Gas Attack [John Derbyshire]
I dunno, I must be missing a gene or two. Everybody, including even some conservatives, is telling me what a fine uplifting orator Barack Obama is. All I see is great gusts of hot air. When he says something that actually has any semantic content, either it is just false, or else it is naked socialism.
I was just looking through Obama's latest oratorical masterpiece. It strikes me as obnoxious, where it is not just flatulent.
… we've got young people all across this country who have never had a reason to participate until now.
The "reason to participate," for people of any age, is the sense of citizenly duty. This sense didn't exist before Obama showed up?
We're up against the belief that it's all right for lobbyists to dominate our government, that they are just part of the system in Washington.
But lobbyists are part of the system in Washington. It says so in the First Amendment: "… to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Obama wants to repeal the First Amendment?
We're up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House.
That's the conventional thinking? So how did Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush get elected President? None of them had any "longevity in Washington" — not even as much as you, Senator. Sure, I understand, this is throwing some of Hillary's stuff back at her, but it's still nonsense.
… real leadership is about … the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose, a higher purpose.
Not just cant, but Leninist cant. We are a republic of free people, not the tools of some "leader" pursuing a historical "purpose." What is your "higher purpose," Senator? And what happens to those of us who decline to rally around it?
… there are people all across this great nation who … can't afford another four years without health care, that can't afford another four years without good schools, that can't afford another four years without decent wages because our leaders couldn't come together and get it done.
A doctor visit costs no more than a name-brand pair of sneakers — less, probably, in relation to average earnings, than ever in our history. Hospital emergency rooms treat anyone. The theory that spending a ton of money gets you "good schools" was tested to destruction in Kansas City, 1985-97. All that KC got out of it was the most bloated and corrupt educational bureaucracy since Imperial China's (and increased dropout rates to boot!) And why should employers pay "decent wages" to Americans, when they can pay in-decent wages to illegal immigrants? — those illegal immigrants whose unlawful presence in our country you are just fine with, Senator?
And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words: Yes, we can.
Cynicism towards the kind of vaporous flapdoodle Obama trades in is fully justified, and ought to be encouraged. Doubt that an Obama administration will be able to do any better with the nation's issues than a Clinton, McCain, Romney, or Paul administration, is likewise fully justified, given Obama's lack of executive experience, or of experience in any real job; as is doubt that the things Obama says he wants to do, are desirable. Fear that an Obama administration will just take more of our money to sluice away on bureaucratic extravaganzas, ditto.
The man's a hard-left socialist, for Heaven's sake. Anyone falling for this stuff learned nothing from the later 20th century.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGJjMmMwOWQwMGQ2NTRmYjNiNGI4ZjcwNDQ0ZmY3YjM=
