While I couldn't bring myself to watch President Barack Obama's 1,000th-1,004th health care propaganda spiels on the Sunday shows, I did read some transcripts and watch a few video highlights. What is it about this guy's personality that compels him to keep beating his head against the wall?
Why does he keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result?
The more Obama stumps for socialized medicine the less popular it becomes. Yet Obama keeps going back to the well, apparently believing that if he just explains it one more time -- or maybe 10 more times -- to the ignorant masses, his wards will finally come around to his way of thinking.
On the one hand, it seems that Obama truly believes that the majority of people are as sick as he is of America and reject many of its founding principles. After all, during his formative years and beyond, he was always surrounded by those -- family and mentors -- who had bones to pick with America and its "exploitive" capitalistic economy. To say that most of his role models were outright Marxists is hardly inflammatory hyperbole.
When it was time for him to make his own associational choices, he opted to continue the pattern in which he'd been raised, from the church he chose to the angry, activist, anti-establishment street agitation he embraced in Chicago.
So he very well might believe that his attitude favoring fundamental change for America is the norm and that the only ones who want to preserve the nation's "outmoded" founding principles are selfish, moneyed elites and those they control. Indeed, on the campaign trail, he was explicit about his intention to pursue fundamental change. Those paying close attention and not blinded by the Utopian slogans of hope and change were fearful Obama was quite serious about his plan to push America's reset button.
On the other hand, Obama had to be aware that many Americans, even if he mistakenly thought they were the minority, did not share his jaundiced view of America. Otherwise, why did he have to organize the Chicago streets? Why did he have to train ACORN in its corrupt practices -- corrupt practices I'm sure Obama justifies under an ends-and-means rationale? And how could Ronald Reagan or the Bushes ever have been elected if everyone thinks like Obama?
Obama obviously hedged his bets and campaigned as an optimistic reformer, sending clear signals to the far left that he was one of them and, like any good radical, seduced significant numbers of others with center-right language, from praising the free market to pledging his undying loyalty to America's national defenses.
Continued... |