It's not really my job to save Barack Obama from the fate which hubris and ideological rigidity have reserved for him, but if he was interested in listening, the route back from the lowest approval ratings of any first-year president would be easy to point out.
All President Obama would have to do to immediately jump into respectable numbers in the polls and show that he is not part of the partisan disease symptomized by the draconian rule of Nancy Pelosi in the House, is to make a simple public statement. I'll even draft it for him to pass on to Jon Favreau or one of his other celebrity speechwriters for some polish.
(tonight or tomorrow morning, carried live on all networks)
My fellow Americans. I had been planning to fly to Copenhagen to attend the climate conference. Today I am here to tell you that I am not going to make that trip.
After watching video of the speeches made this week by dictators, tyrants, and greedy opportunists, I realize that this conference is not about the very real threat of global climate change. It has become a political power grab, a platform for propaganda and an all-out attack on America and the system of capitalism which has made it the most successful nation in the world.
I made up my mind after hearing genocidal dictator Robert Mugabe declare that the United States and capitalism were responsible for all the world's ills and hearing America-hating Marxist Hugo Chavez declare that he was glad to see the ghost of capitalism stalking the halls of the conference.
Their speeches were just the tip on the pyramid of evidence that this conference has been hijacked by extremists whose interest is the economic destruction of the United States by enacting punitive measures which our historically generous nation cannot afford to foot the bill for at this time of economic hardship.
My first concern is the American people. I want to use our resources to build jobs and restore prosperity and we cannot afford to send billions to nations which consider us their greatest enemy at a time when the American people need that money more.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Heloise
This might be a way for him to declare his allegiance with the people and avoid following the rest of his party to political oblivion.
I was with you Dave until those two little word "political oblivion." I mean hasn't this been forecasted and predicted about the GOP before? What sinks shall rise again. All is temporary.
I thought you might also mention Hillary's taunt "who wants to be a 100 billionaire?" When she offered up 100 billion dollars of OUR frickin money to poor countries who would sign onto the treaty of the month.
But agreed, Obama does not need to attend this excuse of a climate conference in Copenhagen.
Good Dave until you got to the last bit.
Heloise
2 - Mark
Dave does little here to clarify what he believes to be the proper role of the State in Capitalist society beyond the high faluting phrases. In the past he has stated that he thinks Hayek got it about right. Here's an interesting read (pdf) in that regard.
There most definitely should be a 'war' on Capitalism.
3 - Arch Conservative
As narcissistic and arrogant as Obama is, even he, deep down, knows he's not running the show.
His masters who have bought and paid for him would have no trouble taking him out and then we'd have the corporate state run media and 300 million American idiots raving and ranting about racism and such nonsense until the next shill for the New World Order or the next Tiger Woods conquest, whichever would comes first, arrived on the scene.
Saint Barry was kind enough to intimate to the nation that unless we pass some kind of healthcare reform in the near future the federal government will go bankrupt. It never crossed his mind that it might not be such a great idea to spend trillionsof dollars on every last whim of every last special interest.
Like Bush before him, Obama couldn't be honest with the American people if his life depended on it. I guess 200 plus years of separation emboldens these assclowns installed in Washington to shit all over the Constitution and the American people more and more every day.
I truly hope I live to see the tipping point when the shit hits the fan.
4 - Matthew T. Sussman
I don't know. A speech? Is he really good at those?
5 - Silas Kain
I have to agree with Dave here. Barack Obama has been President a scant 11 months and already most of us are viewing him as a failure. The only way he's going to salvage the next three years, one month and three days is to come out swinging by New Year's Day. He needs a dramatic, in-your-face speech that echoes the concerns of the working class and sets the agenda for what Congress does in 2010. And he's got to be clear -- any member of Congress who is not on board with the Obama doctrine can forget about any help from him in the elections. He should also lay down the gauntlet concerning lobbyists and special interest monies. Enough is enough. He's got to come out and inspire -- anything less will result in his one term Presidency.
6 - Dave Nalle
Right now Obama is loved by leftist intellectuals and hated by the working and middle classes. That's a dangerous position for a Democrat to be in.
Dave
7 - zingzing
"Right now Obama is loved by leftist intellectuals and hated by the working and middle classes."
that's quite a statement. care to back it up?
and what exactly is wrong with being smart?
8 - roger nowosielski
True leftist intellectuals - like Naomi Klein, for example - were skeptical to begin with.
9 - Christine
If Pres Obama had led from the center left, he would be doing great right now!
10 - Mark
It was pretty clear that he is a hack as soon as he started up with that pre-chewed 'yes we can' slogan. I have yet to hear an original thought escape his pie hole.
11 - Dave Nalle
BTW, Mark. Radnitzky was a left-libertarian social anarchist and an anti-capitalist. He seriously mischaracterizes Hayek out of a natural hostility to Hayek's belief in a constitutional state and free enterprise. If you want Hayek's opinion on the state, why not read Hayek? I would particularly sugest The Constitution of Liberty.
But for a quick summation, here's a quote from his essay Principles or Expediency?:
"A condition of liberty in which all are allowed to use their own knowledge for their own purposes, restrained only by rules of just conduct of universal application, is likely to produce for them the best conditions for achieving their respective aims. Such a system is likely to be achieved and maintained only if all authority, including that of the majority of the people, is limited in the exercise of coercive power by general principles to which the community has committed itself."
It's written in the painful style typical of economists and philosophers, but what it comes down to is the idea of a government limited only to those functions which the community agrees are absolutely essential for the protection of their rights.
I find that reasonable.
Dave
12 - Dave Nalle
Zing, being smart has nothing at all to do with it. Ideology trumps intellect every time and there's no one so stupid as an intellectual ideologue.
Dave
13 - Mark Saleski
there's no one so stupid as an intellectual ideologue.
oh my, the comedy just never ends around here.
14 - zingzing
yeah, ok dave, but what is it that the right wing has against intellectuals? i know it's all politics, but they seem to trumpet stupidity and their own "folksy" charms. it's like being smart is a crime and being a dumbass is electable. it's just a very negative view of humanity.
it's like the right wing is too damn stupid to realize that they're being told how stupid they are.
and i think mark hit upon a certain irony to your claim.
15 - roger nowosielski
#11,
It's just a refinement of classical liberal theory - not really all that different from John Locke or the more recent version in the Nozick's idea of minimal state.
The theory may have served a valid function once upon a time; but today, it sounds oddly hollow - smacking of ideology.
16 - Dave Nalle
You identify it correctly, Roger, but I don't think you're right that it's an outdated ideology. It's a very basic approach to human society which has been proven to work in a very positive way.
Ad Zing, the right wing has nothing against intellectuals. They just don't think it's necessary to make a big show of intellecutalism to be taken seriously.
Dave
17 - Ruvy
Why even try to save an SOB whose hauteur and contempt of you and most Americans is only matched by his willingness to abandon you all in the mud of obloquy?
That is the height of sado-maschism! Let the piece of shit and his "government" sink in the mire it deserves and work on an alternative to take over - if you can.
18 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, the way the system works we're stuck with him for 3 more years. Just trying to help him learn on the job.
Dave
19 - roger nowosielski
It's true, Dave, that it's difficult to argue with the idea therein expressed as regards the least obtrusive form of government. My doubts relate to the presuppositions and the uses to which the theory has been put.
There's also an element of historicity - whether the ideas are still applicable in the ever-changing world.
20 - Ruvy
Dave, the way the system works is that you are getting a shaft up your ass - and are unwilling to even recognize it. Go read that Declaration again. You have a duty to yourself to sink this piece of shit and his fascist regime - before he sinks you. Of course, you can always go back to Lebanon....
21 - zingzing
"Ad Zing, the right wing has nothing against intellectuals."
i beg to differ. they've made a show out of how much they despise academia and they consistently put up candidates who display "folksiness" rather than intelligence. they also use the word "intellectual" as if it meant something bad. it's codeword for "snob," but ignores the fact that these are the thinkers in our society. you act as if this phenomenon isn't widely known.
22 - roger nowosielski
But it's also part of America's general/popular culture, Zing - the notion of populism - which is suspicious of intellectuals: bookworms, nerds, geeks, and eggheads. This is nothing new.
The German people display just the opposite sentiment.
23 - Cindy
which has been proven to work in a very positive way.
That would sound better if you could show me where has it been proven to work. This society, for one example, is maximally fucked up--psychologically Dave. I am not even talking economically. It's a difficult call, but I believe it has in some fundamental ways, declined in its humanity, not improved, over time.
24 - Dave Nalle
Yes, Zing. The right has something against snobs and elitists. And the left chooses to interpret that as anti-intellectual. Yet even you should see the difference.
I would go farther and say that the right perhaps prefers the use of original thought and common sense over academic and formulaic approaches to problems.
But I don't think you are actually going to try to argue that Wiliam Buckley or George Will or P. J. O'Rourke or Thomas Sowell or Bernard Lewis are not intellectuals, though they are certainly politically on the right.
Dave
25 - zingzing
no, i'm not going to argue that those you mention aren't intellectuals, but you must see that the right is all for dumbing down american politics. maybe that's not the best way to put it. the fact remains that the right has put forth candidates that reflect a certain stupid quality. i'm sure it appeals to a lot of people to have someone who they can "relate to" running for office, but shouldn't we have our best running the country, rather than just some dumb, manipulatable hick?
"I would go farther and say that the right perhaps prefers the use of original thought and common sense..."
right, but they bring in people who are stupid and lack common sense, other than if by "common" you mean "mean" and if by "sense" you mean "idiocy." all we've gotten from the right lately is wars, recession and political stalemates. you must have better. if not, that's pathetic.
your "original thinking" is non-existent and your "common sense" is terrifying. the politicians you elect are backwards, hateful individuals. even you can't get behind them. the policy that the right has to back up is frightfully crude, dogmatic, homophobic and white-centric. it's like a party spiraling around itself into a toilet. there's no way that this will survive too much longer.
you're already seeing this, with the teabaggers going all nutso and the rest of the party trying to rein them back in without much success. those of you on the right that AREN'T crazy, racist, monumentally stupid fuck ups might like to think that you can survive without them, that they will vote with you over the alternative, but this shit is only going to get worse. obama has brought out the worst in you, and you're going to have to deal with the consequences.
the world (and america) is getting more liberal all the time. this type of thought is outmoded and irrelevant. you're on the losing end of history, but you won't ever know it.