The summer of corruption.
It’s not sufficient, but I think it’s necessary. Of course, the summer of our discontent, with real unemployment rates in the twenties, while the president golfs, and Michelle Antoinette goes on her outing to Spain, will help it along.
[Late evening update]
Related thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson.
Nobody should be surprised by the Royal Family’s disconnected behavior. After all, did Barack not give Michelle a $30k platinum and diamond “victory ring” right after the election…as a trifling little thing, a simple token of his gratitude for her patience and support or some such?
I don’t know where those pictures came from originally, but I found them on Instapundit and have already e-mailed them to myself at work, where I’ll print them out and tape them to the wall in my office on Monday.
Just got done reading Orson Scott Card’s Empire and Hidden Empire, he does a great job portraying a US President who is an empire builder, legitimately wants to do good and doesn’t mind breaking the law to do it. As he puts it in the afterword, this is the kind of philosophy king you’d hope to have, if you had to have a king, and so he gives the best opportunity for readers to seriously question what democracy is for and whether it should ever be swept aside. In more general terms, when do the ends justify the means?
and so he gives the best opportunity for readers to seriously question what democracy is for and whether it should ever be swept aside. In more general terms, when do the ends justify the means?
I presume he gives the reader the moral “choice” in the typical, heavy-handed style he has. My view is that a large part of the responsibility of democracy is working to make sure your society doesn’t degenerate to the point where a contrived Orson Scott Card choice has to be made.
There are several examples of democracies and republics of the last century that died because too many people worked against them. The Second World War alone has two important examples, the Weimar Republic and the Third Republic of France. Both succumbed to pressures from within and without.
What we do need to stop are people who either deliberately or accidentally push us towards dissolution. My view is that Obama shall prove to have been one of the worst presidents ever for the long term health and security of the US.
As I’ve mentioned before, he has a brazen mendacity that is unrivaled among US presidents, even Nixon and Clinton. Even before the primaries finished, he was already going back on promises (and it grew worse once he gained the Democrat nomination and had to please a larger consistuency). Of course, after the election, he has gone back on many promises. As most of us here expected.
Further, he has promoted a series of disastrous economic and political policies: for example, trillion dollar deficits throughout his term, health care “reform” that doesn’t solve any of the real problems of providing health care (such as cost, excessive liability, and excessive regulation), and promoting short sighted environmental regulation (cap and trade, the drilling moratoriums, etc) at the expense of US welfare.
I think though the story linked above has the fundamental lessons about a charlatan like Obama. First, that we should never elect someone based on promises alone. Second, experience and integrity does matter even when electing a politician to high office. We’ll probably never again elect another Cincinnatus or George Washington. But we can keep from electing the sort of people who will actively make the problem worse.
Before 2008, the last time a sitting US senator was elected president was 1960 (JFK). There’s a good reason for that – we expect our presidents to have executive experience. Unfortunately, too many people bought into the myth of Obama. The press failed to present him as he really was so people were free to see Obama as they hoped he’d be. Combine that with the “Look at me, I’m so cool that I’ll vote for a black guy for president” factor and an incredibly poor Republican candidate and Obama gets elected. Now we’re stuck with him.
I honestly wonder whether Obama himself actually thought he’d win election this young. Some believe he just ran to get his name out there, only to find people were falling for his lines. Now, he’s the president and he’s clearly over his head. He’s like the rodeo bull rider – not only does he have to stay on the required time, he has to find a way to dismount the beast without getting trampled. If it weren’t for the damage he’s doing, it’d be an interesting spectacle.
I love reading VDH especially since he often connects present day events to the same examples hundreds or even thousands of years ago. There’s nothing new under the sun.
Here, however, I think VDH overlooks one thing, in fact he succumbs to the very mistake that he mentions got Obama elected. In his very last paragraph he talks about a President who can “…balance the bedget, win wars, cut spending, restores American Confidence, restores global competitiveness etc….”
Well a President, alone, cannot do all that. Not even close Reagan tried hard and was pretty close to VDH’s example President. But all Presidents have to work with Congress and that, right there, can stop those sorts of achievements.
We have seen, though, what a single party owning the executive and legislative branches can do – shudder. American have, traditionally, voted in a divided government. I’m not sure they are likely to vote in a single party government for a long long time….
Your know this could be a problem in the YouTube generation. Picking Presidents could be relegated to nothing more than a viral video of the week. I’ll hand it to Fred Thompson, he really does understand the Internet as a means of disseminating information. Just nobody gonna make a whole slew of Fred Thompson, “he gonna change the world”, followups, remixes, child sing alongs, and paramilitary marches.
We are in times where history is being made. The incredible power of the internet for individuals to broadcast is a just being discovered. That is why the gov’t is most interested in taking the reigns and stifling free expression in this new media. Just like War and Peace, the powerful get strong enough where they can close the door behind them and let no one else in.
Of course, after the election, he has gone back on many promises. As most of us here expected.
And in many cases, hoped, with some of his nuttier ones.
larry j. wrote “The press failed to present him as he really was so people were free to see Obama as they hoped he’d be. Combine that with the “Look at me, I’m so cool that I’ll vote for a black guy for president” factor and an incredibly poor Republican candidate and Obama gets elected.”
After much reading and thought, I’ve come to think you pretty much nail it with that comment. If he had ended up a neutral president, not getting much done but still managing to put NASA’s budget and direction on the track it seems to be headed, he would have been a success in my book.
Sadly, he doesn’t seem to be a neutral president (not getting much done).