What Happened to Obama’s Passion? - NYTimes.com
There is a reasonable set of quotes here that indicate that a true whacked out rabid lefty is actually starting to see some of the reality if the BO story:
"This pattern of presenting inconsistent positions with no apparent recognition of their incoherence is another hallmark of this president’s storytelling."
Uh, this is a hallmark of ALL liberal storytelling ... it is known by reality oriented people as "consistency is NOT an issue" ... and like always, the view of the lefty writing the column is rife with such inconsistency. The role of Fannie and Freddie in creating the sub-prime / credit default swap crisis is completely ignored, as is the inconvenient truth that FDR's programs not only didn't end the depression (WWII did), they actually DID turn out to be unaffordable and destructive to the moral fiber of people to delay gratification and save for the future -- it just took longer than expected. Oh, and BTW, the same realities apply in Japan and in Europe and indeed everywhere. There STILL is no free lunch!
THE real conundrum is why the president seems so compelled to take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him, and hoping they won’t realize which hand is holding the rabbit.
and this is new to you? This is PRECISELY how he ran as a candidate and it was pointed out SOLIDLY by many of us who were labeled as "racists", or when they were kind in the name calling just "misinformed". One might say, "welcome to at least a partial whiff of reality".
Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.
Bewitched? I guess -- all those facts and hundreds more equally and even more disquieting were well known and indeed often written by his own hand in two books. One really doesn't have to have much for common sense to be able to see a bit of a problem with a person that writes not one but two autobiographies prior to reaching the age of 50.
The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
King is very eloquent, but it is even more true that the arc of all history bends toward reality. Eloquence is super, but in changes many aspects of reality not one whit. Sure, "to the moon before the end of this decade" was motivational, but the late 50's and 60's were a different time. "The Great Society" was in it's infancy, and FICA had only been falsely promised a mere 30 years prior. The number of retirees relative to workers was still small, and the pernicious corruption of "may as well spend it today, the government will take care of me when I get older" was just beginning.
The multiple realities of longer lifetimes, a more competitive global business market, technologies that boost inefficiencies and further level the competitive field and the grinding inefficiencies of big government weigh on the US as a millstone around the drowning nations neck.
But, but, I'm ignoring his "facts" like "It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans.".
Ok, the origin of that "fact" is Michael Moore in Madison this past spring. The top 400 Americans control $1.5T in assets ... the vast majority in stocks of the businesses they control, and at which many Americans work. The total private wealth of the us is around $55T - $1.5T, so "$53T". Surprise, surprise, the bottom 50% of the population controls very little wealth. Why?
30% of them are under the age of 20. To not recognize this is simple incompetence or malfeasance. There are no other alternatives.
"Wealth" is acquired over a lifetime (or if you are a Kennedy or Dayton, inherited). FICA, government assistance, education, etc are NOT counted as "wealth" -- only personal assets that can be sold are. The very programs that the left pushes contribute mightily to wealth inequality. FICA transfers 15% of the earning power of the predominately young workers to the elderly. The group that controls 80%+ of the wealth in the country is the beneficiary of the largest government transfer payments, and it is THE LEFT that created the transfers!!
