The Obama Administration : What Went Wrong

NRO ^ | August 17, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

[RobinMasters]

We are witnessing one of the more rapid turnabouts in recent American political history. President Obama’s popularity has plummeted to 50 percent and lower in some polls, while the public expresses even less confidence in the Democratic-led Congress and the direction of the country at large. Yet, just eight months ago, liberals were talking in Rovian style about a new generation to come of progressive politics — and the end of both the Republican party and the legacy of Reaganism itself. Barack Obama was to be the new FDR and his radical agenda an even better New Deal.

What happened, other than the usual hubris of the party in power?

First, voters had legitimate worries about health care, global warming, immigration, energy, and inefficient government. But it turns out that they are more anxious about the new radical remedies than the old nagging problems. They wanted federal support for wind and solar, but not at the expense of neglecting new sources of gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power. They were worried about high-cost health care, the uninsured, redundant procedures, and tort reform, but not ready for socialized medicine. They wanted better government, not bigger, DMV-style government. There is a growing realization that Obama enticed voters last summer with the flashy lure of discontent. But now that they are hooked, he is reeling them in to an entirely different — and, for many a frightening — agenda. Nothing is worse for a president than a growing belief among the public that it has been had.

[SeattleBruce]

“I’ll be doing an email/call to Inslee later today. “
+++++++++++++

Ha, he’s in my district..

[SeattleBruce]

Paging Predident Momjeans—Mr. Alinsky is holding for you on line 5.
+++++++++

Very clever.

[ArrogantBustard]

The real 0bama is coming out and people don’t like what they see .

The real 0bama is coming out, and some of us are seen precisely the Marxist Monstrosity we expected to see.

It's not really fun saying "see, I told you so" ...

[Liz]

If civil unrest can't be provoked, there's always FEMA with a complete suspension of civil rights...... already in place over the last 2-3 administrations.

NOTE WELL Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson reports: "We now know for a fact that DHS was monitoring political speech and thought------and groups and individuals who oppose abortion, immigration, gun-control." Wilson concluded: "DHS' response to our FOIA request unfortunately confirms in no uncertain terms that their hunt for 'rightwing extremists' was nothing more than a witch hunt."

"Not a single study or report was from any government source...there was no evidence of any actual active recruitment of 'disgruntled veterans'...no evidence showing that folks who purchase guns or oppose gun-control legislation are necessarily dangerous..."

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano falsely maintained that they were on the lookout for "criminal and terrorist activity" but did not monitor ideology or political beliefs."

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"Monitoring," my Aunt Tilly--- the government was conducting surveillance on Americans and intended to use the power of gov't to restrict Americans' Constitional freedoms.....and Obama okayed this atrocity against Americans....................the intended consequences of that trillion dollar TARP, nationalizing banks and auto industries and passing themselves that stimuli campaign slush fund. And they call conservatives Nazis and racists.

With what they've already accomplished no wonder BamaCare was mass production for the Obama/Rham/Zeke "magic end of life pill."

[reformedliberal]

Has the pool of available labor for these sorts of organizations changed since the 1970s? You teach and I raised children and once upon a time, we were twenty-nothings, too. They will be lucky if 15% have any value anywhere, without giving the program a terrible reputation with it’s *partners*.

I am assuming that it was the fresh-faced Disney-employee types who came to your community, not the New Black Panther Army-wanna-bees? They will annoy everyone to the point where they will have no influence. Are they spies? zerO’s last attempt at turning Americans into informers didn’t work that well. I bet this variant doesn’t, either.

The intent is outrageous, of course. This is so blatantly a fascist police state tactic that it nauseates most Americans. These people are going to be isolated, except for the usual suspects in any locale, and if they try to report on people, they are going to get a hell of a backlash, individually and for zerO.

This could be a case of the administration wanting the populace to think they have more power than they actually do.

[Borax Queen]

Livius, that is truly scary.

MW, hide LH!!

[patriot08]

I know.
I worked so hard during the election to try to make people see this.
What I got about the quotes in his books; ‘That was taken out of context’.
What I got about his list of evil supporters; ‘Well Bush is tight with the Saudis’.

[livius]

These people were mostly in their late 20s and early 30s. A couple were in their 40s. All were white. A couple of the women wore hippieish dress, but the men were wearing short-sleeved dress shirts and slacks. When I saw them at first, I thought they were some kind of Evangelical musical group on a tour, actually, and then when I heard them chirping away so enthusiastically, I thought they were Moonies.

I think they’re probably supposed to be spies, in the classrooms, at least, but one of them said that they would be doing other “community work” (I swear she was about to say “community organizing” and thought better of it).

The thing that amazed me was that there were so many of them. This is a fairly small town, and while there are some pretty high population developments around us, I couldn’t see why we were getting 30 of them. Is he planning on saturating the country with these people?

[livius]

I thought it was scary, too. It was also so completely out of the blue that it left us feeling really confused and uneasy when the group swept off. Even some people in our group who I’m sure were Obama voters didn’t like it or were really puzzled by it.

[Yorlik803]

The American people came down with “Buyers Remorse”. Once this chucklehead started really saying what his plans were, that was his downfall.
Maybe there is hope for this country afterall.

[A.Hun]

Where has the little big mouth been on health care?

LOL! I'm not sure, but I know DU still loves him.........

[A.Hun]

they can’t possibly think these INSANE deficits are sustainable?

They thought they could raise taxes with abandon. With the depression we're in, that can't happen.

Dims/liberals aren't very bright.

[reformedliberal]

Yeah, he is probably planning on saturating us with these organizers. SIGH.

The organizers are supposed to go in, identify the disaffected and then form ad hoc interest groups or join same and then form relationships and use those to foment discontent. The method can be is to hold demonstrations or stack local political meetings for the purpose of ramming thru permits or getting some sort of official approval for a project. Projects can be anything as long as they involve groups of people meeting continuously and busily going about *change*. They look for people with a lot of spare time or no personal life. Local leaders emerge, are vetted and if they pass (are radical enough), they are encouraged. And then the organizers move on to the next venue.

Hopefully, this leaves each venue with a cadre of *leaders* who will not only keep pushing for incremental socialism, but usually then go on to run for school board, head the Historic Preservation Society, fill the Beautification Committees, and, in general, push for more and more governmental grants to accomplish whatever. These people develop skills only useful for organizing and interfacing with government, like our *leaders*,

The putative goals never matter. What matters is seeding every community with activists who are beholden to governmental administrative grants and know how to get other people those grants. It is a dependency cycle. The grants facilitator is a very important person for any governmental or non-profit entity.

We all have this going on in our communities already. I think this is their attempt to super-saturate the country with organizers and then hope that Marxism precipitates out of the *solution*.

I have been part of this, back in the 1970s and watched it in my area for 35 years. People have to learn to be wary of any bright-eyed offer to *help*. They aren't so much there to report out the residents, as to identify issues and start coalescing the necessary critical mass to get folks used to accomplishing things collectively, instead of thru individual and entrepreneurial effort.

One way to handle it is just to freeze them out wherever possible. Another is to passively ignore them. But there are always the dissatisfied and the bored and the control freaks and so, they will find the necessary warm bodies.

[Borax Queen]

It’s like they don’t already have their leftist paws in education enough, changing words in textbooks, mostly Marxist (in my opinion) public school teachers, all the pc rules.... now they have to send snitches in?

I saw something sorta similar that made me wonder if I was living in the pre-Stalinist days that my parents and grandparents escaped from....

I’d go down to the border for various activities (with the Minutemen, or for political speeches, or to help the ranchers clean up, etc.), and the ACLU snitches/college students would be stationed at the entries of the private ranches, taking photos, probably license plates.

If we were on a public road, they’d drive up and down to try to intimidate.

We were the ordinary Americans —— like we see more of surfacing now in the town halls —— and they wanted to destroy/scare/intimidate/report us.

[Jacquerie]

From your Duh pull: Dennis (Kucinich) was my first choice. Only statesman in the crowd.

Thanks for wading into the Duh sewer so the rest of us didn't have to.

[Niuhuru]

When there are problems we put Republicans in power to fix them. When times are good we put Democrats in power to enjoy them. Clinton was a ‘good time’ president, much like there are ‘good time’ girls. Fun, but not good for when a problem occurs. That’s why smart men marry Republican women.

We have a ‘good time’ president when we need a ‘work time’ president.

[livius]

I’m sure they’ll get some recruits here, although the town is pretty conservative.

They’re probably not here to spy on us individually (although I don’t think our public school teachers are particularly going to like having one of them in each classroom!), but they certainly have some kind of “organizing” in mind.

I remember Vista, too, and it was something that became very political very fast. Another very politicized thing were the CETA workers, who basically had no-show jobs allowing them to do other things or “community organizing” jobs paid for by our tax dollars. Some of these programs were reduced or changed under Reagan and later under the Bushes, but it seems that every time the Dems get in power, they rev them up again.

However, this particular group struck me as blatant Obama freaks who obviously thought they were on a holy mission to bring “hope and change” to our backward lives here. And again, I was truly puzzled by what our tiny little town had done to deserve to be punished with so many of them, arriving all at once like that.

[Niuhuru]

At this point I would welcome the Clintons.

[Niuhuru]

This is going to insure a Republican administration and house for the next couple of decades. All a person has to point out is that “this man/woman comes from the party that gave us Obama.”

[SCalGal]

I think they’re probably supposed to be spies, in the classrooms, at least, but one of them said that they would be doing other “community work” (I swear she was about to say “community organizing” and thought better of it).

Send 'em to me - my students can take 'em out... I teach ED, some straight from Juvenile Hall.