2008-12-15
The day before the November election I predicted Barack Obama would be seen as the new FDR in our time. He would ride in and save the day from the financial crisis as did FDR during the Great Depression.
Little did I know at the time how accurate I would be.
The "office of the president-elect," one of the first products of Obama's overactive imagination, gives us a glimpse into just how he thinks. He was on the job within days, proclaiming there is only one president at a time and went on to establish that it was him.
He was going to assemble an expert team of crack financial minds, the best the world has seen, and task them with following FDR's game plan to bring prosperity back to America. A stimulus package of unprecedented government spending would soon follow, and government spending would restore your 401k, home equity and even restore your pearly, white smile.
Then came the big interview with Tom Brokaw on "Meet the Press."
For a full hour, President Obama was asked one softball question after another, coddled by the admiring Tom Brokaw. I was waiting for Brokaw to lean over and kiss him. It was truly a Kodak moment between two liberals sharing their fantasy of the utopia soon to come.
Each question never received a full answer. Not one proposed solution offered any detail or specifics. The lack of follow up and pursuit by the interviewer was nauseating when all of a sudden it struck me: Tom Brokaw was covering the weakness of Mr. Obama's response. Brokaw leading him through and throwing him easy escapes to the hard questions. It was so reminiscent of the press covering the physical disability of FDR.
We now have a press corps fully willing to cover, not expose, the faults and weaknesses of our commander in chief. No more attacks or probing inquires into why the president thinks the way he does. No follow ups to questions that anyone listening would acknowledge have been left unanswered. I happen to think this may be a good thing, for today we can ill afford our enemies to see Obama's shortcomings. The last thing they need is the fodder to test him.
In the FDR years, the media were careful to never take a photo from the waist down. His crippled condition was covered from the eyes of the public – much like the follies of Mr. Kennedy not being exposed. There was a time in America when focusing on our leaders' strengths made far more sense than exposing their faults. The media went out of their way to respect the office more than the man.
That all changed during Watergate. Two young up-and-comers, Woodward and Bernstein, brought down a president and forever changed the way we cover our leaders. It soon became a cottage industry to find the cracks in human frailty and exploit them in the name of the public's "need to know." But that may all change now and possibly for the good of the country. Obama will receive cover from the liberal media.
It has been clear to me thus far that the media will do everything to protect their chosen one, Barack Obama. Most recently the Gov. Blagojevich fall from grace is a rock solid example. The day Blagojevich was arrested, Obama claimed he had no contact with the governor. Then it changed a bit to no contact about the Senate seat. Then his people had no contact.
Does anyone in their right mind think Obama never talked to the man who was to appoint his predecessor for the Senate? Ask any governor if they go a week without talking to their representatives and senators no less never talk to them. It begs credibility to even suggest such nonsense.
Obama not only suggested it, but the press accepted it. At one of his many press conferences announcing Tom Daschle as his Department of Health and Human Services secretary, one question, yes just one, was asked about contact with Blagojevich. That was all it took to satisfy the curiosity of a room full of reporters.
Think this through. Rahm Emmanuel, President-elect Obama's chief of staff who filled Blagojevich's congressional seat, never had any contact with the governor? David Axelrod, a long-time Chicago political operative, never discussed anything with anybody? Does anyone really buy that? Apparently the press pool does. They have either chosen to ignore the obvious, or provide Obama with cover.
Obama should have simply come out and told the truth: That there had been contact. However, there were never any discussions about the sale of the seat or anything even close to it. He simply met with the governor to make sure the best person was appointed and the representation of the people of Illinois would continue uninterrupted.
Instead he followed the old Clinton playbook: Deny, deny, deny.
That is change you can believe in.
Look, I am glad to see civility return to how the president is treated. I am fully confident the Republicans in Congress will treat Obama with the respect the office deserves. Obama will not hear Republican leaders refer to him as a liar, traitor, betrayer, idiot or any of the other terms Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Al Gore invoked toward President Bush.
My analysis of Mr. Obama being a modern day FDR is valid. He will expand the welfare state in the name of "shocking" the economy back to health, just as FDR did. He will expand the role of government to convince everyone the government can fix all your problems and make the world a better place.
In the end he will grow government, raise taxes and create more bureaucracies that over time will fail or prove to be unsustainable as in the case of FDR's signature legislative accomplishment, Social Security. And all along the way he will have a fawning press which will cover his weaknesses and never ask for an explanation of his mistakes.
Tom Brokaw, along with this week's press conferences, removes any doubt from my mind that Obama will be held accountable.
Thomas Jefferson explained it all in 1802 when he said, "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." Oh how right he was. FDR and Obama disagree with history. Big government is better government to them.
Jefferson also said, "The Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
In four years, there might not be much to say.
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