Another Obama joke shop budget got shot down again.
This one went down to defeat 413– 2.
That's a marked improvement from Obama's previous efforts, which have, in the past, gotten exactly zero votes.
And thus another Obama benchmark fails.
"Although very little of [the budget] is expected to become law - or even be seriously considered via legislation on Capitol Hill - the president's budget still serves as a benchmark for congressional Democrats," says Politico.
There was a time in life when the serious journalist would examine both the hypocrisy and the irony of a budget that mustered only two votes, yet served as a benchmark for an upcoming campaign.
But in the world that we live in now, where stupidity is passed off as strategy, failure is passed off as result, and race and gender are passed off as saintliness, journalists can't be bothered to be critical.
Because, we all know how well Obama-- and the Democrats-- do with those benchmarks.
Stimulus, Obamacare, the Green Loan program, Obama’s electric car initiative to put 1 million cars on the road by the time his term is up-- just a whole bunch of benchmarks come and gone.
“What difference does it make at this point?” isn’t just an exclamation point for the Benghazi debacle. It's a slogan for the worst administration ever.
At least it will make the title for Obama's memoirs easier: Dreams from My Father II, How I Spent My Eight Year Presidential Vacation Dreaming and Doing Nothing.
But of course we can't just blame the media and the Democrats.
We can blame the weather too. And rich white men. And the 1%. And guns.
Don't ever forget the guns.
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos,” wrote H.L. Menken, a serious journalist. “Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."
This is a country noticeably lacking in dangerous men right now. And women. And blacks. And Hispanics. And the unemployed.
And that lack of danger is a danger in itself.
Just as inflation can seem peaceable and tame right before exploding, so can a populace.
Increasingly, I'm hearing from otherwise cautious and rational people that they believe that this country cannot continue half slave and half free; that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
As comedian and radio dude Dennis Miller told me on his program two weeks ago, he's not sure whether this is going to end with a 1929 solution or in 1861 solution.
In either case, what will come of it will likely be revolutionary.
For myself, I would rather see evolutionary changes than revolutionary ones.
Revolution is a dangerous thing. But in the face of intractability, revolutions are often the result.
And here's my warning to those “benchmark” Democrats, and to the rich white men, to the 1%, and to women, and to blacks, and to Hispanics: The guy who invented modern journalism was a Frenchman named Jacques Mallet du Pan.
He died in 1800 and thus was alive to witness firsthand the causes and effects of revolution in France, where those in power one week were liable to lose their heads to a guillotine the next.
“Revolution is like Saturn,” he wrote in his essay, Considerations on the Nature of the Revolution in France, “it devours its own children.”
And to which I add: Hey kids, and who wants to pass a budget next year?
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