Political Hay
Chaos Theory
To Buffett and Grove, Obama has gone from idealistic to imprudent.
“Mr. President, Time to Rein in the Chaos,” reads the headline on Andrew Grove’s obtuse op-ed. Grove attributes the chaos not to the intrinsically disordered character of Obama’s liberalism but to the speed and manner of its application.
Applying a bad idea gradually doesn’t make it any less bad. But it might save the Buffetts and Groves billions of dollars. Go ahead and break a lot of eggs in your grand experiment at some point, Barack, just not ours now. That’s essentially their advice to him.
Wall Street’s second thoughts about Obama are tiresome. Cowed by their pro-abort trophy wives, View-watching mistresses, and PC philanthropic peers, financiers and CEOs helped elect a class-warfare-using president and now have the gall to whine about him.
The “revolutionary” over whom they once cooed is suddenly reckless and oblivious to the existing order of things.
Says Buffett: “you can’t expect people to unite behind you if you are trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat.”
A little more gingerly, Grove says the same: “Our health-care system may well be ripe for a major overhaul, as are our energy and environmental policies. Widespread recognition that all of these reforms are overdue contributed to Barack Obama’s victory in November. But if the chaos that resulted from initiating such an overhaul were piled on top of the unresolved status of the financial system, society and government would become exhausted.”
No global warming tax and socialized health care just yet!
Apparently, Obama’s glibness is grating on dilettantish moneybags. Clearing their throats at inaugural cocktail parties, they called it “idealism”; today, they call it imprudence. How dare he compare our bouncing stock prices to political polls, a few have been heard to say.
The liberalism of the Groves and Buffetts is basically parasitic; it feeds off the lingering order of conservatism. Were Obama to devour the conservative host whole, they’d have to close up shop.
One would think this parasitic arrangement might stimulate deeper thoughts in them about the nature of liberalism. But it never does. As soon as the crisis that makes them cling to conservatism passes, they resume their ideological intoxications.
The full-blown, pure application of liberalism would expose the country’s reliance on this parasitic arrangement and discredit liberalism politically. Obama, in his own way, grasps this point, making sure to weaken the existing host but never kill it.
For example, he nationalizes banks (in the sense of majority government ownership of stocks in them) but doesn’t run them, not because he thinks that undesirable but because he thinks it impractical. For now. But what if he had a more robust federal government and prepared proletariat? That glorious day in his mind is coming.
Grove quotes Machiavelli at Obama — prefacing his column with “There is nothing more difficult… than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things” — but Obama seems plenty Machiavellian already.
Look at the outright lying disguised as thoughtfulness in his presentation earlier in the week about embryo-destructive stem cell research. At it he called cloning “dangerous” and “profoundly wrong,” which a dutiful media blasted to readers uncritically, even as he locked in place a policy that guarantees it.
After all, many of the extracted cells will come from clones. For those scoring at home, the “moderate,” science-over-politics position in the debate, according to the fine print in the administration’s policy, isn’t to oppose cloning but to oppose “reproductive” cloning; “therapeutic” cloning, then killing the clones, is just fine.
It is no wonder that even a studiously nonpolemical columnist like Robert Samuelson has taken to calling Obama a “great pretender.”
About the Author
George Neumayr, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is co-author, with Phyllis Schlafly, of the new book, No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (32) | Leave a comment
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Deborah | 3.12.09 @ 6:46AM
Yes, Mr. Neumayr -- I got the same impression from the crying of Buffett and Grove. They think they should be immune from Obama's proposals. I say the worst thing that's ever happened in this country is the business-government nexus. It is destructive to business, and it makes government even more corrupt.
It was in the 1990's (as I recall, but it could have been earlier) that this idea of mixing the two came into vogue. Europe seemed to have mastered it, and, of course, the U.S. is made up of such a bunch of selfish capitalists that we should become enlightened like our European brothers. Well, somewhere along the line that idea bloomed into what we have today...businesses relying on government and government telling business how to do their business. Give government an inch, and they'll take a mile and a half.
Read 'em and weap, O yee of the Obama business class. You thought you were holding the cards, but it's Obama with the ace up his sleeve.
Welcome to the world of the rest of us peons.
Rocco| 3.12.09 @ 7:15AM
Well said, Deborah. I have no sympathy for these "useful idiots," as Lenin once referred to people like this. If they were so damned smart, they should have seen it coming, dealing with the character of this empty suit. As I have said repeatedly to friends of mine in and out of the service, money is not necessarily an indication of superior intelligence. And as you said, Obama does have the ace....
Robert Rosencrans| 3.12.09 @ 7:45AM
Excellent! Good Read of the Day.
jack| 3.12.09 @ 8:13AM
Really funny watching liberals like Buffett and Grove cry when the central planners destroy their wealth. What were these two guys thinking? No one has benefitted more from free markets and capitalism than these great Americans. Why would they support a person who had a strong background ,what little background we can find,of being a radical socialist. Would either of these guys hire a person to run one of their investments or corporations who had no real work experience except facilitating payments to people who were unproductive? Why then would they want a person with this weak a resume to run our country? Was it because they wanted to be liked by media and their friends? Did they think Obama would be like other Dems and sell out his lunatic promises for political support ,donations, and personal enrichment? Why did the same media who made Bush ,Algroe,and Lurch produce college transcripts ignore Obamas? The real tell on Obamas competence is his belief that proper tire inflation could replace mid east oil supplies. The man appears to know very little US history or World History. His treatment and shabby gift to PM of Great Britian,not only insults every person in Great Britain and the US but also anyone from these countries who has fought to preserve our way of life and freedom. Why? He doesnt know any better. He has never led,has never managed,has no idea what a profit is. Yet Buffett and Grove supported him? Makes you wonder why?
fred edwards| 3.12.09 @ 8:57AM
Jack, your last sentence is indeed the key to this puzzle. Why would wall street hedge funders,brokers, their secretaries, and all who were connected to that industry pour so much money into a socialst/marxist campaign? How many of these laid-off capitalists are going to be hired to build the bridges to nowhere, or build the fantasy super train from Disneyland to La-la Las Vegas? Maybe they'll get jobs as gardeners and busboys, since illegal immigrants are returning to their homeland ( Mexico and places South).
There is such an irony here. These Wall Streeters had excellent benefits, yet they supported the candidate of welfare and socialized medicine. They got what they paid for.
Pingback| 3.12.09 @ 10:19AM
Chaos Theory « Depravity links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Son Of Sam | 3.12.09 @ 10:21AM
Liberalism is a war against the middle class. If you have to get up every morning, go to a job and make money to pay your bills, then you're middle class; it doesn't matter whether you drive a cab, lay pipes, count up numbers or write for a conservative online magazine. If you get your money from the taxpayers because you're on welfare, hold public office, head up a firm thats taking billions in bailouts or manage an equity fund that profits from such, you are not middle class. Ask yourself where the bulk of the hard core ObamaNazis get their money from, and then you'll understand why they supported him last fall.
I'm crying tears for Warren Buffet, et al. Really I am.
until freedom dawns,
Son Of Sam
http://www.geocities.com/samadamssos
Howard| 3.12.09 @ 10:39AM
While I'll put my conservative credentials against anyone, the problem here isn't liberals. Obama is not a liberal, he is a radical. He isn't Hubert Humphrey or Walter Mondale. Not tghat I was a big fan of those guys. But they were incrementalists. Obama is for wholesale changes in our way of life. These business jerks listened to his speeches, but didn't due any due dilligence. For instance, why would anyone who was a friend of Bill Ayers, "the neighborhood guy" be considered moderate? Why is Obama learned his craft from Saul Alinsky, a leftist agitator in Chicago, was that not cause for alarm? These guys spent more time planning a wine list than voting for the masn who will rob them of their wealth.
Howard| 3.12.09 @ 10:40AM
sorry for the typos.
Bill| 3.12.09 @ 11:00AM
Article after article discusses and points out the problems with our present situation. BO is a deceiving liar with no leadership skills or background to warrant his position. Congress is totally out of touch with the country and has no historical perspective of what made this country great. They are nothing short of a den of robbers with the tax policy and their decisions that have tanked the stock market. The seniors in this country have seen their retirement vanish. They of all people, who have time, should be marching on the door steps of congress and at the drive ways of their representatives.
It is now time to stop the analysis and move into action. There are 18 states that allow recall of their congress members. Time to start recall petitions. Also time to fire up term limits again. There is no reason to keep people in office for life. The president has term limits and so should the ones in congress. Long terms subject them to corruption and to making decisions based on getting reelected and not what is best for the country. Government needs to be limited and to serve the people and not the people serve the government.
Time to stop talking and move into action.
Contact your congress members. Start petition initiatives. Start recall petitions where possible for those in congress who are selling the country out.
Demand that those who skirt the ethics they were called to hold and to which we expect them to hold, resign or be prosecuted.
I am sick of this. Time to clean up the mess.
Gill O’Teen| 3.12.09 @ 12:03PM
Howard, I always type my comments using my trusty word processor with spell check enabled. I prefer Word Perfect but there are plenty of good ones available. Then I copy and paste my remarks to the American Spectator Comment box. As a former English Teacher, I always feel ashamed if a typo gets by me.
If Buffet had put as much thought into his presidential choice as I do in posting a simple comment, he would not now be revealed as the fool he is.
Wealth is popularly measured by the world in terms of property owned or controlled. God uses a different yardstick, his own.
Duane| 3.12.09 @ 1:27PM
Mr Buffet understands more things then obama does. One, you CAN NOT spend your way out of debet, 2. you CAN NOT rob Peter to pay Paul. It just DOES NOT work!!!!!! In other words, you CAN NOT rob the American people to pay off those who DO NOT know how to control their own foolish way of living
Owen| 3.12.09 @ 1:42PM
The article and a lot of the comments are off base in my view with respect to Warren Buffett. He's never had a trophy wife, never lived in a big mansion and has already pledged the vast majority of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He's not crying about losing money, that hasn't been a problem for him for many decades. He does care about the country, and his public rebuking of Obama is a good thing; the Dems are always closely attuned to PR. Buffett's political views are driven primarily by one factor: he believes that wealth redistribution is a good thing. I disagree with him, I don't think he's really ever looked closely enough at the conflict between intention and actual results due primarily to human nature. But all the sneering and ridicule are misplaced due to a lack of knowledge and don't really help "our side" with moderates who know more about the subject.
the-gunslinger | 3.12.09 @ 3:34PM
"Moderate" just means you don't believe in anything. I'm not particularly interested in what moderates think this morning. It'll change by dinner time tomorrow.
"Liberal Capitalist" is an oxymoron. The wheelers and dealers in the market who profit from the productiveness of others, but who support the rape of the productive by the government are Liberal Opportunist Parasites. They are the ones to whom the description: "I got mine, screw you!" should properly be applied.
ccc| 3.12.09 @ 5:09PM
moderate means you don't take all of your issue position from either end of the political spectrum. Example, all catholics are moderate because the church opposes abortion (conservative position) and the death penalty (liberal position). The church believes strongly in its views and they do not change at the end of the day.
jack| 3.12.09 @ 7:31PM
It makes no sense that Buffett would support this guy. Does he feel guilty for making so much money? Thats cool if you Warren but no reason to punish everyone else who works for a living. You dont believe I should have the right to leave assets I have worked to my children. That makes you a socialist and central planner as far as I am concerned,even though you are greatest investor in history and I have made much money owning your stock. You feel you should be able to choose where my money and assets go. Instead of leaving your assets to the government you gave them to the Gates foundation.
Groves probably suppored Obama cause so many in his industry did. They think the can relive the late 90s boom with another Dem as President. They still dont realize that clinton and bush had little to do with the economic cycles,those were created by bin greenspan. Now Silicon valley has a president that doesnt seem to realize Buy American could destroy that valley that supported him.
I watched Obama tonight and I believe Bush was a better at answering questions than this clown. He cant put three words together without "and umm" or a "duh". If this clown was a republican he would be getting killed. If you listen to him without his teleprompter for more than a couple of minutes you realize his lack of knowledge on just about everything,except handing out others money,is extraordinary. How did this guy get into Harvard and how did he graduate? It pretty obvious why he could not get a real job out of Harvard but it blows my mind both Buffett and Groves would support a guy for President they would not hire as a low level manager in any of their businesses.
Maybe they thought they could mold him or influence him? Didnt they know he spent 20 years in the church of a hate mongering Nazi,Rev Wright? He called the Rev the greatest influence in his life. You would have to be nuts to hire someone like this but even crazier to vote for him.
MT| 3.13.09 @ 1:07AM
Obama ain't smart, just pretty.
S.L. Toddard| 3.13.09 @ 12:00PM
JEREMIAH AND BOB: FYI - I haven't been posting here in over a month, since maybe Feb 2nd. There is a troll here who adopts other people's names and posts as them. I never called Bob "blow-bob" or whatever. I saw you also got into some scraps with him, Jeremiah. None of it was me. I don't use terms like "lib" or whatever else this clown said.
Imagine doing that - being that pathetic? Logging on and pretending to be someone else you only know through the internet? It's sad and the sort of thing one would expect of a stalker.
Anyway, none of the posts under my name - S.L. Toddard - have actually been me since the first couple days of February. It's been that same, sad, lonely troll.
S.L. Toddard| 3.13.09 @ 5:42PM
I am a slimy liberal troll who hates America and loves the marxist policies of Obama, just like Blow-Bob. I only post here to cause trouble. Please accept my apology, dear Conservatives.
hfgh| 11.26.09 @ 9:44PM
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