DEATH BY GOVERNMENT

In 2008 Barack Obama surfed a wave of symbolism and emotion that at times resembled a political tsunami.  He told the country on election night that "change had come to America".

The problem was that almost everybody outside of his small but hard core progressive palace guard had stunningly different ideas of what change was.

The variations of the theme of change were as numerous as the stars in the night but "Obamachange" had several overarching sub-themes that time would prove amounted to little more than buzz words.  "Fairness", "fair share" and "level playing fields" for the middle class were three such examples.  However redistribution of wealth from the "haves" to the "have not's" was studiously avoided.

The political calculation by "Team Obama" was that this would be a killer of a deal breaker with the voters particularly when you did the math and the "haves" included the middle class that Obama had sworn to protect.

Obama, it turned out, was the tribune for every left wing, social justice cause imaginable.  Over time the progressive left had swallowed up everyone and every group who hated America, Israel, oil, coal, capitalism, hetero-sexuals, men, Caucasians, Republicans, the military, the Constitution, working for a living and the Catholic Church.  It had done so using the money and resources of people like George Soros and its army encompassed much of the mainstream press and media, academia, unions, militant  feminists, militant gays and lesbians, illegal immigrants, Islamists and anarchist fringe groups like the occupy movement.

December 7, 1941

The first American casualties of WW ll did not occur at Pearl Harbor.  Some say the first hostile action happened in the Yangtze River outside Nanking on December 12, 1937 where the USS gunboat Panay was sunk by  Japanese aircraft, killing three and wounding 45.  Others maintain that since WWll was not yet officially under way on that date, the first Americans to die in action were on October 17, 1941 when the USS Kearney, a Benson-Livermore Class Destroyer was attacked off the coast of Iceland, by the U-568 which was part of a wolf pack eviscerating a convoy that the Kearney was trying to protect.  11 US sailors were killed and 22 were wounded in the fight.  

All of this is a reminder that great and terrible events do not happen in a vacuum. 

For most of the 1930's, America in proud and defiant isolation caused in part by the Great Depression, watched as both Asia and Europe became engulfed in war and dictatorship.  FDR eventually turned America into the Arsenal for Democracy after WWII began on September 1, 1939.  Politically however Roosevelt had to walk a fine line with regard to American neutrality even as Churchill pressured him to join the fight and as anti-Japanese and anti-German feelings began to emerge domestically on the political left, particularly after Hitler invaded the USSR.

On October 16, 1941, the Japanese Prime Minister Prince Konoe resigned and General Hidecki Tojo assumed the post and the planning for an attack on the American Pacific Fleet was set in motion. 

Simultaneously, in Washington, Japanese Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburo  continued his efforts to negotiate a peace treaty between the US and Japan, unaware of what Tojo and the Japanese military were planning.  He continued his diplomatic efforts becoming more belligerent right up to December 7th when he was coldly informed by Secretary of State Cordell Hull that the attack had already begun.

THE AUDACITY OF A NARCISSIST

Barack Obama is becoming a man alone with his self aggrandized vision of greatness that people around him have nurtured since he was a child.

 

ObamaCare is a daily reminder of the old adage that "Pride goeth before the fall".   In a column this week George Will referenced David Remick's worshipful biography entitled“The Bridge:The Life and Rise of  Barack Obama.”  On  page 274, Remick quotes Obama's gate keeper Valarie Jarrett about Obama and then Will opines as to her description of Obama.  Jarrett said: 

"I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is...He knows how perceptive hs is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability -- the extraordinary, uncanny ability -- to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them, and make sense out of them, and I think he has never been really challenged intellectually. I mean, he's the kind of guy you'd hate in law school, who would pick up the book the night before the final, read it, and ace the test. So what I sensed in him was not just a  restless spirit but someone with extraordinary talents that they had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy."

Will then added: "Leave aside the question of whether someone so smitten can be in any meaningful sense an adviser. About what can such a paragon as Obama need advice?"

In point of fact Barack Obama has rarely if ever been challenged about his ideas, policies or programs.  His life while at times strange, has largely been one of accommodation and not conflict.  He has glided through his career  because of his "amazingness".   He has eluded criticism because of his "uniqueness".  He has been hyped and won election twice as a new kind of leader for the new millennium.