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It’s pretty amazing the things that Obama is getting away with. Now, I don’t disagree with everything he’s doing. I actually thought that parts of his speech in Cairo were excellent. His strategy in Afghanistan is commendable and I am glad that he is pushing back against his base in reassessing his strategy on Gitmo and the fight against terror.
But when it comes to the economy, he is doing things that are unprecedented and that would not hold up under scrutiny if he were any other President. Could you imagine the howls in the media if Nixon, Carter or Reagan abrogated bond contracts while nationalizing large chunks of a major industry? Could you imagine the scandal if George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton put a 31-year old with no business experience in charge of GM? Could you imagine if any other President produced a $1.8 trillion deficit, $600 billion more than what he inherited? What if George W. Bush crowed that he ’saved’ 150,000 jobs during a time when the unemployment rate was almost 9 percent? Oh, the outrage!
There is an amazing double standard at work here. The main complaint against George W. Bush was that in his reaction to 9/11, he overreached. This is a notion that can be faithfully debated by both sides. But at least there is a debate.
So far, there is almost ZERO debate in the mainstream media when it comes to Obama’s policies. Oh sure, there are murmurs of discontent here and there, but they are unusually muted considering the scope of his ambition. Amazingly, while the economy transforms, we find the media still obsessing over issues that happened under Bush.
Part of the problem is the marginalization of the GOP and the Conservative movement. The mainstream media gives short shrift to much of the Right’s opposition. They are, after all, the opposition party, yet the media acts like they are being nattering nabobs. In fact, any party in opposition serves at least the minimum purpose of playing devil’s advocate to the proposed policy of the majority party.
But given the current lack of power on the Right, it now falls even more on the media to be a watchdog, a check and balance to what Obama is trying to do. It’s ironic that in a time of declining media revenues, the one thing that could help revive the media would be to actually fill this role in a faithful manner. But the truth is that the mainstream media approves of what Obama is doing. And so they go lockstep down this path and miss the opportunity to actually act like a responsible Fourth Estate.
Yes, there was and is a very deep recession. There was a financial crisis. But bipartisan steps were taken to alleviate that crisis. But since taking office, Obama has used this financial crisis as an excuse to consolidate unprecedented economic power in the hands of the federal government. In the process, he has turned fiscal policy on its head, printing money as a response to the financial crisis, which in turn is creating a new fiscal crisis.
The natural decline of the financial crisis is occurring now, which is why we see the market reviving somewhat. We have stepped back from the brink in that regard. But the fiscal reckoning is baked in the cake and will come home to roost soon. Obama can only blame Bush for so long.
This is not a presidency content with small things. This is not Bill Clinton asking for Midnight Basketball funding. This is not Jimmy Carter asking Americans to turn down their thermostat. This is not George H. W. Bush asking for a kinder, gentler nation. This is serious stuff.
Obama is going for broke. He is not tinkering at the margins. Whether he is right or not, there MUST be a serious debate on the direction he wants to take us. This is missing right now in our national discourse. Instead, the media is talking about Uighurs and Palestinians and whether Dick Cheney is evil or not. Major magazines like Newsweek are being guest-edited by comedians. All this while Obama is accumulating unprecedented executive power.
No doubt, Obama doesn’t mind keeping the focus on the twin issues of terror and torture, where he can dazzle people with empty rhetoric and moralize over the supposed failures of the previous administration. It prevents the public from focusing on what he really cares about: his desire to turn the country into a European-style social democracy, with a bloated welfare state and a unionized labor force.
Maybe that’s the way to go. Maybe it’s not. But let’s have the debate. If George W. Bush can be lambasted for overreaching on national security, there’s no reason Barack Obama shouldn’t be lambasted for overreaching on the economy and its relation to the federal government.
