. While the idea that the system is failing because of excess demand has been widely debunked, Carmon is correct to note that a majority of governors declined to set up exchanges, and that they did so for “political reasons.” But, one might ask, “So what?” Texas is a state in a federal nation, and the law that the president signed allows the states to decide how to respond to what is, ultimately, a federal initiative.
To believe that the states have in some way “nullified” or “sabotaged” the law by choosing not to do the lifting themselves is to believe that the states are merely regional departments of the federal government and that their electing whether or not to expand Medicaid or set up health-care exchanges is illegitimate. In this case, “political reasons” means doing what the people in their states wanted them to do. What next? That “if Americans had just chosen to sign up, then the system would have worked”?
A frequent criticism of this president is that he does not yet appear to have noticed that he heads up the government. Barack Obama is quite capable of saying that he is as “angry as anyone” about the mistakes of his own administration, but a little less adept at knowing when to say “sorry.” Even here, with the law that bears his name, and which he fought for years to pass and to protect, his instinct is to look elsewhere.
As the scale of the disaster they have unleashed has dawned on them, both the president and his press secretary have started subtly to conflate the shutdown and the Obamacare launch. Barack Obama made sure to float this conceit during his big speech on Monday, framing discussion of the problems with Healthcare.gov by reminding the audience that, “about three weeks ago, as the federal government shut down, and the Affordable Care Act’s health-insurance marketplaces opened up across the country . . . ” On Tuesday, Jay Carney attempted this ruse, too, answering a question posed by Fox’s Ed Henry with “Ed, over many, many days now — three weeks now — even though for several of them we were focused on the extreme damage Republicans were doing to the economy through the shutdown and brinkmanship . . . ” In truth, the shutdown and the exchanges were launched on the same day. But let’s not let that get in the way of a good distraction.
Amusingly, the president’s defiance has simultaneously inspired his base and irritated the press corps. Friendly journalists such as Ezra Klein, Greg Sargent, and Ryan Lizza have been brutally honest about the scale of the mess, while, in the alternative universe that progressive users of social media inhabit, frustrated defenders of the rollout have started to blame the usual suspects. Do a quick search on Twitter for the words “Koch sabotage” and you’ll find an astonishing number of results. The same goes for “Koch Obamacare” and “Koch ruined,” too.
This was almost certainly inevitable. Both sides have their crazies, and times of trouble only bring out the worst in partisans. But it would be nice if the people who inflicted this turbulent law on the rest of us could recognize that it is one thing for the faithful to indulge in conspiracy theory and blame and to look desperately for ghosts in the machine, and quite another for their elected officials to do so. The problems with Obamacare are of design, of leadership, and, ultimately, of hubris. It is possible that they will be fixed and the program will be back on track before it collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. Either way, though, there is a tough road ahead — and eliminating the kulaks won’t help one bit.
— Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer for National Review.
It’s all a big scam to force the chip!
Well written critique of Obama and Obamacare. President Obama Iis an empty suit with a huge chip on his soldier. He’s definitly a racist. I don’t think we’ve had a President less respectful to the opposition party ever...and that includes the Civil War years. Obama is no leader. He is an angry person and he’s created an angry country in his image. The next president, even if its Hillary, can’t help but be better. Obama is clueless.
Charles C.W. Cooke is another one of these people that believes he’s so much smarter than the rest of us but he’s not smart enough to know Zippo sabotaged Obamacare himself.
One of the bigger flaws from the Obama Administration standpoint is that this system implicitly tracks locations and subsidy amounts. So, somewhere in this system is data which could be subpoenaed to provide a “heat map” as it were of the subsidy concentrations which result from Obama care. I think I know what that looks like, but instead of opinion, we will now have fact!
Did anybody read the article posted earlier today on Canadian Free Press about the Big Lie and Messengers of Evil? I don’t know how to post but it was fascinating, a Psychiatrist who is now dead wrote the book regarding who is really evil and why.
Sorry to be such a spazz.
Too old to figure this stuff out, my Communications Director is off at a school.
Definitely NOT Obama's fault.
Dumb broad! She EXPORTED $1 BILLION American TAX PAYER dollars right out of the starting gate. They ARE sabotaging America while stimulating Canada to bring about the NAU (North American Union).
Yer right!
NWO on steroids.
Yer right!
NWO on steroids.
Sorry for double post!
Well written with one glaring mistake near the beginning. He wrote "some conservatives who have never come to terms with the fact that Barack Obama has twice won the American presidency are now more convinced than ever that he must have stolen the elections." He must have missed the news about the IRS being used to impede Br-r-ack's political opponents.
He really still thinks Br-r-ack has twice legitimately won??
“adopting the panicked tones of a cheap infomercial salesman.’
He’s speaking to his base, they relate to this style of language.
Obama has totally embraced the concept of victimhood. It’s NOT his fault!
The capitalist roaders are thwarting Chairman Sebelius' Five Year Plan!
http://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/
I haven't read it, but it's well-reviewed.
Now that you say that, I agree. People on the left claim that the IRS scandal was wrong but no biggie. I always say that if it was not necessary for winning the election, then why was it done? I get chirping crickets at this point. Obama is an extreme president. There is no doubt about this. This is worrisome, but what is more worrisome is our compliant media. The media is tasked with keeping the record and the truth straight. All politicians lie, the media is supposed to call them on it....not our current group. Obamas come and go, but the media failed in their job to inform America on this man....and have continued that practice all the way through to this Obamacare fiasco.
Most powerful people in today’s world came of age in the sixties. They are so desperate to create the fantasy world that they imagined in their art, that, they are doing dishonest and desperate things in the hopes of completing their mission before Grimm calls on them.. The fact is, the 60’s generation did great music, art, and lead many necessary social changes, Ill always credit them with that, but they have absolutely no idea how to run a country. They are a generation of artists and dreamers. We don’t need that right now. We need realists! Instead we have Obama and his media whores. Ughhh! I hope we survive.
I’d bet it was.
PotL is not a totally orthodox work. But it tells what looks to me like an authentic account of Peck’s experiences, and I would include the exorcism he was part of in that.
Peck’s great advantage was that he managed, empirically, to stumble into the mission of Ephesians 6. A distinct identification of Satan as a being is truly at the root of the divide between good and evil as we know it in this mortal coil. Materialistic psychologists or those who only believe in a vague God will pooh pooh Peck. But God gave Peck, who apparently started as a nominal Christian, a peek at a world that even all too few Christians are as familiar with as they could stand to be.
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