Saturday, November 28, 2009

'It's a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phony as it can be...'

by Smitty (h/t Rhetorican)

Jacob Weisberg should study climate science, judging by his disconnection with facts:
This conventional wisdom about Obama's first year isn't just premature—it's sure to be flipped on its head by the anniversary of his inauguration on Jan. 20. If, as seems increasingly likely, Obama wins passage of a health care reform a bill by that date, he will deliver his first State of the Union address having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency.
We can rule out drunkenness. It's not possible to be that blotto and still form words on a keyboard.
Is it religious fanaticism? Mundane wishful thinking? Is Weisburg a member of a sequestered group whose only source of information is Kieth Olbermann?
I think Weisberg meant vilified:
Through the summer, Obama caught flak for letting Congress lead the process, as opposed to setting out his own proposal. Now his political strategy is being vindicated.
Note this disconnection with the Constitution:
For the federal government to take responsibility for health coverage will be a transformation of the American social contract and the single biggest change in government's role since the New Deal. If Obama governs for four or eight years and accomplishes nothing else, he may be judged the most consequential domestic president since LBJ. He will also undermine the view that Ronald Reagan permanently reversed a 50-year tide of American liberalism.
This is as close as I can get to agreeing with Weisberg. The Progressives assert their righteousness based upon the 70 year hang time of FDR's SuckNew Deal. It is true that, in the battle for liberty, the country and its Constitution was flanked by the forces of liberal fascism.
I'm unsure who holds the view that Reagan reversed the decline of American liberty in any way. Ronnie was an overture whose chief boo-boo was in failing to provide continuity for the vision. Bush41 was a reversion to RINOism, as the liberal fascist singularity renewed its zombie-like grasping after our freedoms. The national debt, which Ronnie himself expanded, Weisberg--have you heard of it? It's set to render the rest of the discussion completely irrelevant.
Weisberg's foreign policy paragraph is hilarious in its glaring omissions. The punchline for this little steamer is the last line:
A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of Newsweek.
Oh, Newsweek? In that case, the NEA should commission someone on ukulele to set the whole thing to music:

3 comments:

  1. Smitty, you make a typical lefty mistake: Reagan had NOTHING to do with expanding the deficit, since all revenue bills originate in the Congress, and unless you have 60 reliable conservative Senators, statists will force government to expand because they can shut down even the essential functions unless they are bought off. Win the Cold War, or shrink government: pick one.

    SDN

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  2. @SDN,
    If Reagan signed those spending bills, then to say 'Reagan had NOTHING to do' is inaccurate.

    He offered the leadership. We might agree that there were good, acute reasons for doing so, as FDR had in WWII. Alas, no Truman followed Regan to walk back $1 of that additional debt.

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  3. This Weisberg post is the single worst interpretation of the past ten months I have yet to read. Not surpised to see it originated in Newsweak.

    ReplyDelete