Professor Hanson points out that Obama defines”victory”differently than other traditional presidents. Victory to Obama is perpetual campaigning, class warfare, demonization of the opposition, and keeping people distracted from their miserable plight all the while making sure that they are increasingly dependent on government.
by Victor Davis Hanson
After the election, dozens of op-eds — I wrote one myself — cautioned the president about second-term overreach, focusing on how either hubris or simple fate has seemed to do in most modern second presidential terms. The recent case histories are well known — Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica, Iraq/Katrina. And yet Obama apparently believed in the mythical “mandate,” or perhaps in his own messianic ability to create one where none existed.
Almost immediately, he reformulated the conditions of the “grand bargain” to mean few cuts, no real deficit reduction, and lots of ways of raising taxes — as he simultaneously outlined ambitious hard-left agendas (redefining the Second Amendment, de facto amnesty, a return to cap-and-trade, more “stimulus”). None of these initiatives had much chance of becoming law without substantial presidential investment in bipartisanship. Most of Obama’s favorite issues polled among the public at below 50 percent support.
But again, in good Sophoclean fashion, Obama felt that his unique 50.6 percent reelection victory, plus his own formidable powers of persuasion, would allow him to steamroll the opposition — or at least he would enjoy trying. Ideally, the Republican House either would shortly cave, given the president’s popularity and magnetism, or would be so discredited by its knee-jerk opposition that it would suffer a 2014 wipe-out that would return Obama’s politics to a pre–November 2010 golden age.
Although the 2014 midterm elections are unpredictable, neither historically nor empirically is there much support for such suppositions, which begs the question whether Obama even cared whether there ever were. Of course, Obama and the press talked of historic realignment, in the fashion of all reelected presidential teams, as he reinterpreted the minuscule fiscal-cliff “victory” as a grand referendum on far more to come. The inevitable result of such hubris is the appearance of nemesis. Stories abound about giving bundlers who raise $500,000 for Obama’s Organizing for Action group special access to the president, and there are ingenious ways of computing what the money saved by shutting down public White House tours could buy (e.g., how many tour days are worth a session with Tiger Woods, a ski junket to Aspen, a getaway to Costa del Sol, a stroll on the beach at Martha’s Vineyard, etc.?). [........] Suddenly Obama understandably wishes to talk to the opposition in a way that he did not for the first four months after the election.
The truth is that the Obama “mandate,” like the “mandates” of past presidents, is already gone, if it ever existed. At precisely the time he should have been compromising, given the approaching train wrecks on the horizon, Obama went full speed ahead with the fiscal-cliff bluster, the sequester fiasco (replete with untruths about the origin and effects of the cuts), and some Pyrrhic appointments like the deer-in-the-headlights Chuck Hagel, the buskined John Brennan, and in-and-out Jack Lew. All had the effect of bringing more mediocrities into the Obama administration, while exposing the commander-in-chief as weak on Israel and a hypocrite in his Wall Street and civil-libertarian sermonizing. It was almost as if Obama picked the least impressive candidates imaginable in order to force the Republicans to oppose them and thus earn the wages of “obstructionism.” For Obama, the likelihood of stirring up controversies, not the candidates’ qualifications, seemed to drive the appointments.
What are those train wrecks on the horizon? Even before Obamacare is fully implemented, growing numbers of Americans are coming to fear it, because of the specter of higher taxes and higher insurance premiums, and hints of medical rationing. Americans will not be happy that their insurance premiums are going up, their care is eroding, and employers are cutting back on hours.
[........]
Abroad, even “Arab Winter” may prove a euphemism for just how badly Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria could end up. Outreach to Russia is a cruel joke. For some reason North Korea thinks it is funny to threaten to nuke the U.S. and South Korea. Iran is quietly grinning in Cheshire-cat fashion. Substituting Turkey for Israel as our special Middle East partner was inexplicable. China shrugs at the frequent U.S. sermons — puzzled as to why a debtor believes it can lecture its lender on global responsibility. [.........]
Of course, there are sober compromises and solutions that would allow Obama to cut deals with the Republicans in the fashion of Bill Clinton after the 1994 elections. Reforming entitlements by upping the retirement age would fall more heavily on the older, more affluent population and would help the pro-Obama younger population. On immigration, he could agree to pathways to citizenship for the majority of long-term illegal residents while conceding the need to deport the minority who are not working and are habitually on public assistance, who have criminal records, or who have only recently arrived — while also making legal immigration ethnically blind and predicated on merit. On energy, Obama could green-light more natural-gas and oil production on public lands, which would be about as easy a way to help the economy as he could devise. [........]
Yet Obama is likely going to pass on all of those. It is almost as if he does not wish to have a conventionally successful second term — which is probably true, in that he apparently defines success very differently from the way even his congressional allies might. For Obama, the means — the perpetual campaign; the constant assault on “fat cats,” “millionaires and billionaires,” and the “Republican House” — are not merely justified by the ends, but are more satisfying than achieving them.
Indeed, the Obama modus operandi is based on a familiar constant over his time in the public eye: His “nontraditional,” post-racial persona, his youth, his teleprompted eloquence, and his spell over the media have convinced him that he can talk, pout, and tantrum his way to out-pointing others in lieu of concrete achievement. The thrill is found not so much in successful compromise as in perpetual acrimony and division. Think up a fantasy us/them wedge issue — millions of assault weapons slaughtering the nation’s youth, Latinos being deported while buying ice cream, the seas soon to lap over our cities, gay couples hounded by homophobic reactionaries, a nation of African-American victims like Trayvon Martin and Professor Gates in need of editorial support, the parents of tens of millions of children without sufficient food stamps or unemployment and disability insurance, planes falling out of the sky for want of federal air-traffic controllers — and then demonize the opposition, hit the campaign trail, and finally, exhausted, end up relaxing and golfing with the nation’s plutocrats and celebrities — until the next round of us/them theatrics.
For a soon-to-be post-presidential Obama, these psychodramas are expected to lead to a comfortable retirement and a lifelong reputation for uncompromising leftism among historians and sycophants. [.......] An undistinguished undergraduate record led to Harvard Law, where veritable non-productivity led to an offer of a law lectureship, where non-existent legal scholarship led to an invitation of tenure, even as an underachieving Chicago community-organizing career was deemed a success, a mediocre stint in the Illinois legislature was pronounced productive and a pathway to higher office, a brief nondescript interlude as a U.S. senator was declared substantial, a Nobel Prize was awarded for being there, and one successful election was about mythical “hope and change” and another about Mitt Romney’s elevator and his equestrian wife. Does anyone today note that Obama was a so-so Columbia student, a mediocre Harvard Law Review editor, a nondescript state legislator and U.S. senator, and a virtual Nobel Peace Prize winner — or is the consensus instead that he has compiled an impressive résumé?
Achievement is in both the contest and the symbolism of getting there, not in the accomplishment of anything after arrival.
For Obama there is not even “My way or the highway.” You see, the highway — not my way — was the point all along.
Read the rest – Obama’s non Triangulation
Tags: Victor Davis Hanson
Nothing hurts this guy.
Rodan wrote:
Obama? Never seen anything like it.
@ Lily:
Its amazing!
@ Rodan:
Indeed! Wonders of Wonders for sure!
First Miss Israel of Ethiopian descent to dine with Obama Apartheid?
@ Speranza:
Why do you think Obama is dining with her?
Rodan wrote:
Well if you had to wake up every morning next to Mooch you would need some diversion.
Yet he was re-elected. Go figure.
Too true.
@ Speranza:
That is due to OFA and the ineptitude of the Romney campaign.
@ Speranza:
I think he feels a bond with her if you get my drift.
If Obama needs a mandate, he goes to Man’s Country.
Well, here is hope.
Maybe in the 200,000 new climate gate hocky stick e-mails FOIA just released the password to will have a few to Richard Windsor or even one to B.O.’s offwhite black berry e-mail.
Thing is Obama has tied his jonny apple seedy to the CO2 fraud.
The fraud has come undone, the Goebbles News Networks black/grey out will not hold the flood gates enough. Some truth is leaking now, more will come, Obama and his crime family will not have enough glue to fix the holes nor enough gofers with enough fingers to plug all the holes.
Comes the judgeing.
Rodan,
Romney is the past.
The fight is in front of U.S..
The lesons from that defeat are one thing, living there is not a good thing.
Often your post are so negative any one reading would just give up and move to Spain where it seems some forget that Spain was ruled by islamics so long they still build homes and buildings and call it Morish rather than admit the islamic curse left on their gene code.
Rodan wrote:
I do. lol
Rodan wrote:
The consulting class that the Republicans rely upon are totally out of focus.
Rodan wrote:
Maybe her race?
Rubio right now at CPAC -- watch live
<@ Speranza:
Scary thing is Rasmussen reports this morning that 62% of GOP have favorable view of Jeb Bush. We have our work cut out for us, folks.
Rubio: They may claim to hate us but they sure would like to be us.
lol
Rand Paul! Here we go!
Carolina Girl wrote:
Just keep telling everyone you know that Jeb Bush is a nebbush.
Bill Gates, Internet Tyrant, has a real appreciation for Obama, Presidential Tyrant:
(h/t -- where else?)
Funny how this asshole never thought BUSH should have more power. I can’t wait to dump my home PC for an iMac. As it is now I use my iPad with Safari more than anything because I loathe this pathetic little weasel.
@ Carolina Girl:
In case you missed it, Steve Jobs and his successors are not exactly a pack of Ronald Reagans, either.
The dumbest woman in Washington opens her mouth again:
lobo91 wrote:
That requires a contest. You’ve got Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Patty Murray, Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lee, to name just a few, all giving Pelosi a run for the title.
@ lobo91:
Seems to me that the war isn’t between Republicans and the federal government, it’s between Democrats and the American people:
@ Mike C.:
That whole Silly Valley culture is pretty anti-Republican. There’s a reason I never went there looking for a job. I have the skillset, but I’d never mesh with their ultra-Left culture.
@ lobo91:
It’ll be interesting to see where that goes. If Boehner allows it to pass out of the House, the Republican Party just comitted suicide. If they won’t stand up for our Second Amendment rights when they have the majority, there’s really no reason to vote for Republicans. They don’t stand for anything.
@ Iron Fist:
I love Feinstein’s comments about the bill:
Imagine if they were debating a bill to limit the First Amendment, instead. Think anyone would stand for a claim that “There are plenty of books out there,” or “There are plenty of churches out there”?
@ Iron Fist:
In all likelyhood, DiFi’s bill is going to die on the floor of the Senate.
And there’s another candidate for the “Dumbest woman in Washington” contest.
@ lobo91:
Ted Cruz essentially said just that. Imagine if they were debating legalizing segregation in, say, the restuarant industry because there were “plenty of desegregated restuarants out there”. There is no substantive difference between gun control and segregation, except that the Bill of Rights specifically forbids gun control. Desegregation came from the 14th Amendment, mostly, which isn’t part of the Original Bill of Rights.
@ Iron Fist:
The Republicans should come up with some bills limiting other parts of the Bill of Rights just to see what they do.
Since the Dems are so interested in cutting the Defense budget, they could submit a bill to shut down the barracks on military installations and move the troops into local homes. Sure, it would go against the 3rd Amendment, but hey, there are plenty of houses out there, right?
@ Mike C.:
Likely. I doubt that they can get enough votes for cloture on it unless the Republicans want to force the Democrats to take a psoition on the record for or against this bill. Either way that hurts the Democrats and helps he Republicans except in the event the Senate does pass this and then the Republicans in the House likewise pass it. In that unlikely event, the Republican Party takes maximum damage. I’d like to think Boehner isn’t stupid enough to do that, but he was threatening to do just that last week.
@ Iron Fist:
Personally, I think Ted could have done a lot better in that argument than he did. Where was the question about what percentage of gun deaths are due to ANY kind of rifle, mush less “assault” rifles? Where was the specific part of Heller (there’s no such damned thing as “Heller II”) about common use? Where was the quote by Obama’s very own DHS stating in writing that they think REAL M4s are ideal close quarters defensive weapons? Where was the part about what constitutes a standard magazine (or “clip magazine”, if you’re a “journalist” for various weapons?
Ted’s a good guy, but he could have landed more body blows in that exchange, IMHO.
@ Mike C.:
I personally want some of those “imploding” bullets DiFi was talking about. Are they made of plutonium, too? Di Fi is one of the dumbest women in congress, no doubt about that.
Iron Fist wrote:
That’s the sort of crap you’re inevitably going to get when legislation is written by people who have no understanding of the subject.
Did you see the liability bill the Dems tried to pass last week in Colorado? It redefined “assault weapon” to include not only all magazine fed semiauto rifles (regardless of caliber), but all shotguns except pump actions.
The way they wrote it, Joe Biden’s favored double-barrelled 12 gauge would be an assault weapon. So would a single shot .410.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Good grief the stupid is out there.
Here’s an interesting piece by John Lott:
@ Carolina Girl:
So much for protecting Bill Gates from anti-trust.
@ Iron Fist:
DiFi’s skull must be made from titanium; otherwise the vacuum in there would cause it to implode.
@ lobo91:
I think the Democrats are way overplaying their hand here. Sandy Hook was bad, but it didn’t produce a realignment of the political views of the United States, and that is bad news for the gun controlling Democrats. Even in New York Cuomo has seen his poll numbers go down, and nationally the Democrats are losing on this issue. I don’t think they’ll be able to pass a reauthorization of the Assault Weapons Ban, but they may manage to cost themselves five or six critical Senate Seats trying to do so.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Feinstein and Boxer.
lobo91 wrote:
My question is does that ban M1 Garands? Okay, it’s not fed by a removable magazine, but it does use a clip, and a clip and a magazine are the same thing, right? Right?
Unless, of course, it’s a “clip magazine”, which must be really nasty.
You guys in CO are, what’s the term? Oh yeah -- fucked.
@ Iron Fist:
At this point, I think the biggest threat is at the state level.
Bloomberg and company are pouring massive reources into the anti-gun campaign here in Colorado. They picked the state for a reason, because everyone thinks of it as one of the traditional “wild west,” gun-friendly places. They figure that if they can succeed here, it will serve as an example for other states to follow suit.
The Dems will probably lose control of the legislature in 2014 as a result, but they don’t seem to care.
@ lobo91:
I thought that gun ban went down in defeat anyway. Did it pass? I’ve been distracted with personal issues lately, so I haven’t kept up with everything that is going on in the wider world.
@ Mike C.:
That particular bill didn’t ban anything. It was supposed to make sellers of the affected guns (whether an FFL or an ordinary person) liable for whatever someone who buys them does with them.
To your question, though, yes, it did include the Garand in its definition of “assault weapon.” It included any rifle other than a bolt action, lever action, or pump action.
Iron Fist wrote:
The liability bill didn’t make it out of committee yet, but they’re still messing around with various bills. The magazine ban passed. So did the bill requiring a fee for background checks.
@ lobo91:
It’ll be interesting to see what the Supreme Court does with the magazine ban. I presume that Magpul is pulling out of Colorado, then. They can relocate to Texas or Tennessee. We may become a defacto segregated society, with the people living in the Liberal areas denied their Constitutional Rights, and the people living in the Conservative areas allowed them. It’ll really depend on the Supreme Court and, failing that, the State Legislatures. You all will get a chance to swap Democrats for Republicns in 2014. If you punish the Dems hard enough, they won’t be able to make policy again in your State for a while. Nothing changes a congressman’s mind so much as voting him out of office. Even if he learns nothing from the experience, his successors can learn from his example.
@ lobo91:
To any rational person, if the M1 Garand isn’t an “assault rifle”, no rifle is. Unless you think that D-Day, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, etc. weren’t assaults.
Of course, the same could be said of the 1903 Sprinfield, the Lee Enfield, etc., etc., etc. Name any major action where the assulting force was armed with AR-15s…
Of course, I did specify “rational person”, so that leaves Democrats right out.
@ Mike C.:
I seriously doubt that most of the people behind those bills could identify a Garand if you put it in front of them.
They all had their scripts to read from during the heraings, and had no interest in hearing any actual facts.
@ Iron Fist:
Last I heard, yes, Magpul is still planning to leave the state, even though the Dems inserted a provision into the bill that exempted manufacturers as long as their products are sold out of state.
If that’s not hypocrisy, I don’t know what is. They pass a bill claiming that it’s necessary for public safety that these dangerous products be banned from sale in the state, yet they don’t mind if a company makes them here to sell in other states?
@ Mike C.:
I’m waiting for someone to resurrect the “cop killer bullet” nonsense from the ’90s next. I remember when the Dems wanted to ban any ammunition that would penetrate a Level IIIA vest. Of course, that’s just about any rifle round, because those vests are designed to stop handgun rounds.
So much for the “hunting” argument…
lobo91 wrote:
That is one reason I don’t think that ban will pass Constitutional muster. They have to show a “compelling State need” to be Constitutional, and I don’t think they can make that case. I think the Dems are doing a lot of grandstanding now that is going to get thrown out by the Supreme Court in a couple of years. They must be hoping Anthony Kennedy dies. As long as we have our current court, I think these laws all get thrown out as violations of the Second Amendment. Between Heller and McDonald, we’ve had our Roe v. Wade moment. Now it is a matter of getting the Court to extend those protections. I’ll be perfectly happy when the Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fully protected as the result of the penumbras that granted the Right to Abortion to Americans. Of course, that’d mean that there are effectively no laws barring the ownership of pretty much any weapon.
@ Iron Fist:
The Colorado magazine ban is stupid on several levels.
Like the federal law from 1994, it’s not an actual ban, it just prohibits sales after the effective date. And they put the burden of proof on prosecutors to prove that someone didn’t have a magazine prior to that date. All someone has to do in defense is say that they already had it. Since there are no serial numbers or manufacture dates stamped on magazines, it’s pretty much impossible to prove otherwise.
@ lobo91:
Nothing creates respect for the law like having unenforcable laws backed by the caprice of prosecutors, so they can pretty much choose who they prosecute and who they do not for various crimes. Even if no one is ever convicted, this creates a chilling effect over a Constitutional Right. Something Democrats are just plain too damn dumb to understand. Maybe if you aborted babies with a gun they’d get the picture…
@ Iron Fist:
Before Kennedy was assassinated, you pretty much could buy anything. The Service Armaments catalog listed a 36 mm towed anti-tank gun for $ 300, and that included 10 rounds of HE ammo. A magazine-fed 20 mm was $ 98. I remember those two distinctly, plus the NRS Good condition Lewis gun for a whopping $ 35.
@ lobo91:
I wonder if it would be possible to sneak an empty magazine across the CO border?
Mike C. wrote:
I’m pretty sure that you could sneak them in by the truckload, since the border is a sign.
@ Iron Fist:
The Democrat Party is anti-Civil Rights. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
@ Rodan:
While you’re here, there’s a new thread up that has comments disabled.
@ Iron Fist:
Segregation now, segregation forever! The Democrats do not change.
@ lobo91:
Ok I’ll fix it!
Got and comments are open!
Rodan wrote:
You are absolutely right there. This is still the same basic fight against the same basic kind of people. Either we are all free under the Constitution with our God-given rights protected, or we are not. The question remains will a majority of the Democrats along with a minority of the Republicans triumph and abridge our rights, or will a majority of the Republicans with a minority of the Democrats protect our rights.
Rodan wrote:
I was thinking of that quote when I wrote that. You are right. The Democrats do not change.
Iron Fist wrote:
Why would they? They’ve found a business model that works.
@ taxfreekiller:
You don’t know what the **** you are talking about. The Spanish Architecture is Mediterranean. Look at the buildings in Italy, it’s the same as Spain. That comes from the Latin/Roman heritage.
Genetic imprint? Really? Read about the reconquista and get back to me. DNA shows only 11% of Spaniards have any North African blood.
Don’t lecture me on my heritage, I do not lecture you on yours.