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The Obama Watch
More Calculated Deception
Obama’s empty inaugural address offers nothing but more blind leadership.
As if to prove it can do a better job making up the news than reporting the news, the Washington Post reported on President Obama’s Inaugural Address with the sweeping 24-point bold headline, “‘We Must Act,”’ and subhead, “SECOND TERM BEGINS WITH SWEEPING AGENDA FOR EQUALITY.”
Please find the transcript online, print it out, and show me the agenda, any agenda, let alone a “sweeping” agenda for equality. The President did not present to the nation any agenda in his Inaugural Address.
There were only a few code words, with double, even multiple, meanings. That is the fundamental innovation Obama has brought to our politics: deniability. His methodology is, as I have long exposed, Calculated Deception. Use words that allow him later to say, “Oh I campaigned on that, and have long espoused that, weren’t you paying attention?” but which also allow him to deny it as well, “Oh, that just means what Lincoln said, what Jefferson said, what Reagan said.” You remember Reagan, that great champion of gun control, and taxing the rich, and nuclear disarmament?
That is what allows Obama to talk in ways that enable everyone to read into what he says what they want to hear, which is the foundation of Obama’s politics. In other words, more Calculated Deception.
Obama needs that foundational strategy because he is anything but progressive, in the literal meaning of that word. Obama is a man of the early 20th century, riding the cutting edge ideas of the late 19th century. The truth is he is still leading the reaction against the Industrial Revolution. He needs Calculated Deception because he can’t openly reveal that, even though that is where his base of supporters still are too, primarily in America’s utterly brain dead intellectual class (along with those who are bought off by his political machine).
It actually took the even more overtly Marxist New York Times, which is more certain that is where the future of the country is, to brazenly translate the Obama Inaugural agenda into plain English. The Times accurately reported the Obama agenda as, “advancing gay rights, showing more tolerance toward illegal immigrants, preserving the social welfare safety net [no spending cuts, tax increases on the middle class] and acting to stop climate change [more huge regulatory costs].”
But what was most disconcerting about the speech was how discordant the rhetoric was with the real world. He said with a straight face, “We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class.” So after 4 years, where is that rising middle class?
Under Obama’s misleadership, median household income has fallen 7.3%, meaning the average family has lost nearly a month of income for each year of work. That loss continues indefinitely now, and will probably worsen under Obama’s socialism.
The decline has already been twice as great since the recession officially ended as it was during the recession, which has never happened before in American history except during the Great Depression.
Obama said with a straight face, “We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.” (Emphasis added.) But under Obama, America suffered the longest period with unemployment above 8%, and real wages have been falling consistently. We have fewer jobs today than when the recession started.
And no that is not because the recession was so bad. The American historical record is that recovery from recession begins within a year to a year and a half and the deeper the recession the stronger the recovery. Based on that historical precedent, we should be in the third year of a booming recovery by now. We are not because every policy that Obama has pursued has been anti-growth, and the opposite of everything that Reagan did.
Obama said with a straight face, “We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of the deficit.” But when do those hard choices begin, Mr. Obama? Campaigning in 2008, Obama promised that by the end of his first term family health insurance premiums would be down by $2,500 a year. But they were up $3,000, despite, or maybe because of, Obamacare.
And during Obama’s first term, deficits averaged a world record $1.3 trillion, three times the prior U.S. record of $458 billion during the depths of the recession. But Senate Democrats have failed to even pass a budget for three years in violation of the law (shame on your neighbors for increasing the Democrat Senate majority in the last election), and refuse to even consider any spending cuts. All of the spending cuts Obama touts are smoke and mirrors, and the truth is he refuses to consider any spending cuts either, outside of national defense. And this year Obama says he won’t be able to produce his budget on time either.
Obama said, “We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else …. ” But one of the first things Obama did after his election was terminate the D.C. school choice program, which means that a little girl born into the bleakest poverty in D.C. no longer has the same chance to succeed as his own daughters going to private school at Sidwell Friends. There, Obama’s daughters are protected by the school’s own 9 armed guards (not the Secret Service), which Obama refuses to recognize as effective to protect anyone else’s kids at any other school.
Under Obama’s misleadership, there are more little girls born into the bleakest poverty than at any time before in U.S. history. And with less chance to succeed as long as the Obama economy continues. The Census Bureau reported last year more Americans in poverty than ever before in the more than 50 years that Census has been tracking poverty.
About the Author
Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (33) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Peter Ferrara
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http://spectator.org/archives/2013/01/23/more-calculated-deception
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Robbins Mitchell| 1.23.13 @ 6:17AM
In other words all Americans should be equal...but some dirtbag Chicago thugs are more equal than others
Al Adab| 1.23.13 @ 8:33AM
Ask Solzynetzin, all men are equal in the gulag.
TLP| 1.23.13 @ 1:18PM
I see nothing wrong with the WAPO's Headline.
By the time 2016 rolls along, I'm sure that we will have Total Equality.
We'll all have Nothing.
Frank Drackman| 1.23.13 @ 6:43AM
He has a Scheme....
Appleby| 1.23.13 @ 6:49AM
Obama is preaching the same 1968 Sophomore at Berkeley Rhetoric that he has believed since he started "writing" his "autobiographies" many years ago. It was garbage then, and it's garbage now. Those of us who heard it in 1968 knew that, and more people will know that before we crawl to the next election. Once the "rich" have left all the high-tax areas (Rich People Have Options) and there's nobody to "pay his fair share" except the hippie scum, either we will elect people who can fix the problem -- or Gucci Gulch will appoint another Northeastern Liberal and tell us He's Our Only Hope.
Appleby| 1.23.13 @ 6:50AM
Obama is preaching the same 1968 Sophomore at Berkeley Rhetoric that he has believed since he started "writing" his "autobiographies" many years ago. It was garbage then, and it's garbage now. Those of us who heard it in 1968 knew that, and more people will know that before we crawl to the next election. Once the "rich" have left all the high-tax areas (Rich People Have Options) and there's nobody to "pay his fair share" except the hippie scum, either we will elect people who can fix the problem -- or Gucci Gulch will appoint another Northeastern Liberal and tell us He's Our Only Hope.
Appleby| 1.23.13 @ 6:50AM
Sorry for the double post.
TLP| 1.23.13 @ 1:22PM
No big deal.
So, you double posted. Everybody does it.
Stop killing yourself over this.
Dodd2| 1.23.13 @ 8:23AM
That foreigner in the Oval Office gets away with this because so many in the country has been sufficiently dumbed down (thank you public school teachers) that they can't think beyond a reality show.
TLP| 1.23.13 @ 1:25PM
Read Shelby Steele's Book: WHITE GUILT.
That's why he gets away with everything.
None of these Weak, Linguini Spines wants to be called a name.
So much for: Sticks and Stones.
Al Adab| 1.23.13 @ 8:34AM
Infected as our culture is with celebrityitis is it any wonder that our elected officials more closely resemble Kardashians than statesmen?
Pecos Pete| 1.23.13 @ 8:34AM
KingOcare is a'comin down the road. Collectivism at its best. The Village Idiots will be crying when they learn that it isn't free.
Al Adab| 1.23.13 @ 10:58AM
Naah Pete:
As long as they think (the operative word) or are led to believe that someone else is paying the bill, they are OK with it.
TLP| 1.23.13 @ 1:28PM
Have you Milked those Horses, yet?
Pecos Pete| 1.23.13 @ 6:23PM
See comment at: Pecos Pete| 1.23.13 @ 5:50PM on the Mobocracy. Even you have to work some of the time.
Hardcard| 1.23.13 @ 8:35AM
soros-alinsky
Russel| 1.23.13 @ 9:08AM
Bravo Peter , that one is GONE . Finest illustration I've had the displeasure of reading on what an inept , inexperienced ideological boob the ignorant , begging and easily influenced American voters paid for . No other observations on Emperor Zero's disaster are necessary .
Michele San Pietro| 1.23.13 @ 11:02AM
So Obama has allegedly "a sweeping agenda for equality"? In the United States, all people are already equal. Of course, I refer to equality conceived as a starting point, since equality as a final point is an absurdity in my opinion.
RCV| 1.23.13 @ 11:33AM
The "more overtly Marxist New York Times"?
Peter, you have fallen off the right wing cliff of lunacy....
As for the general thrust of the article, it brings to mind with a chuckle the recent New Yorker piece: "Republicans Accuse Obama of Using Presidency to Lead Nation".
Albert Constantine Jr.| 1.23.13 @ 4:51PM
"Republicans Accuse Obama of Using Presidency to Lead Nation off the … cliff"
There, RCV, I used some of your words to make a more accurate statement.
Von Mises Jr| 1.23.13 @ 12:11PM
Great article. Reading of Tocqueville or Mises would provide more insight on Mr. Ferrara's point about reversing the Industrial Revolution.
Nothing has really changed in 225 years or so since the French Revolution began and ended 10 years later in dictatorship after two reigns of terror.
The Petty Bourgeoisie is now small business owners across America. The intellectuals are the same. The Nobles today are Soros and Buffet (who just got much of a $9B bailout in the Sandy Relief package for Insurance Companies), and the Aristocrats are in the Congress and Administration. The culmination of the dream is Obama as Monarch.
Peppermint Tea | 1.23.13 @ 1:36PM
So we can look forward to more riots that mean nothing (OWS), foot shortages, people shot for trying to leave the country, churches ransacked, hyperinflation, new currency, more hyperinflation, a dictator...
...and a musical in 220 years.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 1.23.13 @ 4:56PM
I can imagine the current POTUS singing to himself (or the Press in one of the Karaoke performances he seems to enjoy more than, say, meeting with John Boehner) "♪ ♪♫Master of the (White) House ♪..."
RCV| 1.23.13 @ 2:07PM
Gee, I missed seeing Hillary knitting while those heads of Republicans rolled off into the basket. "Nothing has really changed in 225 years or so since the French Revolution...". Only in your insane little world, Von Mises.
Bandido| 1.23.13 @ 12:50PM
A snakeoil salesman can only make money if the rubes pay. If they don't, he slinks away to a new venue. Blame the rubes if they are stupid enough to buy. And Americans are, hence, Obama.
TLP| 1.23.13 @ 1:31PM
Obviously, you're talking about RCV.
Just replace "Rubes" with Zombies. Or, Lemmings. Or, Cultists.
cicero| 1.23.13 @ 1:56PM
The question is not whether Obama wants to, and is leading the nation. The question is where is he leading it?. The people have spoken, and they have voted for more of the same. Now they will get it. Hopefully, the damage will not be irreparable. The fault lies both with the Democrats who haved shown that they will do and say anything to stay in power, and the Republican who have shown that they will tolerate anything to stay in power. The next two years will tell whether the people will believe anything to maintain their fantasy.
Butch| 1.23.13 @ 3:38PM
Those Republicans clinging to power have power only over other Republicans. They have no power whatever regarding national affairs. They aren't clinging to power, they are putting their "way of life" ahead of ours, the citizens.
Louis Jenkins| 1.23.13 @ 4:04PM
Seeing Obama place his hands on two different Bibles and swearing to defend the Constitution just about made me puke. Isn't it great that our backgrounds will be thoroughly checked over for the least infraction, while Obama's past history will go unchecked. The man is a liar, a cheat, and will never be clean. (Call me a racist if you wish.)
Pecos Pete| 1.23.13 @ 6:24PM
Nope, you ain't racist.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 1.23.13 @ 8:36PM
As a Delawarean, I feel obliged to note that your assessment conflicts with that put forth around 2007 by Biden, who not only described Obama as clean, but also articulate.
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hrgfue | 1.23.13 @ 10:57PM
2013 Happy New Year