By George Neumayr on 2.27.09 @ 6:09AM
Americans now enjoy the privilege of tracking tyranny online.
That Joe Biden the other day didn't even know the name of
Recovery.gov captures the
essential tackiness and fraudulence of the website. His blarney
was punctured by an unwitting and obscure morning anchor, who
asked him innocently: "By the way, do you know the name of the
website?" He didn't.
"Your Money at Work," the slapped-together site announces, before
serving up a dreary menu of slipshod, third-rate populism. "Share
your Recovery Story. Tell us how the Recovery Act is affecting
you. What's working? What isn't? We want to hear from you."
So Americans now enjoy the privilege of tracking tyranny online,
then cobbling together a feckless e-mail to complain about it.
"Transparency" means robbing hapless taxpayers in clear sight.
But why even bother to fake up a site if Senator Chuck Schumer is
right? Americans, he says, don't care about this or that "porky"
item.
Though a couple of weeks ago Obama had his staff retrieve the
phone number of a telegenic grandmother in Florida, this week he
wanted to hear from a celebrity. Did you know that Darfur is a
"top priority" for this administration? Well, it is; so says
celebrity-activist George Clooney. Amidst the buffeting winds of
what he tells us is a financial tornado, Obama managed to find
some Oval Office time earlier in the week to confer with the
actor.
Treating tax dollars like Monopoly money and the globe like a
game of Risk played after dinner with visiting stars fits with
Obama's Oprahesque political philosophy. He calls his
aphilosophical theory of government "pragmatic"; the Founding
Fathers would call it mindless and tyrannical. Any president who
says the size of the federal government is an irrelevant question
(ask not whether it is "too big," but whether it is "working," he
said in his inaugural address) is already a tyrant in embryo.
Is it really this easy to hoodwink the American people, the
smugness on Obama's face seems to say? Does it only take a few
well-delivered platitudes to nationalize banks, socialize an
economy, and compromise a culture?
America is dying but it laughs, as was once said of the Roman
Empire. A grinning Obama greets unemployed Americans as they
whisk past the memorabilia section of grocery stores in search of
Spam to eat on their inaugural commemorative plates.
The State of the Union address was little more than substanceless
patter, liberalism at its most fatuous and uncritical. To save
our economy, everyone should go to college, according to Obama?
Really? Why? I would rather the disinclined take shovel-ready
jobs.
Many colleges already resemble glorified high schools. To
browbeat a future construction manager into attending college
while saddling him with government grants, all so that he can
listen to some jackass like Ward Churchill, is just a cruel
egalitarian experiment and does nothing for the economy. Who
cares if he drops out? The tragedy is that he stays.
The federal government is avarice writ large, yet Obama with a
straight face could inveigh against high "executive" salaries.
Too bad he didn't consult with honored guest Captain Chesley
Sullenberger before delivering that cheap line. Earlier in the
day Sullenberger had tried to explain to Congressional
nincompoops that talent in the cockpit was evaporating due to
industry caps on pilot salaries. Why wouldn't that principle
apply to other crucial industries?
The further dishonesty of the line is that through higher taxes
Obama wants to sabotage executive salaries even for the honest
and productive. His rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.
Having tossed Tom Daschle under his own limo, Obama could revive
the class warfare from the campaign, warming once again to the
insane theme of helping wage-earners by destroying wage-payers.
Soon to be cashiered from their jobs, these wage-earners will
have plenty of time to review Obama's glorious deeds at
Recovery.gov.
