Mickey Kaus looks upon the works of Obamandias, and despairs:
Now I’m scared! What yesterday’s comments suggest isn’t just that Obama will get clobbered in the midterms. It suggests that after he gets clobbered he won’t be able to adjust and turn the setback into a longterm victory the way Bill Clinton did. Clinton reacted to his 1994 midterm loss by acknowledging his opponents’ strongest arguments and pursuing a balanced budget and welfare reform. Obama seems more inclined to just tough it out until the economy recovers and the scared, confused voters become unscared and see the light. Meanwhile, he’ll spend his time in a protective cocoon.
The context here is that the President is blaming the upcoming shellacking at the polls on the American people being too scared to think straight.
(pause)
Yup. That’s what he said…
…much to Mickey’s dismay, although I’m not sure why he’s surprised. Look: I like Mickey Kaus as a blogger, and he seems like a good guy (we’ve never met). I was quietly terrified when he ran for Senate: there was always the chance that Barbara Boxer would have gotten hit by lightning, or been caught running a sex slave smuggling ring, or (worst of all) been caught on camera smoking inside a LA bar… because if he had gotten the Democratic nomination then we’d have been in real trouble with CA-SEN. He’s on my list of people to not muck about with, and it’s a short freaking list.
But he’s just now figuring out that President Obama is a lousy salesman and a bad politician? I could have told him that back in January 2009, when the man told a room full of people who had something that Obama wanted* that they had to fall into line because, hey, he won. Which directly led to the GOP caucus collectively deciding on the spot to demonstrate to the President that no, they did not. Now, I’m sure that Democrats would like to argue that this was a foolish decision on the GOP’s part – if only they could do so without getting derisive laughter from anybody who isn’t a Democrat – but surely it can be admitted that this was a bit of an own-goal, what-what?
Moe Lane
*Their votes on a stimulus package.
*sigh* What we’re looking at here is the downside of Louis L’Amour’s aphorism: There’s no stopping a man who knows he’s in the right and keeps on coming.
Obama & Co. know they’re in the right; it’s indelibly engraved in their psyches, and it’s clear by now that nothing can erase or even edit that knowledge. They will, therefore, keep on coming until they are stopped. The amount of damage they do in the process is irrelevant to them, because they know they are in the right.
Regards,
Ric
Indeed, Ric. Or as CS Lewis put it:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.