I'm beginning to wonder if the those who write about politics for a living have been worn down to the point where they can't see something, even if it's as blatantly obvious as the Hollywood sign perched high above L.A.
For the past week-plus, we've been inundated by columns centered around the president's speech last week in Roanoke, Va., where he uttered the immortal words “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Both Obama defenders and detractors have offered up gobs of "insight" regarding that couplet, yet I haven't seen one column that comes to correct conclusion about
why he said it.
Most of the columnists on the liberal side defended the president's remarks as something taken out of context, or that the second half of the couplet, "you didn't build that" didn't actually refer to businesses, but to something earlier in the speech, such as infrastructure. Yet the
best someone can say about that so-called analysis is that, when you have to "re-interpret" what Obama said in order to explain it to the "benighted" masses, either the idea itself is pretty lousy, or the re-interpreter is doing his slanted best to cover his man's behind.
Since the essence of progressivism is intellectual inconsistency and/or dishonesty, progressive pundits are more than happy to twist themselves into knots defending the "smartest president in the history of the United States," even when the endgame of his vision would eventually have them toiling away in the government-controlled newsroom, spewing the party line, or else. What such useful idiots fail to realize is that there comes a point when one's usefulness is no longer required. And no one--and I mean no one--is more expendable than the useless idiot. It is hard to take such people seriously when they're essentially laboring tirelessly and enthusiastically--for their own irrelevancy.
On the conservative side, we have reams of writing regarding what a gift this is for Mitt Romney. In a sense that is correct. Mitt is the Oatmeal Candidate, something good for the health of the nation, compared to the man he's running against, but like oatmeal, intrinsically unexciting. That doesn't make him a bad candidate per se. America opted for charisma and excitement in 2008, giving the keys to the country to man who, were he dispassionately judged on his resume of
genuine accomplishment, would have trouble landing a middle-management job in one of those American businesses nobody built on their own.
But let's face it. Mitt was just muddling along until Barack seemingly handed him the ultimate delineation between the collectivist ambitions of a Democrat party that would have every American sucking the government teat, and a Republican party seemingly incapable of articulating a viable counter-argument to that proposition--until now.
Yet there is monumental irony in play here when Mitt Romney's best talking point is something Barack Obama said. As I've mentioned before, in the sound-byte department, progressives and their media enablers wipe the floor with Republicans. So as an aside, here's my personal contribution to the cause, one that articulates the real difference between the parties. To wit:
Democrats prosper when America doesn't.
In a nutshell, despite all the progressive blather about "wealth re-distribution" and "fairness," without the wealth-producers, Barack and Co., and their socialist utopian dreams, are deader than dead. Only an idiot or a progressive can possess that breath-taking combination of unmitigated gall and enduring stupidity that enables one to undermine those upon whom they
completely depend to underwrite their schemes. As another aside, this is why progressives absolutely despise Ayn Rand. If the producers ever do decide to go on strike far more than they have already--and make no mistake, many of them have--the looters have nothing to loot, and their bankrupt notion of "social justice" would be revealed for the utter fraud it truly is.
So why did Barack Obama say what he said? Understand one thing above all else: despite all the analysis from both sides,
it was no mistake. Barack Obama meant every word of it, and more importantly, he meant every word of it in the context of
trying to get himself re-elected. Thus, there is only one logical conclusion: Mr. Obama believes that
more than half the electorate is now on board with his promise to fundamentally transform this nation from the greatest wealth-producing engine in the world, to a government-centric society where bureaucrats pick winners and losers.
Is he right? You have to give progressives credit. For the last five decades they have toiled away in a public school system has become little more than a progressive sausage factory. As a result they have turned out legions of weak-thinkers whose ignorance, coupled with the arrogance a system that promotes self-esteem irrespective of achievement produces, allows them to buy into such a preposterous proposition. It is utterly remarkable
how many Americans actually believe all of our problems could be solved if only the government had more money to spend. Where does that money come from? They don't know, and just as damning, they couldn't care less.
Do such people comprise more than fifty percent of the voting public? Maybe not, but what about when you combine them with those who would run such peoples' lives "for their own good?"
Gaffe, my behind. Barack Obama, in all his narcissistic arrogance, has pulled down his mask. There will be no moving to the middle, no embracing Americans as a whole, no back-tracking. He's all in, betting the takers outnumber the makers. That's why he said what he said. And the reason so many otherwise intelligent people have failed to see it, is because they can't believe
any president would openly espouse a Marxist future for our nation unless, it was a mistake.
It wasn't.
