Glib and cocky as ever, Barack Obama used his State of the Union
address on Tuesday night to push his sophomoric and gimmicky
socialism. While the nation drowns in debt and the economy
continues to teeter, Obama devotes himself to the empty symbolism
of the “Buffett rule.” He had the Omaha billionaire’s secretary
placed in a seat of honor near the First Lady.
Barack and Michelle are the quintessential champagne
socialists, enjoying the trappings of power — the First Lady
donned an ostentatious royal blue designer dress that probably cost
more than several months of her prop’s secretarial salary — while
decrying the excesses of the rich.
The speech was immensely dull, revolving around the usual
tedious laundry list of nothing proposals. It made Monday’s sterile
Republican presidential candidates debate look
stimulating.
Obama conceives of himself as the great puppet master of
the American economy, doling out “rewards” and “punishments” to the
business community. He paid tribute to the widow of Steve Jobs,
also strategically placed in the audience. This seemed odd. Didn’t
Steve Jobs regard Obama as an anti-business president? Jobs was
also known for shipping jobs to Asia, owing to the left’s stifling
regulations. Obama, in this address, made a special point of
condemning this practice, vowing to reward companies that keep jobs
at home and punish companies that go global.
It is clear that Obama doesn’t want companies to prosper
here or abroad, unless they somehow fit into his statist schemes.
The speech was full of dreary government-knows-best proposals. The
great community organizer announced that community colleges under
his leadership will play a pivotal role in the revival of the
American economy. Community colleges can become “community career
centers” that tutor Americans in new skills, he said. Obama also
revealed his high hopes for wind farms and other forms of “clean
energy.”
He made liberal use of the word “investment” as his
euphemism for new government programs. Near the beginning of the
speech, he praised bailouts (he bragged at length about bailing out
the American auto industry); by the end of it, he had vowed to end
them.
He professed great regard for the martial virtues of
America’s soldiers, holding them out as an example to bickering and
undisciplined politicians. Candidate Obama had said George W.
Bush’s wars ruined America’s standing in the world. But now he says
that the returning soldiers from Iraq elevated the world’s
“respect” for America.
Having already turned America’s military over to gay
rights activists, he now unleashes environmentalists on them too.
One of the military’s new missions, according to his State of the
Union address, is to offer a helping hand in the search for “clean
energy.”
Obama strained hard to remind Americans that Osama bin
Laden was killed on his watch and that he is passionately
pro-military. He said that he wants to set up a jobs program for
returning vets. He rejected the assertion that America is in
decline. “America is back,” he declared.
Sensing that he needed to offer a few words in support of
leaner government, he quoted a line from Abraham Lincoln to the
effect that government should only perform those tasks beyond the
power of the people. Never mind that most of the proposals in the
speech were a violation of this principle. By “shared
responsibility,” the jargony phrase with which he peppered the
speech, he means a fatter federal government that swoops down and
takes responsibility from the people.
“Spreading the wealth around,” as he said to Joe the
Plumber in 2008, is his organizing principle. Wealth belongs to the
government automatically, under this thinking, and so any money not
taken by Obama constitutes in his mind reckless government
“spending.” It pains him to think that millionaires are making
profits off already-taxed money. He proposes the Buffett rule to
correct this injustice and usher in a new era of income equality.
This isn’t “class warfare,” he said, but “common sense,” a
threadbare claim the 2012 race will test.
